Within days of reading Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose,” Michael LaFaive was set on being an economist. At the time, he was a community college student in Santa Monica, California.

“I grew up in Traverse City but left for adventure,” LaFaive said. “I went to Southern California and discovered Milton Friedman. At the time, I thought there were two sets of ideas in the world — Republican and Democrat. But I found that to not be the case.”

After earning an undergraduate and graduate degree in economics at Central Michigan University, he went to work for Gov. John Engler. While working in constituent services, he attended a Mackinac Center event in Lansing and began getting introduced to its work.

“In my spare time while working for the state, I did my first study for the Mackinac Center, which was on unfunded federal mandates imposed on the state of Michigan,” LaFaive said. “I came on full time in 1995, immediately taking over our ‘Michigan Privatization Report.’”

In the 1990s, Michigan was a much different place. Unions were much more powerful. The Michigan Education Association was much more of an industrial union, representing janitors and cooks. Any discussion of opening their services to competitive bidding was met with fierce opposition and protests.

But LaFaive made a difference through his research, including one unusual technique.

“The Mackinac Center had a suspicion that the MEA was privatizing some of their own services and they asked that I look into it,” he said. “So, I sat across the street from the union’s headquarters and found contractors who came in and provided janitorial, food and security services for the union.”

This exposed the union as hypocrites, causing a stir in the press. Lawmakers then excluded competitive bidding from the bargaining process. Today, 70% of school districts contract out food service, transportation, or other noncore services.

Privatization is one of four policy pillars of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, which LaFaive leads. The others are budget, taxes and economic development.

The Mackinac Center named its fiscal policy initiative after the Morey family, which founded the Morbark Corporation in Winn, Michigan. Norvel “Nub” Morey made the first $1 million gift to the Center. That giving tradition was continued and expanded by Nub’s son Lon Morey and the Morey Foundation.

“Our supporters all have fantastic stories and backgrounds, and my favorite part of the job is meeting and becoming friends with them,” LaFaive said. “I’ve been honored to do that with the Morey family and others, too.”

He is married to Gessica, a Peruvian-born U.S. citizen.

“A former colleague was married to a woman who grew up near Gessica and she called me and said, ‘Hey, this woman is perfect for you.’ I spent four hours a night learning Spanish — I didn’t want my charm to be lost in translation! — and seven months later, we were engaged.”

The LaFaives have two sons. The eldest, fitting for a believer in limited government and freedom, was born on the fourth of July.