(Community Matters 195) Remembering Dr. Joe Schwarz: Battle Creek Author, Communications Executive T.R. Shaw

This discussion is part of a series of interviews remembering former Battle Creek mayor, lawmaker and statesman, Dr. Joe Schwarz who passed away in May, 2026. 

T.R. Shaw, CEO of Shaw Communications and author of Defy the Immediate, reflects on Dr. Joe Schwarz's lifelong dedication to public service in Battle Creek driven by duty, relationships, and a refusal to let the city be sidelined. 

ABOUT COMMUNITY MATTERS
Former WBCK Morning Show host Richard Piet (2014-2017) returns to host Community Matters, an interview program focused on community leaders and newsmakers in and around Battle Creek. Community Matters is heard Saturdays, 8:00 AM Eastern on WBCK-FM (95.3) and anytime at battlecreekpodcast.com.

Community Matters is sponsored by Lakeview Ford Lincoln and produced by Livemic Communications

Transcript

Meet T.R. Shaw And Joe Schwarz

Richard Piet 0:02

We're here with T.R. Shaw on Community Matter, CEO of Shaw Communications, author of the book Defy the Immediate, and someone with whom we spoke a while back about the Rotary Action Group for Diabetes. I could keep going. Your list is almost as long as Joe Schwarz's here on the board of the Battle Creek Regional History Museum and also on the advisory board for the Battle Creek Executive

Saving The Airport And The A-10s

Richard Piet 0:27

Airport. I would imagine, TR, that some of these things, how you cross paths with Joe Schwarz.

T.R. Shaw 0:34

Oh yeah. Especially with the airport. That was his baby. He grew up in out of Fort Custer. His father was a uh doctor at the VA hospital. So Fort Custer, the airport, and all of that have been close to his heart for for a long time. And he actually saved the airport twice. The first time he saved it as mayor, you know, the Air National Guard wanted to move to Grand Rapids and he wouldn't have it. And he literally went to the governor and went to the Adjutant General and said, You're not moving out of Battle Creek. What do you need? And I said, Well, we need more runway. And he says, You got it. And he went to work and uh put together a bond issue, and we actually got a bond issue passed to extend the runway to 10,000 feet, which is now the third longest runway in Michigan. And after that we got the A-10s. Fortunately, he went to Congress after 16 years in the Senate, and the 2005 BRAC came around, and he once again he had to stand up for the airport because the Air National Guard and most of Fort Custer was put on the chopping block for drawdown. Um called the base realignment and closure commission BRAC. And uh so he once again, fortunately, he was in Congress and he orchestrated uh quite the effort to know you're not taking this out of Battle Creek. And through his effort and his success on that, we got the airport and the Air National Guard off the BRAC list, and it was the only Air National Guard facility in the nation that went off the BRAC list, so uh which is pretty remarkable. And uh the unfortunate thing though is politically in the state of Michigan, there's the political back and forth between South Ridge and this kind of considered the the big base and all that, and they had a little bit more political savvy, so we kept the airport, but we lost the A-10s, so we were we had an airport and an international guard presence here, but uh we lost our airplanes. But we still have the base here, and there's other things going on there besides that. The air guard is still here doing some great things, and he was always very proud of that. I don't think there was anybody that was more pro Battle Creek, and it was uh when he his two years in Congress just wasn't long enough. We lost a lot when he uh didn't get re-elected to Congress, especially after saving the base. And Battle Creek was always the first thing on his agenda when he went to Washington, and uh we probably had never had a better representative in Washington, and uh for years Battle Creek has literally struggled with you political clout in Washington, and and we've always had to in the way that things were districted, we were always disenfranchised and haven't always had the best people representing us. So it was the breath of fresh air when he was there, and uh it's just unfortunate that the way politics is today that he didn't get re-elected but and became the elder statesman. But that's uh he certainly was pro-Battle Creek while he was uh in any of his positions. It was

Rail Advocacy And Walter Reed Oversight

T.R. Shaw 3:45

always about putting that first.

Richard Piet 3:47

He didn't go away though, and he certainly tried to, shall we say, maneuver in the background and try to effect change?

