Board of Directors Spotlight: Hunter Low
By contributing writer Arlene Hisiger
January 2007

“Baseball is a game with great tradition behind it,” Hunter Low states with the confident
tone of a true believer. “Everyone remembers their first exposure to it.” To lend credence
to his remark, he nostalgically recalls the first time his dad and granddad took him to a
New Orleans Pelicans baseball game. While the team is gone, his memory of that game
clearly is not. “The stands were made of wood and so were the fences,” he says, smiling
at the memory. That’s where the knothole concept comes from … the knothole in the
wooden fence where kids who couldn’t afford a ticket to the game looked in.”

Hunter laughingly shares that he recently discovered a cache of old camp letters he
mailed home when he was at a sleep-away camp outside of New Orleans. “How are the
Pelicans doing?” he’d invariable ask in every letter home. “My mom had to cut out the
scores and send them to me,” he remembers, chuckling at the degree to which he was
obsessed with the Pelicans.

As Hunter likes to say, “Kids imprint on sports and sports imprint on kids. Whichever
baseball teams kids are originally exposed to, chances are they’ll follow them for life.”

Years after the demise of his beloved Pelicans, Hunter found solace in his allegiance to
the New York Mets. The Mets would do well not to take this fan lightly, as Hunter,
having lived in a variety of cities and countries, could’ve easily chosen another team to
adopt as his own.

As it turns out, the “Big Apple” has been good to Hunter. It was there, after a two-year
stint as a Broadcaster in Springfield, Massachusetts, and an equal amount of time in the
army as an ROTC Lieutenant, that Hunter came to produce films for the military. His
commanding officer made him an offer he couldn’t refuse – “Hunter,” he said, “you can
be a sportscaster in New England or you can produce a TV show for the military in
Astoria, New York.” “It didn’t take long to figure that one out,” Hunter says smiling
broadly.

Six years later, Hunter was lured north with an offer to work as Director of Advertising &
Promotions for the Motion Picture & Television markets at Eastman Kodak. When
Kodak subsequently offered him the job of U.S. Sports & Events Program Manager, he
accepted it gladly despite the fact that it meant shifting from the creative to the business
sphere. “Because Kodak was a great place to work, there was great opportunity for
growth.”

In 1991, Hunter received a phone call in which a question was posed to him; his answer
would have a lasting impact on his life – fifteen years’ worth to be exact. What was the
question? One of the officers of the Red Wings called to ask if he would consider
becoming a member of the Red Wings’ Board of Directors. Saying yes to that proposal
was something that has indeed had a lasting impact, and the same can be said from the
Red Wings corner, having benefited from Hunter’s expertise and calm, tactical approach.
“The Red Wings,” he says with certainty borne of experience, “are a very well-managed
team. It’s really run as a client-oriented business and I attribute its success to this
management style. The administrators,” he continues, “are fan-friendly.”

“One of my fondest baseball memories,” he says tilting his head back in reminiscence,
“was when I took my family to a game and was sitting next to my granddaughter – she
must have been eight or nine years old at the time – and all of a sudden the batter hits a
line drive right at us. Everyone ducked … everyone that is, except for my granddaughter,
who caught the ball with her glove. When she held it up for all to see, the crowd
applauded wildly.” It’s a huge thing when a kid gets a baseball at a game, especially one
caught on fly.” (Or on a line in this case.)

Hunter’s enthusiastic support for the game of baseball, and the Red Wings in particular,
is abundantly evident. There is, however, something about him that is a bit puzzling.
How did he manage to get himself inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of
Fame? This rather unusual induction has its genesis in his Kodak role as Director of
Advertising & Promotions for Motion Picture & Television Markets.

At the time, Kodak had just come out with its Super8 Camcorder, and Hunter thought, “It
would be a great place to market this stuff, because they (women’s sports teams) didn’t
have much money.” Being a “big picture” kind of guy, Hunter thought, “Why not have a
Women’s All-American team?” And that’s how the Kodak Women’s All-American
Basketball Team was created. Thanks to Hunter, Kodak became the first major
corporation to sponsor a women’s all-star sports team.

“We’ve (Kodak) been welcomed by women’s sports teams everywhere; they really
appreciated what we did. I still get hugs from women to this day,” he shyly admits.
“That happened a lot when I was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year.”

Hunter’s interest in a level playing field for women was neither strictly academic nor
economic. It was also paternal. As the proud father of a son and two daughters, one of
whom was a baseball player, he was easily motivated to improve the lot of the female
athlete. But the person who equally shares in the honors bestowed upon him for his
numerous good works is his wife, Jodi. “We go as a matched set,” he says with obvious
affection. I couldn’t have done any of these things without her.”

“In the final analysis, it would be fair to say that baseball has been ‘imprinted’ on my
soul. As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a better place to take in a baseball game than
Frontier Field. The Red Wings staff, as I mentioned before, is fan-friendly. They want
people to enjoy themselves, and are committed to doing everything possible to ensure
that happens. They want fans to have a good time and to come back again … and you
can be sure this fan will!”