Donor Spotlight: John Kulhavi

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Amazing what can get done when nobody cares who gets the credit.

John Kulhavi is a doer and a giver.

A Central Michigan grad, Kulhavi is the university's most prominent and generous individual benefactor. The John G. Kulhavi Events Center housing McGuirk Arena, where the CMU wrestling, volleyball and basketball teams play their home games, is named in his honor, as is an on-campus residence hall.

He has been a major backer of the Chippewa Champions Center, the under-construction state-of-the-art facility at Kelly/Shorts Stadium that will provide CMU fans, alumni and student-athletes with the very best game-day and training facility in the Mid-American Conference.

"For 25, 30 years, people have said, 'Why do you spend so much time working for the university?'" Kulhavi said. "And my standard answer is I do whatever I can to elevate the esteem of Central Michigan University. That's pretty much the bottom line.

"I'm a huge believer in giving back. I think I've been very blessed in life."

Kulhavi has for decades been giving back to CMU and meeting on-campus needs for athletics and on several other fronts.

"I take pride in saying I've never in my life made a promise or a commitment that I didn't live up to," he said. "I'm a firm believer that you're only as good as your word and if you don't live up to your word you're not an honorable person."

Kulhavi enrolled at CMU in 1960 after graduating from Whittemore-Prescott High School. At CMU, he enlisted in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, a requirement for male undergrads at public universities in those days. He liked it so much that he stayed, building a distinguished 35-year career on active duty and in the Army Reserves. He retired as a Brigadier General. He flew more than 300 missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and then was in charge of mobilizing units from the Army's Infantry Training Division during Desert Storm.

Coming from a family of modest means, Kulhavi worked as many as five jobs at a time to pay his way through CMU. He joined Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker in 1969, and he soon convinced his bosses to take a novel approach to service, one that Kulhavi had seen work so well in the military.

"In the military everything is based on teams," he said. "I depended on my crew to maintain the aircraft, to maintain the weapons systems, and they depended on me to fly the aircraft.

"When I went into the brokerage business it was just the opposite. If we had teams (as brokers), not only could we provide much better performance but much better service. One individual cannot master this huge array of products that we have to offer."

Kulhavi's bosses at Merrill Lynch, including Don Regan who would go on to become Secretary of the Treasury and, later, President Ronald Regan's chief of staff, bought in. It revolutionized the industry and a highly successful career in the financial sector followed for Kulhavi.

"I don't believe you can truly be great at something unless you love what you're doing. I loved the Army and I loved the financial business. I was very blessed."

Kulhavi parlayed the fruits of his labors, both in the financial business and in the military, into investments. Today, he is still going strong, owning or having an ownership stake in 17 businesses, including three golf courses.

"Surround yourself with the best people you can find, provide the resources, clear the obstacles, and stand back and let them do their job," Kulhavi said. "And that's what I've done in every business I'm involved in."

He and his wife Carole live on White Lake, about 50 miles northwest of Detroit and he has built a getaway, Horny Hollow Hunting Haven, on a sprawling piece of property in Curran, about 130 miles northeast of Mount Pleasant and not far from Whittemore where he went to high school and worked in his parents' market as a teenager.

At Horny Hollow Hunting Haven, Kulhavi annually hosts weekend getaways for CMU alums, Chippewa athletic teams, and Central Michigan's ROTC cadre, among other groups.

He is steadfast in his continued generosity of Chippewa Athletics as well as the university's school of business and neuroscience programs, and its ROTC program, among others. He has served on almost every university committee and board imaginable, including the Board of Trustees, which he chaired.

"My friends say, 'At your age, when are you going to stop?'" Kulhavi said. "I say I'm afraid to stop for fear that I'll never get started again."

Pride without pretense, giving without the expectation of gratitude, the value of education and the endless possibilities that it affords. Kulhavi points to his humble beginnings and his education, first at Whittemore-Prescott, then at CMU, and finally, in the Army, as the biggest influences in his life.

"I started off with nothing," he said. "I wouldn't change anything because I think it helped me appreciate later in life what I was able to accomplish, I guess."

He gives, he said, simply because he wants others to succeed. CMU in general, its athletics program and the game-changing Chippewa Champions Center are points of pride.

"I have this belief: if everyone who has ever achieved any measure of success gave something back the world would be much better," he said. "I'm just a huge believer in giving back."

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