T.R. Shaw 3:56

Oh yeah. Once he was out of office, he was still quite uh relied upon for a lot of things. He even after he was out of Congress, he still was asked by the Secretary of Defense to serve on the uh Walter Reed Oversight Committee. Remember they were having trouble with the the hospital and uh especially after the uh desert storm, and they had a lot of problems. So he was actually on the committee that uh oversaw inspection and the uh oversight of Walter Reed Hospital. Um he also you know was a big train buff, and uh he just loved trains and was uh very much into railroad, and he took a lot of rail trips, especially to his home in uh Montana, and did that. And uh he worked a lot behind the scenes to keep passenger traffic, like with the Amtrak here in Battle Creek, when they were trying to do that too, to maybe reroute it somewhere. He's nope, it's gonna stay in Battle Creek. So that's um the Amtrak in Battle Creek is partially his doing. And uh during the Snyder administration, after he was out, he was uh called upon a lot for his expertise in rail issues. I remember Rick Snyder once called him his railroad czar. So so he was that was one of his big uh big loves and big passions too. So it was was railroad too.

Doctor First And Trusted Helper

Richard Piet 5:17

To say nothing of being a medical doctor, he had a passion about serving his patients, did he not?

T.R. Shaw 5:23

He would take care of a lot of family and friends, and uh a lot of people would call him and he just was uh that or if he couldn't do something, he know to somebody to refer him to or to do that. And uh he uh actually when he came here, he first came back to Battle Creek, he uh was an otolaryngologist, ear, nose, and throat doctor. And he actually, after his experience in not only he got a specialty at the Harvard Medical School, worked in Boston and did an uh internship in California, and also did combat surgery. So when he came back here, he did surgery that had never been seen in Battle Creek before when he got here, and he was uh really a renowned ear, nose and throat uh specialist, really did some remarkable surgery that you would usually have to go someplace else for. So he was a renowned ET doctor before he even really started getting into politics, too.

I-94 Vision And Michigan Roots

Richard Piet 6:17

Was there something about which you were aware that he was still passionate about and trying to get done?

T.R. Shaw 6:24

Well, when he was in Congress, one of his issues was he had a plan to put three lanes on all of I-94, and he'd worked with the other congressmen in the 94 corridor, and had he been re-elected, we probably have three lanes on I-94 right now. That was one of the things that that we lost when he went out of office. Uh his predecessors uh viewed that stuff as uh earmarks and didn't, you know, very the conservatives that went after him are just you know it was just a different change in attitude. But he had a plan. That was one thing he was passionate about was uh our transportation, and uh that was one of the things we lost when we lost him. Now think about that when I'm on I-94.

Richard Piet 7:07

Yeah, when there's all kinds of traffic in two lanes.

T.R. Shaw 7:10

I'd be remiss to say that one of one of his passions was the University of Michigan, too. He was an undergraduate there. He was active in the Sigma Chi fraternity there, and uh, if you know the Sigma Chi house, it's right next to the student union and still there. And he helped take care of that house down there for a few many years after he he left. But he rarely missed a football game in Ann Arbor. And then, of course, he went back after uh he was an adjunct professor in the Gerald Ford School in uh Public Policy. For years he was uh drove to Ann Arbor every day and uh taught graduate level uh political science, which was uh pretty remarkable too. And from what I've heard, he was one of the most popular instructors they had in their program.

Put Service Ahead Of Ego

Richard Piet 7:52

Popular wherever he went, it seems. What do you think people in Battle Creek could take from him and implement in their lives here?

T.R. Shaw 8:02

I think it's public service. I think it was just he was very passionate about he's remember once he said that you want to make change in this town. He said you put your name on a ballot, and he says that's the only way you're gonna do that. And a lot of people are reluctant to do that. It's just politics today is a is a messy business, as you know. But it does take people, if you want to run for something, run for something and uh get on a ballot. And those are the change makers that whether you like politics or not, he was adamant about, you know, get involved, get on the ballot, and that's the way you make change. And remember, it's about service, it's not about ego, it's not about that. He butted head with a lot of people on a lot of things, but that was the way he was. And bottom line, he was very passionate about the community and you know, and he wouldn't put up with anything that would uh hurt or damage Battle Creek and uh was always looking out for what was in our best interests. I mean, he's the model for public service. Whether you agree with him ideologically, his passion was there, his drive, it was uh always people in Battle Creek first.

