Travel tips from Lansing leaders at the Mackinac Island policy confab

Lansing is especially quiet each year on the weekdays immediately following Memorial Day when the legislators and business leaders travel to Mackinac Island for the Detroit Regional Chamber Policy Conference.

It is a good thing the conference concluded on Friday, because on Saturday Interstate-75, near where it merges into US-127 leading to back to Lansing, was closed for a period due to wildfire smoke inhibiting visibility. The only post-conference migration incident I know of was a deer strike endured Friday afternoon on 127 by the husband of Lansing’s Rebecca Bahar-Cook, CEO at Capitol Fundraising Associates.

“Car probably totaled − but husband safe and sound,” she wrote to me after she rented a car to drive up and fetch him.

While most of the conference attendees arrived on the island via Shepler’s Mackinac Ferry, including “Shark Tank’s” Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, there were a number of Great Lakes cruise ships moored off Mackinac Island. Early one morning the freighter Arthur Anderson, the last ship to communicate with the doomed Edmund Fitzgerald before she sunk, slipped through the Straits.

I heard that Jim Haveman, the health director for governors Engler and Snyder, commuted each day from St. Ignace via small aircraft, which means I was deprived of my normal debriefing with him on the Friday ferry ride home, but it didn’t bother Nicole Noll-Williams, who promotes air travel.

“I wish we had a non-stop flight from Lansing to Mackinac Island for all the conference-goers,” said the CEO of the Capital Region International Airport. (Pellston, about 40 miles away, one of 19 commercial airports among Michigan’s 200 overall, is closest.) “It is such a treasure to come to Mackinac Island. There are a lot of things to experience.”

Mackinac Island, the horse-powered summer home to Michigan’s governors, was recently voted America’s best island by a major travel publication and best summer travel destination by USA Today readers. It becomes Michigan’s de facto capital during the conference. But Noll-Williams was smiling in the sunshine about the non-stop flights Lansing’s airport will continue to offer to Washington D.C. until at least October of 2028 and perhaps permanently. Her political savvy and clout places Lansing’s airport in constant expansion mode.

“American Airlines is adding an additional daily flight to Chicago in August,” she revealed. Apple Vacations will resume its seasonal non-stop service to Cancun, Punta Cana and Montego Bay in January. Noll-Williams and husband Keith, a Bermudian who sometimes works the airport’s front counter, have made it, on a given day, from Lansing to Bermuda by 1 p.m.

“A Dark and Stormy in hand by 1:05 pm?” I suggested. She smiled. And Noll-Williams is encouraging Delta Airlines to connect Lansing to more destinations. “If you are a traveler and you want more services from our commercial carriers, be vocal. Go to their websites. Comment. Help me help our team. We need to be vocal.”

State Senator John Damoose, the Republican from Harbor Springs, was in the sky longer than he would have liked, but not aboard an aircraft.

“We got stuck up on top of the Mackinac Bridge for an hour. It was a little unnerving. The elevator broke down, but it was a minor problem,” explained Damoose, who in his elected role is one of the very few people who gets to tour the top of the “Mighty Mac,” an experience that is not for everyone, literally.

“I almost bailed on the way up when I saw how small the passageways and the elevators are because I am claustrophobic. I barely fit through the hatches and up the 30-foot ladder to the top. Once on top of the bridge’s crossbeam in the open air it is both creepy and spectacular.”

Damoose revealed there is an unlit emergency ladder inside the bridge’s tower that goes all the way to the bottom, but officials advised him against descending it.

An advisory, of sorts, was given by former Lt. Governor Brian Calley, now the CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, who stayed on Mackinac Island at Mission Point Resort.

“If you haven’t seen Mission Point Resort lately, you haven’t seen it. It is a wonderful hotel that has been completely remade over the past few years by the Ware family,” Calley remarked. The Wares have owned Mission Point for nine years, with Mark Ware at the helm as CEO.

“We have a great voice in Lansing,” said Ware, who is on Calley’s SBAM board. “I get a chance to speak to so many of the leaders in Michigan about the importance of hospitality and the labor force, especially.”

Ware, like Calley, travels for distance running. Last year Ware ran the Berlin Marathon and plans to tackle the Mont Tremblant Iron Man race in Canada this year. His sister Liz Ware, Mission Point’s vice-president of sales and marketing, who this off-season dramatically revamped the Round Island Kitchen, bar and lobby, says the siblings work well together because running a resort is a combination of art and science.

Other association executives such as Scott Ellis, of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, attended a Lansing gathering at a downtown bistro hosted by Mayor Andy Schor, who had just traveled back from a mayors’ conference in Columbus. “We showed off Lansing’s growth in videos and talked with folks from all over the state,” Schor said. “Many of our Lansing employers and sponsors show up and give away swag.”

Developer Pat Gillespie was in attendance talking about his brother-in-law Pete Kramer randomly running into attorney Andrew Abood the previous week in Monte Carlo at the Monaco Grand Prix. During the trip Abood, who only last year took his first international trip, also attended the nearby Cannes Film Festival in the South of France after journeying to some of Scotland’s most famous, if remote golf courses, including Royal Dornoch.

Jerry Norcia, DTE Energy’s CEO, talked about Italy. “I go, every year because my grandfather left my mother a home in a little village nestled in the mountains halfway between Rome and Naples near a place called Cassino,” he told me. “I take my wife and all the kids that want to come. It is a wonderful place and I have a lot of family there.”

Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com  His radio program may be found at MiBigShow.comor weekday mornings from 9-noon on WJIM AM 1240

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Shiels: Travel tips from Lansing leaders at the Mackinac Island policy confab