John Girdwood

Born in an industrial Michigan city, Girdwood quickly realized the difference between blue and white collar workers. Lansing, Michigan was the place of General Motors factories and the State Capitol. When his family moved to the suburbs of Lansing, he was introduced to a new middle-class system of education and jobs. His mother took him to her grad school classes at Michigan State and Girdwood saw another approach to progress: academia. The institutional mixture of industry, government, and labor formed Girdwood's sociological perspective. Surprisingly, he never enrolled in a sociology course until he was accepted as a doctoral candidate at Michigan State. Driven by an industrial work ethic, Girdwood now uses media to convey his perspective of the changing American economy. When the factories close, Girdwood doesn't just tell the sad story of the negative impact. Instead, he provides an optimistic set of potential solutions.