Richard Piet 9:04

Would you say that's how people understood him? That is to say he was passionate and he cared about Battle Creek, and even if they disagreed with him, they saw that?

T.R. Shaw 9:14

Yeah, that'd say that was probably an accurate description of him too.

Richard Piet 9:17

Did he

Partisanship Then The McCain Connection

Richard Piet 9:18

ever say anything to you about the divisiveness of politics today?

T.R. Shaw 9:23

Well, he got pretty frustrated in general when he went to Washington. I remember he talked a lot about when he was in Lansing, he could work across the aisle and he'd used to go out to the bar after a session and sit down with the loyal opposition and have a beer and talk it out and all that. And he tried doing that in Washington and he got called on the carpet on that out there. You don't do things like that. It really ticked him off. In fact, he got called in and he threatened, he says, you know, if you ever tell me something like this again, I says, You're gonna find yourself in an ambulance. And uh and it was like um because they told him not to do this stuff, and he says, I will work with my colleagues the way I see fit, you know. And that was that kind of got him in trouble in Washington. And in his parting shot, when I I remember one of the my favorite quotes of his, he butted heads with the Republican Party. He was a Republican all his life, and he claims he was independent afterwards, but he was uh I want to say a fiscal Republican and probably a social moderate, uh, is the best way to describe him, but but in his parting commentary, he talked about that said the Republican Party, he said used to be the Big Tent Party, and he says, now it's the umbrella party, and uh then he says the kind you find in rum drinks, and that that was a quote, one of my favorite. He had a lot of a lot of really interesting quotes on things, and of course, then his relationship with John McCain too was also pretty he uh I met John McCain a couple of times, and you know, and it it's interesting that he they had a Vietnam connection to he served in the CIA during Vietnam, and he we never knew. We I tried to talk to him about it, but you know, that's uh they they hold a lot of secrets and they should, that's the way it is, unless you're bound by law to do that. But I put the pieces together, he was in the chain of command of McCain's father, and uh who was the head of the Pacific at the time. And part of his mission was to keep track of POWs, and um I'm sure he had some probably knowledge on McCain's captivity. He never said anything about it, but I I would be willing to bet that he had a connection to McCain during during his captivity of some kind, and that's how they became such, you know, brethren in a way.

Richard Piet 11:39

To the extent that he carried the torch for him when he was running for president.

T.R. Shaw 11:43

Yeah, he uh he became his Michigan campaign manager, and that was uh remember that Michigan was the only state that McCain won in the primary. It kind of really rattled the

Why Battle Creek Will Miss Him

T.R. Shaw 11:55

Republican establishment because most of the Republican establishment was behind Bush, and they lost Michigan, and it's just the way politics is. So he went to uh Washington with a target on his back. He had a very interesting political career. There was a lot of ups and downs and a lot of things. One of the things I remember when he was installed in Congress out there, we were out there, our family went out, and we've been family friends forever. He and my dad grew up together, but the day he was installed in Washington was the same day that uh Carlos Gutierrez became the Secretary of Commerce. So on the same day, and I remember him remarking that what a great day that was for Battle Creek. He was being installed along with Carlos, you know, they had a Kellogg and him. I mean, we're both now in Washington, and he remarked that was just a great day for Battle Creek, and that was kind of his perspective on it all, and which was kind of the way he was, you know. He was like a second father to me in a way. He uh he and my dad just were buddies, they did golf trips together, they grew up together. I was uh with his family. We spent time in his home in Montana. It was a family member of us, and it was like very we were very close over the years, and we're gonna miss him. I think Battle Creek's gonna miss him. I don't think there's a generation that may not know much about him, but there's a lot of things that wouldn't be here in this town if it weren't

Final Thanks And Sign-Off

T.R. Shaw 13:14

for him.

Richard Piet 13:14

And that's where we'll leave it. T.R. Shaw, thank you for this.

Speaker 1 13:18

Thank you.