The Matthew Moroun Interview: Considering the Moroun family legacy, their public image and things they might do differently

Jeff T. Wattrick | By Jeff T. Wattrick |
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on July 21, 2011 at 7:00 AM, updated July 21, 2011 at 8:56 AM

mattmoroun.jpgMatthew Moroun
Following conversations about the bridge proposals, politics, and property, we finish this interview with a discussion about the Moroun family's public image and legacy.

Jeff Wattrick: How do you see the Moroun name—I mean your father is a billionaire, there aren't too many of those—so this name is going to have some lasting interest. A hundred years from now, how do you think your family will be remembered?

Matthew Moroun: Oh, wow, a hundred years that's...

JW: Well, you're talking long-term of the property, so let's talk long-term. [ED: This reads to me more accusatory than it actually was or sounds on the tape, and I want to make it clear to the reader that I wasn't trying to Lou Gordon him into talking about his family's legacy. The tone for this portion of the interview, and the whole thing really, was friendly.]

MM: Ok, long-term. I don't know, it would my goal if, you know, I'm not a huge legacy guy. I'm a little bit more for the here and now. I'm not stuck on myself either. I make plenty of mistakes.

I'd like to be known, I'd like my dad to be known as someone that improved things, and built things, and made things work better and more efficiently. We're heavily invested in the city of Detroit; we'd never leave, and couldn't leave if we wanted to. We're all about its revival, and we want to be a good part of it. And that's, I want to be known for that.

JW: I don't know if it was you or your mother who, during an interview, talked about the fact that maybe you guys aren't recognized for the charity work or civic activities that you do, and part of that is because you are low-key about it so...

MM: Yeah, I don't want to...

JW: Because I was going to give you an opportunity here to say,

MM: Yeah, ok, I'm sorry...

JW: You know, kind of tout that a little bit.

MM: Yeah, I don't want to tout it.

JW: Ok.

MM: There are good reasons to give money or effort or other resources to different causes or different organization, and if those reasons aren't good enough on their own, you shouldn't give. You shouldn't give just to, I don't know, people have other reasons to give. Our reasons would be, hopefully, on the merits.

JW: Is there, let me come back to that in a different way. Is there an issue or a cause that's particularly near and dear to your heart, to your family's heart? I'm not asking for a dollar amount or anything like that. But, because I think this kind of image—and this is kind of going to be my next question—this image that's miserly, plutocrat, all those kind of terms, but...

MM: The most important thing we can do that's good for the community around us is to do the right thing for our businesses and the employment and growth and hopefully some spin-off success for them.

You know, this is just ideology, and I don't know the guy and he's way out of our league, but I think it's much more important—to give you a glimpse of how I think—that Bill Gates founded Microsoft and built that up than that he established the Bill Gates Foundation. You asked about a hundred years from now, I think people are much more likely to remember Microsoft and all the success it generated for employees and corporations and the economy of the United States than all the great things the foundation does.

That doesn't mean the foundation is wrong. It's good too. I just think if you have two different things to concentrate on, what's more important for Bill Gates to concentrate on? It's Microsoft. And that's the thing that's impacted everybody in our country the most.

Now, on our scale, which is much different, but that's the way I'd look at for ourselves as well. There's important things from a charity standpoint that we get involved in and we will and have and do, but the most important thing is that we do right by our businesses, our employees, and other people we do business with, and make them a success. That will have a lot more lasting effect than anything else we can do..

mattymoroun.jpgMatty Moroun
JW: There's definitely a public image that's not terribly positive of your father...

MM: (chuckles) Right.

JW: The troll under the bridge is maybe the most common...

MM: He's been demonized, right?

JW: Yeah, what's your take on that?

MM: Some folks, and I think it's kind of dirty on their part. They'd like to promote, for instance, I'm not saying all the folks that promote the government bridge are this way, but at least some of them have said: A good reason to build the government bridge is because the Morouns are bad people. Well, that's a good reason to build the government bridge, but that hasn't stopped them from painting us as bad people. That's not the only thing that's out there, but it's one of the things that's out there, and I think even you've noticed from time to time.

The Free Press seemed to do a—it's more than coincidence that an article about how the Free Press would describe our campaign contributions as insidious. At one point they even accuse us of buying politicians. At the same time the write and editorial endorsing the government bridge, and they both go out on the same day. Well, that's not a good reason to support the government bridge. It's not a good reason to attack our family. I think if you don't have better reasons to support the government bridge on its merits than attacking our family for supporting the government bridge then you're in pretty bad shape.

JW: My last question, to how that public persona has emerged, are their things you look at in hindsight that maybe you would have done differently?

: Absolutely!

JW: What would be some things, or just one even?

: Let's see, there's so many, it's hard to even start on the list.

When we got into an agreement with MDOT and we agreed to donate property to the state, and we agreed to build stuff for them even on their property, and we agreed to shut connections to the bridge so they could build other connections to the bridge and that didn't happen. We shouldn't have trusted them as much as we did. We should have gotten more guarantees from them. That's one thing.

A lot of times when folks called us names or said things about us that weren't true about us, we should have been quicker to outline the real facts and the truth. Especially, like you referred to some of the demonization type things.

A lot of times you're torn between that question: Should you dignify it with a response, should you let it go because maybe if you say something about it, you're only giving it credit. Well, in retrospect, we probably should have given it enough credit to slam it back with the truth. I have some regrets that way. There's a bunch more.

JW: Ok, so that's pretty much my litany of questions. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you want to take a stab at?

MM: No, I think you covered the waterfront.

Tomorrow, we'll take one final look at this series with some highlights from all four parts of the interview.