Detroit EFM's resiliency rises above the rest

Kevyn Orr

When you meet someone and engage in a conversation, even if it only lasts 20 or 30 minutes, you often derive a sense of their degree of empathy, their work ethic, their personal drive – they’re all exposed in a few brief moments.

We can make a reasonable judgment without being judgmental.

There are certain intangibles within all of us, forged by our path through life. And we all exude a certain something that demonstrates how we deal with adversity, how much perseverance lies within us. Call it inner strength. Or, as a colleague of mine encapsulated it: resilience.

Jennette Smith, a former Macomb Daily reporter who rose to the top editor post at Crain’s Detroit Business, despite facing adversity, has written a wonderful column about Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s Emergency Financial Manager.

Many of the usual suspects in the city, the status quo liberal Democrats with a chip on their shoulder, have stuck to the script and refuse to give Orr any room to maneuver, any opportunity to prove himself.

But Smith, during a relatively brief interview with the EFM among Crain’s staffers, saw Orr in a different light, relying upon a different measure of the man.

Here’s an excerpt from Smith’s column:

“A Jones Day Washington, D.C., lawyer is not going to uproot his life unless he actually wants to help Detroit. He wants to be the hero. There is something terribly scary, and terribly appealing, about going after that ‘stretch’ assignment or job that gives you a chance to make a difference, and to learn a few things.

Orr has endured the deaths of a girlfriend, his two brothers and his father.Despite those personal tragedies, he demonstrated a resiliency and rose to become a premier attorney at a prime law firm.

Jennette Smith

“I know a little bit about that, albeit on a different scale. I've been through the death of a parent when I was in college, a divorce and the interesting challenges of being a single parent to three young kids. You reach a point where you have to decide if you're going to be the person who sinks or the person who swims.

“Orr has decided to jump into the deep end of the pool. Actually — scratch that — he's gone deep-sea diving.”

Read the entire column here.