by Eric Freedman

June 16, 2009

MMA’s Chuck Hadden.

Photo by Dave Trumpie

Who of the following rank among Chuck Hadden’s political best friends?

a) John Engler

b) John Cherry

c) Marc Jansen

d) Andy Dillon

e) All of the above

If you need a hint, Hadden is the new president and CEO of the heavily Republican-leaning Michigan Manufacturers Association and the son of a former GOP legislator.

The answer is, perhaps surprisingly, e) All of the above.

Engler’s presence on the list is no surprise. Not only is the former Republican governor now president of the National Association of Manufacturers, but Hadden has worked with him since Engler’s pre-gubernatorial days as Senate majority leader. Jansen’s presence isn’t unexpected either, since the Grand Rapids Republican chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Economic Development.

But Dillon, the Democratic House speaker from Redford Township? In May, Dillon became the first Democratic House leader — whether as speaker or minority leader — to win a MMA “Legislator of the Year” award, along with Jansen, former Rep. Mike Nofs (R-Battle Creek) and Rep. Jeff Mayes (D-Bay City).

“He gets the importance of manufacturing in the state and its importance to the whole state,” Hadden says of the speaker. The association also calls Dillon a “true advocate for the manufacturing sector” who understands its priorities and goals on such issues as business taxes and energy.

And Democrat Cherry, who yearns to become governor? “I like the lieutenant governor. He’s very knowledgeable about what’s going on in the Capitol and he’s accessible,” says Hadden, himself well-experienced on the intricacies of Capitol goings-on after a lengthy lobbying career. In 2006 MMA honored Cherry as its “Manufacturing Advocate of the Year.”

Gov. Jennifer Granholm used to hold a spot on Hadden’s best-friends list — enough so that he voted for her reelection in 2006 over GOP challenger Dick DeVos. Now, he says, “I made a mistake. I’m disappointed in her leadership.” In particular, he faults the governor for pushing through a surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax as part of a controversial deal to replace the old Single Business Tax.

Despite Granholm’s plunge from Hadden’s favor, the MMA “has had perhaps the best working relationship of any business organization with the Granholm administration,” says Rob Fowler, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan.

Photo by Dave Trumpie

“They worked hard to create that relationship, and it’s strategic in many ways,” says Fowler, who’s known Hadden since his own arrival in Lansing six years ago. “By strategy, by intent, they have worked to be friendly with this administration.”

He credits Hadden with selling the message that Michigan’s fate is intimately tied to the fate of its manufacturing sector. “There’s an almost popular opinion that manufacturing is over and we need to turn the page,” Fowler continues. “A, that’s not true and B, if it is, we’re all in a lot of trouble. They’ve done a nice job keeping that in the mix.”

Nancy McKeague, corporate vice president of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, has long worked with Hadden, including in her former role as senior vice president of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. “The positions of MMA are often more nuanced than people think,” she explains. “Sometimes at the Chamber we got impatient with the MMA because we took a strong position — we just didn’t mesh as neatly as people outside the business sector might think we did.”

As for Hadden’s relations with the Granholm administration, McKeague observes that many of his members have unionized workforces, so the administration needs to listen to the MMA more than it does to “more politically aligned organizations,” the Chamber among them.

Politics in the blood
Politics is nothing new for MMA — after all, it held its first organizational meeting in the House chamber in 1902. Nor is politics anything new for Hadden. His father, James, served two terms in the House and later worked for ex-GOP House leader J. Michael Busch and then as a lobbyist. Lobbying has become a family business: his wife, Jacie Hadden, is executive director of state governmental affairs for Consumers Energy.

Hadden voted for Sen. John McCain last November but attended Barack Obama’s inauguration as part of his job duties. And he’s working closely with Engler and the national association to block congressional approval of a top labor union priority in Washington, the Employee Free Choice Act, which he refers to as the “Employee Forced Choice Act.” He distributes posters to his members as part of a grassroots campaign to persuade U.S. Reps. Thad McCotter (R-Livonia), Mark Schauer, (D-Battle Creek) and Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield) to vote against the measure. “I know they’re feeling the heat,” he says.

Hadden graduated from Alma College, planning to become a community education recreation director, only to discover that career prospects in the field were iffy. In tough economic times, he realized, “the first people laid off are community education directors.” His first job in Lansing was with the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, and he went on to Publicom Association Management Services, where he served as executive director of one national and three state associations.

