SPEAKER'S BIOGRAPHY PAGE

Larraine Matusak, who grew up in the Chicago neighborhood known as "Back of the Yards" has been a Mother Superior in the Benedectine Order, a college professor, a college president (Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, NJ), W.K. Kellogg Foundation vice president, speaker, and author.  She is a recognized expert on leadership development, having designed and directed the internationally-acclaimed Kellogg National Leadership Program and instigated the Kellogg Foundation's leadership grant making program.  She is also a trustee of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, the International Leadership Association, Leadership Institute in Los Angeles California, and the Dia-Logos Institute for Generative Learning and Collaborative Social Change, Inc.

A long-time community leadership advocate, Matusak is active in Battle-Creek, MI area affairs.
 
 

Jennifer M. Granholm

Jennifer M. Granholm was elected Michigan's 51st Attorney General in November, 1998.

An honors graduate of both the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Law School, she was appointed Wayne County Corporation Counsel in 1994. While there, she reduced taxpayer-funded lawsuit payouts by 87 percent. Before joining the Wayne County staff, she was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office, where she had a 98% conviction rate.

Granholm has been recognized as Woman of the Year by the YWCA, and as a Michigander of the Year by the Michigan Jaycees; she has been honored as one of the ten Lawyers of the Year by Michigan Lawyers Weekly magazine; and in 1997, she was named one of Crain's Detroit Business Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40." She currently serves on a number of boards and foundations, and chairs the National Association of Attorneys General's Midwest Region.

Granholm is a graduate of Leadership Detroit.
 

Gene Honn, CAE

Gene A. Honn has been Executive Director of The Community Leadership Association (formerly the National Association for Community Leadership) since July 1999. The Community Leadership Association is a 501 (c)(3) organization dedicated to nurturing leadership in communities throughout the United States and internationally. Founded in 1979, The Community Leadership Association's members include hundreds of diverse community leadership organizations at local, state and national levels, thousands of individual graduates of these organizations and others interested in community leadership development.

Before joining The Community Leadership Association, Honn served as the Executive Director of the National PTA and the National Association of Tax Practitioners. Honn holds a B.S. from Illinois State University and is a Certified Association Executive.
 
 

Shirley Stancato

Stancato was elected President and Chief Executive Officer of New Detroit Inc on January 13, 2000.  She is the first woman, in the Coalition's 33-year history to be elected to this position.

Prior to her tenure with New Detroit, Stancato spent more than 30 years with Bank One, formerly known as NBD Bank.  She began her banking career as a college student and rose through the ranks to the position of Senior Vice President of Public Affairs.  At the time of her departure, Stancato was the highest-ranking African-American woman in the Bank One Corporation.

A life-long Detroiter, Stancato earned both a B.A. in sociology and a M.A. in industrial relationship from Wayne State University.  She has received the Wayne State University Organization of Black Alumni Award in 1998 and the Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Association of Community Leadership in 1997.  Stancato was also recognized, in 1998, as one of the Crain's Detroit Business Top 100 Black Business Leaders.  She is active in many Detroit community organizations, including Alternatives for Girls, where she is the Chair Emeritus.