Detroit ties run deep
For Buckfire, the desire to help restructure Detroit is partly personal. He grew up on Frisbee Street, just a few blocks south of 8 Mile in northwest Detroit, and attended Dow Elementary School. When he was 5, Buckfire moved to Southfield.
He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1980 with degrees in economics and philosophy in the midst of a recession that had Detroit’s automakers reeling. After searching for a job here, Buckfire moved to New York.
But over the years, he has remained involved at the University of Michigan and is on the board of advisers of the Zell-Lurie Institute, an arm of the university’s business school that seeks to develop entrepreneurs. Also, his cousins own the personal-injury law firm Buckfire & Buckfire in Southfield.
“So, you have someone whose natural sympathies are for a successful outcome that puts Detroit back into some position of viability,” said longtime business partner, Henry Miller.
Miller said Buckfire loves the intellectual challenge of solving complicated problems.
“Ken has a thick skin; he also is creative enough that he can pivot if a particular track is not working,” said Miller, who has retired from Miller Buckfire and is now chairman of Marblegate Asset Management, a hedge fund.
It was Buckfire‘s idea, for example, to take Detroit’s creditors on a tour of the city.
“I said to these guys, ‘You should see the status of your collateral,’ ” Buckfire said. “And then it became a big public thing, and they didn’t want anything to do with it.”
Buckfire said his priority is to put the interests of city residents first.
“It is not about liquidating it for the benefit of the creditors, which has been what has been happening for the last 20 years. We have to put a stop to that,” he said.