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Leroy Richie's career has been full of firsts.
He was the first black vice president and general counsel at Chrysler Corp., first black general counsel for the U.S. Golf Association, first black person admitted to the Bloomfield Hills Country Club, the first in his family to graduate from college.
But those aren't the things that stand out to former colleagues. Rather, it's his humor, humility and helping hand that come to mind.
"He wasn't a guy who said, 'Look at me, I've done this or done that.' He always carried himself with a great deal of humility and took the time to mentor and give advice to people like me," said Michael Jessamy, director of labor relations and medical operations for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US LLC.
Richie, 74, will be honored by Crain's Detroit Business on May 17 as the lifetime achievement award winner during the General and In-house Counsel Awards. Richie's name was among those submitted to Crain's and vetted by a group of in-house attorneys and executives. His legal, corporate and community impact were all key to making the decision. Richie's firsts were a factor as were his roles on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, including the Detroit Public Schools Foundation, which he co-founded.
A circuitous route
Richie's father had been a Pullman porter on a train sleeping car. His mother, a homemaker who had started but not completed college, insisted her son attend college. While Richie's accomplished educational career is cited often, he confessed school was not his first interest.
"I used to complain because my friends were living the life -- girls, cars -- and I was in college," Richie said with a laugh. Richie started at State Teachers College at Buffalo, N.Y. (now SUNY Buffalo State). After his first year, however, the school asked him to leave because his grades were "the lowest that had been achieved by a student matriculated in the school" because Richie was spending his time having fun and not working.
As a result, in 1963, he joined the U.S. Army, where he served three years in counterintelligence while stationed in Georgia and Germany. Afterward, he worked as a millwright at Bethlehem Steel Corp. That's where Richie said he really learned hard work and where...