About fifteen years ago or so, I started an internship program here at the City.  In the early years, there were internships for information technology, marketing, human resources, and local government management, as well as a couple of others.  From year-to-year, we change things up to meet our current demands. One of our earliest interns is Kevin Lao.  Kevin is a Wayne State University graduate whose love of marketing has taken him a long, long way.  His early career found him working in the Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Red Wings organizations.  Then came an opportunity that he fully embraced, a position with Google. 

Today we had an amazing reunion.  I haven’t seen Kevin in a few years.  We share an occasional phone call, text, or email, but we met this morning in downtown Auburn Hills at the Layover Coffee Bar.  Kevin now resides in California with his equally successful wife, Dr. Megan, and together I would suggest they are unstoppable.  To think that Kevin’s career began with an internship in the Auburn Hills City Hall still amazes me when I see how successful he is today.  While Kevin is kind enough to credit me for positively influencing his career, there’s really no doubt in my mind that his success is due to him being the incredible person that he is. 

I told him that after spending an hour with him this morning at the coffee shop that I was exhausted.  He’s energetic, positive, passionate about his work, enthusiastic, kind, considerate, and the list goes on and on. Generally, he’s a class act and I’m really proud of him.  But the ultimate purpose of this blog is to remind those who are able to do so to “pay it forward”.  Providing Kevin an opportunity back when he was still a college student and giving him encouragement and responsibility at a young age has no doubt served him well.  It also served the City of Auburn Hills well too.  Great to see you today Kev.  Onward and upward!

Thomas Tanghe, City Manager