Politics / Science & invention
Garlin Gilchrist
born 1982 · software engineer, lieutenant governor of Michigan
Detroit-born Microsoft engineer and civic-tech organizer who built the Improve Detroit app for the city and in 2019 became Michigan's first African American lieutenant governor.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 44- Birth name
- Garlin Gilchrist II
- Also known as
- Garlin Gilchrist II
- Detroit years
- 1982, 2014–
- Field
- Politics, Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Garlin Gilchrist II was born in Detroit in 1982; the family soon moved to suburban Farmington, where his mother worked for General Motors for 32 years. He studied computer science and computer engineering at the University of Michigan and spent four years as a software engineer at Microsoft in Redmond, helping build SharePoint, before turning to organizing with the Center for Community Change and MoveOn. He returned to Detroit in the mid-2010s to work in city government on technology and innovation, creating the Improve Detroit smartphone app that lets residents report potholes, broken streetlights and illegal dumping. In 2017 he narrowly lost a race for city clerk. He then became founding executive director of the University of Michigan's Center for Social Media Responsibility, based at its Detroit Center. Elected lieutenant governor with Gretchen Whitmer in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, he was the first African American and the first person born in the 1980s to hold the office. He led the state's COVID-19 racial disparities task force.
Highlights
- 64th lieutenant governor of Michigan since 2019
- First African American lieutenant governor of Michigan
- Creator of the Improve Detroit app for city services
- Former Microsoft software engineer (SharePoint)
- Chair of the Michigan Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force