Crain's 40 Under 40: Azzam Elder

posted on: Oct 30, 2009

Azzam Elder, 39
Deputy County Executive
Wayne County
Detroit

Biggest achievement: Managing the county’s end of notable projects such as Cobo Center and Detroit Region Aerotropolis, and re-engineering county government to maintain services with 40 percent less staff and without raising taxes.

Current goal: To continue to attract the most creative and smartest minds that will deliver the county executive’s vision.

Azzam Elder doesn’t take no for an answer.

As deputy Wayne County executive, serving under Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, Elder has had to plow through daunting roadblocks. For example, opposition to a deal for regional collaboration on Detroit’s Cobo Center, or implementing a new system to measure return on investment for county programs, or designing a mortgage foreclosure prevention program.

“I’m a firm believer that every challenge, every problem, has a solution, and the only question is, is there an appetite to make tough choices?” said Elder, a first-generation Palestinian-American who is the first Arab-American to serve as the county’s deputy executive.

For Cobo, that meant months of painstakingly detailed work.

“It’s was a matter of a couple of months of deciphering all the land mines that people would throw out there about Cobo,” he said.

“We have the North American International Auto Show, the premiere auto show, in Detroit in January, the dead of winter, when nothing else is going on,” he said. “Once you accept that this is a big deal, what else is there?”

Other projects under Elder’s wing include the effort to create an aerotropolis in Wayne County, a mortgage foreclosure prevention program that’s been featured on ABC’s “20/20,” and STEP, a program that expedites the expunging of nonviolent criminal offenders’ records, a necessary measure for employment or licensing in many fields.

As the economy has worsened, Wayne County, like other public and private entities, has been challenged to do more with less.

“Early on when I started seeing the economic trend, I started pushing hard at every level to make sure that people saw that it was serious.”

In just 14 months, Elder and his team designed a set of ROI metrics and a system to gauge them. It’s all part of his results-driven, business approach.

“Money goes where it’s welcome, and money stays where it’s treated well,’” he said. “People and companies have choices — if they don’t like the environment they’re in, they’re going to go somewhere else.”

Nancy Kaffer
Crain’s Detroit