Ambassador Bridge owner Moroun dead at age 93
Manuel (Matty) Moroun, the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge, has died, according to an obituary by Crain’s Detroit Business.
The Detroit business news outlet reported that Moroun’s son Matthew confirmed his father passed on Sunday at the age of 93.
Known for his stubbornness in business, Moroun was a selfmade mogul who built his fortune in trucking companies before buying the Ambassador Bridge in 1979.
Moroun’s control over North America’s busiest international land crossing attracted decades of scrutiny and criticism, as well as protracted legal battles with governments on both sides of the border.
Along with Central Transport — a nationwide trucking network — Moroun’s enterprises included real estate and logistics.
The former Michigan Central Station building was part of the Moroun family holdings from 1992 to 2018.
According to Crain’s Detroit Business, Moroun was still chairman of his companies in name at the time of his death, but his son Matthew has been responsible for running them in recent years.
A Forbes profile estimates Moroun’s net worth at US$1.7 billion, as of July 13.
Crain’s Detroit Business has estimated the Moroun family’s total revenue at $2.86 billion.
Matthew Moroun has yet to make further public comment on his father’s death.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens was quick to tweet condolences to the Moroun family.
“Regardless of your politics or your position, Mr. Moroun built a significant business empire through determination and grit,” Dilkens wrote.
Windsor West MP Brian Masse also offered condolences to the Moroun family — with the comment that Moroun’s legacy “is that he grew his businesses to the point of having an outsized influence and impact on the border and this community during a time of historical transportation challenges and changes.”
Since at least 2004, the Moroun family has been at odds with multiple levels of government over construction of a publicly owned border crossing to replace the Ambassador Bridge.
Moroun’s attempts to impede the Detroit River International Crossing project (now known as the Gordie Howe International Bridge) involved lengthy court contests, heavy lobbying efforts and even Moroun being briefly jailed for refusing to comply with judges’ orders.
In his opposition to the public crossing, Moroun was adamant that any concerns about the capacity or condition of the 93-year-old Ambassador Bridge could be addressed by him twinning it.
Moroun’s obstinate pursuit of his twinning project led to him purchasing dozens of residential properties in Windsor’s Sandwich area to make room for an expanded bridge plaza — actions that the community feared as “blockbusting.”
Windsor’s municipal government tried to block Moroun’s demolitions with interim control bylaws, resulting in neighbourhoods like Indian Road being full of vacant and deteriorating houses for years.
Gregg Ward, owner of the Detroit-windsor Truck Ferry, whose company was one of many Moroun sought to buy out, was respectful in his reflections upon learning of Moroun’s death.
“I wish the Moroun family sincere condolences. It’s a very difficult time, I’m sure,” Ward said on Monday.
“Of course, we had many challenges with him. He was an astute businessman, and a determined person. We didn’t agree on what was in the public interest. That being said, he did what he thought was best for him and his company.”
But Carol Derbyshire, former executive director of the Hospice of Windsor and Essex County, recalled a different side of Moroun: A magnanimous philanthropist, and “the epitome of the gentleman.”
“It’s a very sad day,” Derbyshire said on Monday. “I thought the world of Matty Moroun, and his family. They have been so generous and kind.”
Derbyshire said Moroun’s relationship with the Hospice of Windsor and Essex County began more than 20 years ago, in the 1990s.
His personal contributions to the charitable organization amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, including the donation of several vehicles to transport patients.
“He wanted to give us a fleet,” Derbyshire recalled. “He was always checking with me. He’d call and he’d say, ‘Are you guys OK? Do you need anything?’ It just kept coming. And I never asked him for it.”
“I used to read things about him, or hear about them, and it always made me kind of sad. Because that is not the Matty that I knew.”
Moroun was born in Detroit in 1927, but his family had a home in Windsor on Huron Church Road.
The house was expropriated to make way for construction of the Ambassador Bridge. With the money received in exchange, Matty’s father Tufick Moroun moved the family back to Detroit and purchased a gas station.
Speaking to the Star exclusively in 2006, Matty Moroun detailed how he attended a private Catholic school in Detroit, and often took ferry trips to Windsor in his youth to spend weekends with extended family.
After high school, Moroun attended Notre Dame University with ambitions of becoming a doctor. He graduated with a science degree in 1949.
Despite good grades, he found himself shut out of the premier U.S. Catholic medical school. His attention turned to his father’s gas station.
Moroun recounted to the Star his days of cleaning and servicing buses that came to the station: Emptying ashtrays, washing windows, putting air in tires and pumping fuel. “I can tell you, I swept out a lot of buses,” Moroun said.
In 1950, Moroun’s father took control of Central Cartage, a struggling truck company that owed the gas station money. Matty kept the books for the company and continued to sweep floors.
According to reports in Forbes and the Detroit News, the Moroun family built a relationship with Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa. The association allowed Central Cartage to flourish while other trucking companies suffered from labour disputes.
Moroun took control of Central Cartage in 1970. At the time, the company had grown to 900 employees.
Under Moroun’s leadership, the company’s acquisitions continued and spread into Canada under the banner of Mckinlay Transport.
Central Cartage became the main transporter for General Motors and grew as a major player in the shipment of cross-border goods.
Moroun’s frustrations with the bridge-crossing process for his trucks led him to begin buying shares of the Ambassador Bridge in the early 1970s.
Over the course of a few years, Moroun’s ownership of the Ambassador Bridge increased to 25 per cent.
Fellow tycoon Warren Buffett also had a 25 per cent share of the bridge. But in 1979, Moroun purchased the bridge outright and took full control.
According to Moroun, his goal with the bridge purchase was only to get his trucks moving across the border smoothly.
Truck traffic at the bridge soared under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Central Transport bought out more and more other trucking firms until Moroun’s business interests stretched overseas and around the world.
By the mid-2000s, Moroun’s empire included more than 100 companies and affiliates across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
His vast real-estate holdings made him the second-largest property owner in Michigan, behind only the state government itself.
Moroun was also believed to be the third-biggest property owner in the city of Detroit.
When Moroun spoke to the Star in 2006, he was tiring of his reputation as a pirate in business, and suggested he wanted to be considered a builder of the local and national economies.
“You know, when you get my age, you start to think a little bit about how you will be remembered,” Moroun said at the time.