In 1993 he moved to MMA as director of environmental affairs and became its public policy officer, chief lobbyist and vice president of government affairs. Last September he became president and CEO, succeeding the retired John “Mac” MacIlroy, who had succeeded the late John Thodis.

Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, used to meet with MacIlroy but hasn’t met with Hadden since he took office. “I haven’t called Chuck and Chuck hasn’t called me.”

And although MMA is taking the lead in fighting the AFL-CIO-backed Employee Fair Choice Act, Gaffney suggests there are areas of common concern, noting: “His group knows the importance of manufacturing, as does mine.”

The Small Business Association’s Fowler calls Hadden “more of a political analyst than his predecessor was. He really understands where the bodies are buried from a political standpoint, and I intend that to be a compliment. Having come straight from government relations, he is well familiar with all the issues and players involved.

“And he’s the kind of professional who understands that friends and enemies aren’t permanent,” Fowler adds.

The hospital association’s McKeague has known Hadden for a long time, including the period before 2004 when she was a top Chamber executive.

“I’m impressed by how well he’s handled the transition,” she says. “It’s not always the case a good lobbyist makes a good CEO of a trade association. He fully understands both functions. Here’s a guy who has more than paid his dues in getting to the position he now holds.”

In her current role, McKeague has worked with Hadden to create a Business Advisory Council of hospital and business executives in an effort to help both sides understand each other better. “We kick around things from mandated benefits to mental health parity. Chuck has monitored all of that, dedicated a staff person to it. It’s been nice to have people like Chuck be able to explain to hospital CEOs what other business CEOs are thinking and seeing and believe is important.”

Rough roads
Hadden hasn’t replaced some of the office décor that was on the president’s walls before his promotion, including a modernistic watercolor of an industrial scene donated by Upjohn Co. and model tractor-trailers on glass shelves. But he does see differences between his leadership approach and that of MacIlroy, who had come from Virginia. “He didn’t know Michigan. It was tough for him to be out and active as the face of the organization.”

By contrast, Hadden is comfortable interacting with both the state’s political leadership and the MMA membership and hits the road for monthly grassroots meetings with members. Returning from such a recent meeting in Troy, he said, “There’s a worried attitude out there right now. We’re looking for ways to be relevant in that situation.”

Photo by Dave Trumpie

And there’s good reason for that grassroots gloom, and not just because of the dire condition of Chrysler, General Motors Corp. and their suppliers. In May, for example, Penda Corp. announced the closure of all extrusion and most thermoforming activities at its Lapeer plant this summer. The largest manufacturer in Niles, Tyler Refrigeration, made a similar decision. National reports from Manufacturers’ News, Inc. say Michigan lost more than 315,000 manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2008 and another 43,000 between January of last year and this year. The loss of manufacturing companies in Michigan has cut into MMA’s membership and resources.

What about alternative energy opportunities, manufacturing wind turbines and such? While the Granholm administration, including the governor and Energy, Labor and Economic Growth Director Skip Pruss, preaches the gospel of rechanneling Michigan’s manufacturing and workforce strengths into alternative energy endeavors, dark clouds loom in those skies too. In May, for example, United Solar Ovonic—better known as Uni-Solar—announced a four-week production shutdown of its Greenville facility and a three-week shutdown of its Auburn Hills facility because of lower demand for solar panel products.

All that said, Hadden still sings hymns of optimism. His member companies, 65 percent of them family-run, “have been through this before,” he says of hard times. “This is a real diversifying lesson for a lot of my smaller members.”

And some are doing so, moving product lines from automotive to aerospace, medical, even snowmobile products. At his Troy meeting, one member told of switching from the stamping of stainless steel parts for the auto industry to making parts for the restaurant industry, and another told of moving from manufacturing components for trucks to doing the same for Boeing Co.

There’s even some good news from some mega-firm members. He cites Kellogg Corp. (“continuing to sell worldwide and release new products”), Masco Corp. (offering guarantees on new homes) and Ford Motor Co. (dramatic leadership changes).

The state’s tool and die collaboratives are proving successful, he says, and “we have some very bright stars in the state” among alternative energy firms such as Grand Rapids-based Cascade Engineering and Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. west of Saginaw.

“We have a lot of innovative, creative manufacturers here,” he insists. “We have manufacturing in our DNA.

Eric Freedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, is associate professor of Journalism and director of Capital News Service at Michigan State University. He and Dome columnist Stephen A. Jones are co-editors of African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History (Congressional Quarterly Press).