OMC: How would you define leadership?

MC: It's a funny word. It's stepping up to plate, being unafraid of the consequences of stating your opinion. Being a leader is gathering momentum by gathering other people to follow your idea.

OMC: How can a younger leader make this happen?

MC: There are all grades of leadership. There are not old and young, there are old, somewhat old, medium, young. This community has made a clique out of the old leadership. Old leaders are either dying out or companies being sold. That old country club gang, where is it? The young leaders seem to be isolated. We need to bring them together. UWM chancellor Nancy Zimpher has asked me to head a group of old and young and bring them together. Maybe I should do that.

OMC: How do you define success?

MC: First of all, one of the biggest deterrents to success is a lack of confidence in the individual. 'It can't be done. Oh, I'll never get there. It's too big for me. I don't know anything or enough about it. The people I know who have been really successful have just said, 'Man the torpedoes. We're going to do it, and I don't care how. I'll learn as we go.' That kind of attitude is what is needed!

There is an awful lot that we teach in school and business school saying you have to be fully trained here and there ... I'm not sure you need to be that structured!

OMC: Did you have a role model/mentor?

MC: Yes, as the book talks about a great deal. The guy that got me from a sort of a goofy kid who didn't know which direction to go to a sensible contributor to a business effort was Warren Cozzens. He was my partner the whole time I was at Marquette. He was just enough older to have some common sense.

OMC: If you could pick one person to have a drink with, who would it be and why?

MC: Tough question, Jeff. There are a lot of people I'd love to sit down and have a drink with or dinner with. Albert Einstein would be wonderful. George Bush, Sr. I did have lunch with him once. Dwight Eisenhower, I would have loved to have had some contact with that man.

OMC: Last concert you saw?

MC: Benny Green at the Pabst. He's a dear friend. I'm sort of his "godfather." He's 39 and a budding jazz musician and a really great guy.

OMC: Is jazz your passion in music?

MC: I love all types of music. I love the classics, especially after the turn of the last century. People like Igor Stravinksky. I love Stravinksky's "Rite of Spring," it's an incredible thing. He was the first to break through from the classical cords and start using 9ths and 11ths and wild harmony, I love that kind of thing. Modern ballet also excites me, it's terrific -- a wonderful art form.

OMC: What are your plans for The Pabst Theater?

MC: In a sentence, fill it up with quality acts. I think it can become a national, in fact, international icon. It has all the characteristics. It's a beautiful jewel.

OMC: Please talk about the proposed Milwaukee Connector.

MC: Milwaukee is behind the times in a lot of aspects and areas, transportation is one of them. Milwaukee also is behind the times in trying to knit the various communities around us together. You have people in Racine saying 'we are here, your are there.' Wauwatosa, Waukesha, West Bend. There are a lot of communities that say we don't want anything to do with other communities. And this, to me, is a terrible mistake. We can't have isolated communities in this region fighting against the rest of world that is doing much more dynamic things.

The Milwaukee Connector infers that the isolationism will be broken, shattered. And that's the reason for the vehement opposition of some to rail transportation options. This is not light rail, it's a guided bus system. It's a new technology. It also won't tear up the city and economic advantages are there too. It has all the advantages of rail. I am very much for it.

The business community and Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) feels we should pursue it to the next stage which is the preliminary engineering of the project. You can't tell until that's done whether or not it will work alright or not. We owe it to ourselves to do that next step. To say, 'no, no we don't what to try' is insane. And I think we have to pull these communities together and look at ourselves nationally and see where we stand. There are 18 cities across America right now who are building or planning rail or some form of high-speed transportation. Milwaukee is behind the times.

And all we seem to do around here is say, let's just add some more smelly buses. These cities are all very competitive. Come on, guys! We need to get in there and fight for our position. If we don't, we're gonna shrivel up like a prune.

OMC: Name two other things Milwaukee needs to continue moving forward.

MC: We have to do phase three of the Midwest Express Center, to be competitive nationally and fight for the big conventions. We need a champion for southeastern Wisconsin, someone who really sells the area. It's a beautiful place! People are fighting for places like West Virginia. We gotta get out there and scramble for it!

OMC: What do you do in your free time?

MC: I don't have any (he laughs). I train my dog.

OMC: And?

MC: I'm a little bit hard of hearing, you know. So the first thing someone with hearing loss does is goes and gets a hearing test and they try to fit you with a hearing aid. When your sight goes, people go to Walgreen's and get glasses. The hearing aid is a bit of an insult, so I designed an ear amp. Radio Shack has something like it in its catalog. You plug in ear phones and it amplifies sound. So, they (Radio Shack) beat me to it, but I like to tinker with things like that in my spare time.

I had the pleasure of having Walter Cronkite on my airplane recently, and he is old and can't hear too well. He hates his hearing aides, they look horrible. So, I'm sure he'd like something like the ear amp.

Michael Cudahy's book "Joyworks" was published by the Milwaukee County Historical Society and is available at the MCHS and area bookstores.