Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II remembers how “heartbroken” his mother was when, after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2005, he promptly left the state to work for Microsoft.
Her family had found generational success in the state, working in the automotive plants of metro Detroit, Gilchrist said. His mom worked at General Motors for three decades herself.
The prospect that her son -despite attending a state university, funded in-part by state tax dollars -would have to leave Michigan to build a career was a disappointing indication: Michigan’s days as a bastion of upward working class mobility may have been behind it…