Tom Monaghan Biography
Tom Monaghan born Thomas Stephen Monaghan is an Irish American entrepreneur who founded Domino’s Pizza in 1960. He owned the Detroit Tigers from 1983 to 1992.
Monaghan also owns the Domino’s Farms Office Park, located in the Ann Arbor Charter Township, Michigan, which he first started building in 1984.
10 Quick Facts About Tom Monaghan
- Name: Tom Monaghan
- Age: 82 years old as of 2019
- Birthday: 25 March
- Zodiac Sign: Aries
- Height: Average
- Nationality: Irish American
- Occupation: Entrepreneur
- Marital Status: Married
- Salary: Under review
- Net worth: $500 Million
Tom Monaghan Age
Tom was born on March 25, 1937, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is 82 years as of 2019.
Tom Monaghan Wife
Married to Marjorie Zybach in the year 1962.
Tom Monaghan Early Life
After his father died when Monaghan was four years old, Monaghan’s mother had trouble raising him alone, and Monaghan and his younger brother ended up in an orphanage at the age of six in 1943 until their mother gathered them back in 1949. The orphanage, St. Joseph Home for Children in Jackson, Michigan, was run by Livonia’s Felician Sisters; one of the nuns there inspired his devotion to the Catholic faith and later entered St. Joseph’s Seminary in Grand Rapids with the desire to become a priest eventually. He was subsequently expelled for a series of disciplinary offenses from the seminary.
In 1956, by mistake, Monaghan enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps; he meant joining the Army. In 1959, he was given an honorable discharge.
Tom Monaghan Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $500 Million.
Tom Monaghan Domino’s Pizza
In 1959, Monaghan returned to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and enrolled at Michigan University with the intention of becoming an architect. While still a student, he borrowed $900 with his brother James to buy a small pizza store in Ypsilanti, Michigan called Dominick’s. “I started at the school of architecture and went to the pizza business to pay for my way through school,” he said. “The pizza business was losing so much money that I never got back into architecture.” It would grow into Domino’s Pizza after a lawsuit by Domino Sugar. Tom traded his brother James a Volkswagen Beetle for his half of the business after opening another three stores. Monaghan dropped sub-sandwiches from the menu and concentrated on delivering them to college campuses, inventing a new isolated pizza box to improve delivery. The new box could be stacked without crushing the pizzas inside, allowing more pizzas per trip and keeping them warm until they arrived, unlike their chipboard predecessors. As Monaghan spread his model through a tightly controlled franchising system to other college cities, nearly three new Domino franchises were opening each day by the mid-1980s.
In 1989, due to his active opposition to abortion, the National Organization for Women (NOW) called for a boycott of Domino’s, but it is unclear what effect, if any, it had on the sales of the company.
In 1998, Monaghan reportedly sold for an estimated $1 billion to Bain Capital, an investment firm based in Boston, its 93 percent stock ownership of Domino’s Pizza. Domino’s Pizza is an American restaurant chain and an international franchise pizza delivery company headquartered in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan, United States, near Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the Domino’s Farms Office Park (the campus itself is owned by Monaghan).
Tom Monaghan Catholic philanthropy and Activism
Monaghan is a Roman Catholic with a special interest in the causes of pro-life. He set up or helped set up a number of Catholic organizations and educational institutions. Composer Stephen Edwards commissioned the orchestral Ave Maria Mass to “express in music the spiritual commitment behind the founding of Ave Maria College and Ave Maria School of Law.” This mass, recorded and released on CD in 2002, was dedicated to the victims of September 11 by the composer. Monaghan publicly encourages daily Mass attendance, daily rosary recitation and frequent sacramental confession. He has also committed to spending what remains of his $1 billion fortune on philanthropic endeavors.
Tom Monaghan Catholic organizations
In 1983, to focus on Catholic education, media, community projects, and other charities, he founded the Mater Christi Foundation, now known as the Ave Maria Foundation. In 1987 he helped form Legatus, an organization for Catholic CEOs of businesses earning more than $4 million a year to promote and support”… moral business ethics in accordance with the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings so that the lives of all can be enhanced.” The name for a legion commander was taken from the Latin word. Legatus was to serve “top-ranking Catholic business leaders” as a spiritual resource and social community.
