UOPX alumni spotlight: Matthew Phillips got his degree and isn’t looking back

Sit down with Matthew Phillips (BSM, 2023), and you’re in for a story. Phillips will be the first to tell you he likes to talk, and that’s because he has a lot to say (usually in a way that will make you laugh). As the chief of staff and customer service officer at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), he might talk about the importance of collaboration and service. As a husband and father, he might talk about how proud he is of his two daughters, who both attend the same university.

Or he might just talk about careers, because Phillips has plenty of personal experience on that topic. He not only has held a range of positions over the past 30 years, from franchise owner to head of a nonprofit to his current role with the city, but he also personally knows how education can affect a career — specifically, how not having a degree can limit options and a sense of job security.

Phillips brings high energy to our conversation and, from the sound of it, everything else he does.

“Two years ago, our director charged his executive team with the task of creating a first-in-the-nation, low-income, water affordability program that capped a customer’s payment at $18 a month,” recalls Phillips’ manager and mentor, Debra N. Pospiech.

Perseverance is one of Phillips’ strengths. Others are his decision-making, risk-taking and — there’s that energy again — his desire for instant gratification. Characteristics like those are why he thinks he would’ve excelled in a skilled trade. They are also why he thinks his first foray into college right after high school didn’t work out.

“Every time I was in class, I was thinking about something else that I could do and accomplish,” he says.

So, Phillips left school. He got a job, he got married and he started a family. School was put on the back burner and might’ve stayed there if life — and the director at DWSD — hadn’t intervened.

Not long after Phillips joined DWSD in 2019, his director called him into his office. He sat Phillips down and told him about his own path to leadership, from working as a bagger at a grocery store to joining the military to becoming a police officer. He recounted how he continued to work his way up in local politics, and how he got his education along the way.

It was inspiring stuff, but the kicker was coming. As Phillips tells it, his director said, “I’m telling you, Matt, we brought you in here because of the merits of who you are and what you’ve accomplished in life. But you’re at a stage in your career here, even though it’s very young, where we already see you having leadership ability. But I’m going to tell you right now, it likely will not happen unless you have a degree.”

And there it was: the sticking point Phillips had encountered throughout three decades of employment. He’d worked hard, he had talent and vision, but he didn’t have the educational credentials he needed. This had prevented him from being hired full time in some instances, and it nearly cost his wife her position with a major automotive company. (She was ultimately able to join as an independent contractor and earn her degree while working in that capacity.)

“I never moved around career-wise or with other organizations because I didn’t have a degree,” Phillips says, recalling several instances when he missed out on job opportunities because he was explicitly told he didn’t have a degree.

Of course, he was successful without it. He moved up the ladder. He made good money, he says. But he wanted the freedom and the security that a degree could offer. His potential for growth at DWSD — and the mentors like his director and Pospiech who encouraged him — gave him the motivation to finally pursue it.

Phillips called his old university to see about completing his associate degree. He already had 80 credits under his belt. Granted, they were from nearly 30 years ago, but could they work with them?

It turned out the school could. Phillips just had to take a math course and a psychology course, which he signed up for. Then, during a routine checkup, doctors found a blockage in his heart. He underwent triple-bypass surgery, but even that didn’t stop him. By August 2021, he had completed his associate degree.

Laws of physics dictate momentum cannot be created nor eliminated. You can only change it. In Phillips’ case, he decided to follow it. He went back to his university to see about earning a bachelor’s degree.

“Everything was kind of like, ‘It’s going to take you a minimum of four or five years to finish up and get a bachelor’s degree if you only take one class at a time,’” Phillips says. “All the heightened sense of excitement was completely drained out of me.”

Phillips shopped around, but the answer was the same — until he tried University of Phoenix. He learned he could still take one course at a time at UOPX, but the classes were shorter and more intense. He could also transfer in his previous credits to save time and money.

More importantly, his University enrollment representative at brought enthusiasm back to the table, explaining how UOPX works and how it could help Phillips. “I got two more calls in that two-week time period [between enrolling and starting class] to just check in,” Phillips says. “That type of encouragement was the catalyst to, I believe, my success in completing [my degree].”

The process of earning his bachelor’s degree was as enlightening as it was exciting. Phillips relished the group projects, because he had a wealth of experience to use as examples and teachable moments for younger peers.

In return, he opened his eyes to new and younger perspectives. Seeing and understanding a different way of thinking helped him relate to some co-workers at the office, he says, and it tied back to the real value of his degree.

“The courses that I took provided a lot of relevance to me. … I felt like [they] were applicable to what I was doing and everyday life,” he says.

He wasn’t the only one to notice. Pospiech recalls observing a shift in his demeanor. “I noticed that he felt more empowered and confident in meetings and was willing to take risks to develop creative and sometimes groundbreaking initiatives," she says.  

In July 2023, Phillips completed his Bachelor of Science in Management, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. He’d just been promoted to chief of staff, a new position that some colleagues had been eyeing for themselves. “I knew the people who were going to use the fact that I didn’t have a degree as the reason [for saying], ‘How could you possibly [choose him]?’” Phillips says.

Phillips, however, had earned the role through his experience, and his director was ready to fight for him to have it. In the end, though, he didn’t have to.

One day in July, Phillips received an email from UOPX notifying him of his successful completion of his bachelor’s program. He was still reeling from that good news when his director walked in. Phillips dragged the monitor around so his director could see: He’d completed his bachelor’s degree.

“He didn’t get teary eyed, because he’s not that type of guy,” Phillips says. “But I think he said, ‘Thank God. I’m so proud of you.’ For him to say, ‘I’m proud of you,’ and give me a hug …”

Phillips trails off. “He literally said, ‘This is the best news I could have ever heard. This is the best timing.’” Whatever reason his director had for coming to Phillips’ office flew out of his head. He just hugged Phillips and left.

As Phillips looks back on his journey, he acknowledges he would’ve done it differently. He would’ve saved himself the anxiety and grief of not having a degree for most of his career and just completed it early on.

“Every time I applied for a job, the answer was no,” he says of those earlier years. “So, unless somebody recommended me, and I had that backing to go along with it, it wasn’t going to happen.”

Today, armed with his experience, his track record and, yes, that bachelor’s degree, Phillips’ momentum forward seems unstoppable.