The Detroit News
Nov. 6, 2026
Daniel Howes
In an interview with Daniel Howes about Michigan’s incoming Democratic leadership needing to reverse the state’s decades-long economic decline, MichAuto Executive Director Glenn Stevens Jr. emphasized that Michigan must embrace change and modernize its approach to remain competitive, especially as global competitors like China move quickly.
“It’s not 1978 anymore,” said Glenn Stevens, executive director of the Detroit Regional Chamber’s MichAUTO automotive unit. “They’re inheriting a government and a state that is struggling to compete. You can’t think like 1978 or ’98 or 2008 or last year. We have got to lean into the future. We want things to stay the same, and it can’t be that way.”
He added: “If you do not understand that, and understand how fast things are moving, how fast the Chinese are moving, how fast AI is changing things — if you don’t understand that, we’re going to be left in the dust. Getting real change and affecting real change is going to be … really difficult.”