(CBS DETROIT) – Rod Alberts, Executive Director of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association, appears with Sam Klemet, who joined DADA as Co-Executive Director, as they talk about major changes ahead for the 2025 Detroit Auto Show, which moves to January. 

Alberts, who came to Detroit 34 years ago to take over the DADA job and oversees the annual show, said it was time to pass the baton to someone new. After meeting Klemet, President and CEO of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, he knew he had the right stuff to take the 100-plus-year-old organization into the future.

Alberts, Klemet and the rest of the DADA leadership team will plan the upcoming show being held Jan. 10–20, 2025, at Huntington Place. Alberts will step aside after that event, he said on the show.

Klemet, 39, a Michigan State University graduate who is from Metro Detroit, ran MAB for three years and the Indiana Association of Broadcasters before working as a broadcast journalist in Indiana.

Klemet talked about the road ahead for the auto show and the opportunities tied to it.

Also on Michigan Matters, the roundtable of MICHauto’s Executive Director Glenn Stevens Jr. and Brandon Cooper, CEO of APHID, an AI firm being helped by Techstars Detroit, appear with Alberts and discuss mobility and the importance of marque events like the 2024 NFL Draft, the Detroit Auto Show and more.

Watch Michigan Matters at its new time: 5:30 a.m. Sundays on CBS Detroit, noon Sundays on Detroit 50 WKBD, and also streaming 9 p.m. weeknights on CBS Detroit’s website, CBS Detroit’s app and Pluto TV. 

(Carol Cain is the 13-time Emmy-winning senior producer and host of Michigan Matters)