Clifton Haley, a 1961 graduate of the MSU-Detroit College of Law and board member since 1997, was unanimously elected president of the MSU-DCL Board of Trustees on Friday.

Haley has served as vice president of the board under the leadership of Judge Richard Suhrheinrich since 1998 and since then has helped to increase the academic standards and enrollment at the law school.

Haley said he has wanted to give something back to the university for some time.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be elected by the same school that I graduated from,” he said. “I plan to engage all of my experience and time necessary to fulfill the needs of the law school.”

“Clifton Haley has been an extraordinary leader at the school for many years and has been actively involved,” said David Porteous, an MSU-DCL trustee. “He is bringing a high amount of commitment and enthusiasm to the law school with a keen financial mind.”

The new president has experience with business and has served as an adjunct professor in the master of business administration programs at the University of South Carolina and Lake Superior State University.

Haley served as chief executive officer of Budget Rent a Car Corporation, from which he retired in 1993. Currently, he is president and owner of the Drummond Island Resort and Conference Center on Drummond Island, Mich., where he resides.

Haley, who also has a home in Chicago, travels to and from Drummond Island on his own turbine-powered airplane.

“I fly, and since I often have work to do on the plane, I have a pilot,” Haley said. “I’d like to offer the resource of the airplane to the law school when it is needed.”

Over the years, Haley has supported the law school with financial donations and assistance.

“He’s obviously shown his support for the school by his generous gifts of time and money and working with all areas of the college,” MSU-DCL Trustee Robert Weiss said. “I just look forward to working with him and moving the law school to a new level.”

One of Haley’s main goals as president is to increase DCL’s prestige in the legal community, both locally and internationally.

“I will work aggressively at increasing endowment and funding of the law school, and I will be spending time working to provide more scholarships and a variety of different ones,” he said. “I hope that we turn these students out to be the lawyers that can provide the various elements that society demands.

“I am looking forward to the challenges I always have in my career, and I hope that I will continue to make all students from all disciplines proud.”