"It was 1996 when Dave got the call from GM informing him that there were no plans to continue operations after the current models at LCA ended," retired General Motors plant manager Randy Thayer recalled of David Hollister, the Lansing mayor who took that call and then spent years persuading the automaker to change its mind. Hollister, who led Michigan's capital city from 1993 to 2003 after nearly two decades in the state House, died on September 22, 2026, "peacefully in the presence of family," according to a family statement reported by the Lansing State Journal. He was 84.

GM planned to stop building cars in Lansing's aging factories once production of the Oldsmobile Alero ended in 2004. Hollister answered by assembling a blue-ribbon committee of business, government, education and community leaders to demonstrate the economic impact the company had on the region. As Thayer put it, the aim was "to be the first city to ever turnaround a GM closure decision."

It worked. GM built its two newest North American assembly plants in the Lansing area: Lansing Grand River opened in 2001, and Lansing Delta Township followed in 2006. The campaign became the subject of a book and a film, Second Shift: The Inside Story of the Keep GM Movement. "The next time you are driving by one of the Lansing GM plants or even one of the GM suppliers, there is no other single person that deserves your thanks more than David C. Hollister," Thayer said.

He started out in a classroom. After graduating with honors from Michigan State University, Hollister taught government, history and economics at Durand High School and Lansing Eastern. His family said a brief encounter with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 moved him to spend the summers of 1966 and 1968 as a volunteer teacher in the Mississippi Freedom Schools in Holly Springs. In 1968, still teaching, he won a seat on the Ingham County Board of Commissioners and began recruiting others to join him. "I first met Dave Hollister in 1972 when he was recruiting people to run for the Ingham County Board of Commissioners," recalled former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

Voters sent him to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1974. There he spent 16 years on the Appropriations Committee, chaired its social services subcommittee for more than a decade, and helped shape laws on open meetings, clean water, adoption reform, hospice care and mandatory seat belt use.

As mayor, elected in 1993 and returned in 1997 and 2001, he set out to make Lansing a "World-Class City." His family's statement credited his administration with roughly $2.9 billion in public and private investment. He brought minor league baseball downtown with the Lansing Lugnuts and their stadium, created the Stadium District, and pushed the remaking of Michigan Avenue, as Lansing City Pulse and the State Journal reported. Virg Bernero, who later held the same office, summed him up this way: "Hollister was a verb rather than a noun."

In 2003 he stepped down to join Gov. Jennifer Granholm's cabinet, eventually leading the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth and launching the state's Cool Cities Initiative. He later served as president and CEO of the Prima Civitas Foundation, promoting economic growth across Mid-Michigan. "David Hollister was a role model to me," Granholm said. Even in his last years he kept working on the city, writing the preamble to Lansing's revised charter and winning adoption of his proposal that the city produce comprehensive data on its own progress.

Lansing already works inside the David C. Hollister City Hall, and the new city building expected to open in November 2026 will carry his name as well. The larger monuments are the ones people drive past every day: the Grand River and Delta Township assembly lines and the ballpark on Michigan Avenue. Just as lasting are the officeholders he recruited and encouraged across five decades, including former council member Joan Bauer, who said she ran for Lansing City Council in 1995 because of him.