Ismael Ahmed

Ismael Ahmed was the director of the Michigan Department of Human Services from September, 2007 to January 3, 2011. He was appointed by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm in September 2007. As director of the state’s second largest agency, Ahmed oversaw 10,000 employees and managed a $4 billion-plus budget serving 1.5 million medical assistance cases and 1.2 million cash and food assistance cases.
Biography.
Ismael Ahmed was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1947. He is of Lebanese and Egyptian descent. He came to Detroit, Michigan with his family when he was 6 years old. After high school, he journeyed to Vietnam and Korea and came back to the United States and became active in the United Auto Workers union to put himself through the University of Michigan-Dearborn. After graduation, he began helping out his neighborhood and his community and in 1973, Ahmed co-founded the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS). He was appointed executive director in 1983 and was responsible for overall operations of the organization as well as the executive administration of the Arab American National Museum. The largest Arab-American human services organization in the United States, ACCESS has affiliates in 11 states and offers more than 90 programs with more than 900,000 client contacts annually.
For a number of years Ahmed has been hosting his own radio show, "This Island Earth" on WDET Public Radio. He contributed a chapter on the Arab Worker’s Caucus in Detroit in Arabs in America: Myths and Realities, Abu-Laban and Zeadey eds. (AAUG Monograph Series #5: Medina University Press, 1975) and a chapter on Michigan Arab Americans in American Arabs and Political Participation, Strum, P. ed., (Woodrow Wilson International Center, 2006).
Ahmed's son, Saladin Ahmed, is a fantasy author.
Ahmed graduated from the University of Michigan - Dearborn with a BA in Secondary Education and a minor in Sociology in 1977.
Awards.
Ahmed has been honored with the Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, which is given by the Detroit Free Press and Metropolitan Affairs Coalition. He has also received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and the Diversity Business Leader award from the Arab American Chamber of Commerce.