News

Taking an active role in his community
By Carol C. Bradley

When people hear that Mike McCauslin has two full-time jobs—assistant director of risk management and safety, and mayor of Niles, Mich.—the first question they ask is how he does it. The second question is why he’d want to.

But McCauslin, who’s lived in Niles for 26 years, feels it’s important to be involved in his community. He started out serving on the zoning board, and later became chairman. When an opening came up on the city council, he got his name on the ballot and was elected. After eight years as a city council member, he was encouraged to run for mayor. Now in his third term, he’s been mayor for nine years.

What makes it possible for him to manage both jobs is the unusual structure of Niles city government. The mayor and city council set policy, but Niles has a full-time, non-partisan city administrator. The council is also non-partisan, “which eliminates the Democrat-Republican squabbles a lot of cities have,” McCauslin says. “When you eliminate that, they only thing left is the issues.”

Being mayor, he says, has made him a better employee for the University. “And working for the University has helped me to be a good mayor. Each position demands certain skills—both technical and people skills.”

Working in risk management, McCauslin handles property insurance, claims investigation, worker’s compensation and emergency preparedness issues.

As mayor, he manages a general budget of $6 million and a utilities budget of $32 million. Citizens come to him with complaints and concerns. The general needs of the city have to be met, such as plowing roads in winter and repairing roads in summer, while staying within the budget. “Which is becoming very challenging,” he says.

McCauslin is also involved in planning the city’s future needs for improvements and infrastructure, as well as encouraging and promoting new and existing businesses. “We make it easy for businesses to locate and thrive,” he says.

And his efforts have paid off—for the second year, Niles—a city of 13,000—made the Forbes list of top 100 business-friendly communities for a city of its size.

It’s a challenge fitting it all in. In addition to regular city council and committee meetings, he conducts city business in the evenings and on weekends. His children kid him that in their lifetimes, they’ve never seen him on a Monday—that’s council and committee meeting night.

Community involvement is something McCauslin says he learned from his father, a long-time school board member. And it’s one of the ideals of the University, he notes, participating in an activity that benefits the community outside campus.

“I’ve always believed in giving back,” he says. “I believe you should volunteer—be part of the solution, not part of the problem. If you’re not willing to work and do things to improve the community, you can’t sit on the sidelines and complain about it.”