Martin B. Zimmerman

Dr. Martin B. Zimmerman retired from his appointed position as Group Vice President, Corporate Affairs, in January 2004.

Zimmerman was previously vice president, Governmental Affairs, a position he assumed on Jan. 1, 1999. Prior to this, Zimmerman was executive director, Governmental Relations and Corporate Economics, since January 1994.

Zimmerman joined Ford in August 1987 as the company's chief economist. Before joining Ford, he was a professor and chairman of the Business Economics Department at the University of Michigan's Graduate School of Business Administration.

Zimmerman joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1983 and became chairman of business economics in 1985. He interrupted that assignment to serve one year as Senior Economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors from September 1985 to September 1986. From 1988 to 1992 Zimmerman served on the Advisory Council of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration.

He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the National Association of Business Economists, and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Committee for Economic Development, the Panel of Economic Advisers to the Congressional Budget Office and the Board of Directors of Business for Social Responsibility. He also serves on the boards of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan and the Detroit Metropolitan Visitors and Convention Bureau. He is also a past recipient of the Blue Chip Economic Forecasting Award.

Born June 19, 1946, in New York City, he received a bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and a doctorate degree in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a faculty member in the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. before joining the University of Michigan.

He resides in Ann Arbor, Mich.