In 1997, former Evangelical Pastor Al Kresta was recruited to lead Ave Maria Communications, which became America’s first Catholic radio apostolate with popularly known Ave Maria Radio. He also set up the Ave Maria List pro-life political action committee and the Thomas More Law Center, a law firm dedicated to promoting socially conservative issues such as abortion opposition, same-sex marriage, and secularism.
In addition, the Spiritus Sanctus Academies was founded by his foundation. The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, administer these elementary schools.
Subsequently, the Ave Maria Foundation finalized its focus on higher education and set up both a university and a law school. In addition to this shift in focus, many of the other non-profit organizations established by the Ave Maria Foundation have become independent or are in the process of being removed from grants from the Ave Maria Foundation.
Monaghan is reputed to be an Opus Dei member and has aligned with several other conservative Catholic organizations and causes.
Monaghan is a donor to a Roman Catholic pro-life organization called Priests for Life. In the Sovereign Military Order of Malta he is a knight of magisterial grace.
Tom Monaghan Ave Maria School of Law
The Ave Maria School of Law, previously located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, opened its doors in 2000 and received full accreditation from the American Bar Association in 2005. The school was a dream of several professors from the Catholic University of Detroit Mercy, who publicly left that institution when it allowed several pro-choice members of the Michigan Supreme Court to appear at the school’s annual “Red Mass.” Professors Stephen Safranek, Mollie Murphy, Richard Myers, and Joseph Falvey, setting out to form a new orthodox Catholic law school, presented their idea to Monaghan (who had previously been a strong supporter of opening a new law school at Franciscan University) to provide significant funding through his Ave Maria Foundation. Together they enlisted Bernard Dobranski, Dean at The Catholic University of America’s law school and former Dean of Detroit Mercy’s Law School, to lead up the new school as dean. Monaghan served as president of the school’s Board of Governors.
Members of the faculty included conservative law scholar and Judge Robert Bork, a nominee of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia helped develop the curriculum of the school, and in 1999 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas presented the first annual Ave Maria Lecture of the school. The stated goal of the school is to educate competent moral lawyers who will influence all aspects of the legal profession and advance the theory of natural law. The Ave Maria Law School graduated in Spring 2009 from its last Michigan class and relocated immediately afterward permanently to Naples, Florida.
Tom Monaghan Ave Maria College
Monaghan founded Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to fulfill his dream of creating a new Catholic university. Monaghan acquired St. Mary’s College of Orchard Lake and a campus in Nicaragua, renamed Ave Maria College of the Americas, in various attempts to accelerate accreditation.
Because of lack of funding, the college closed in 2007 against the protests of faculty and students. Alternative funding has not been secured to prevent the closure of the school. St. Mary’s College has been sold and is now under nearby Madonna University’s auspices.
Tom Monaghan Ave Maria University
In early 2002, Monaghan sought to establish the Ave Maria University at Domino’s Farms in Ann Arbor, the large corporate office park he owned and leased to Domino’s Pizza. The plans included a crucifix 250 feet taller than the Liberty Statue. Local officials declined to approve the change in zoning, forcing him to look for a site elsewhere. Eventually community leaders in Collier County, Florida, offered him to develop the university a large undeveloped tract of land thirty miles east of Naples, Florida.
Ground for the new Catholic university and town, Ave Maria, Florida, was broken in February 2006. A joint venture, where Monaghan is a 50 percent partner with Barron Collier developer, controls all of the town’s non-university real estate, and plans to build 11,000 homes and several business districts. To build most private homes, Pulte Homes has been signed up. Monaghan said in 2005 that the American Civil Liberties Union would not allow any town retailers to sell contraceptives or pornography, a statement that drew legal criticism.
Threatened with lawsuits, Monaghan and the developers went in March 2007 to retract the notion that Catholic doctrine could ever be enforced as a law on a national public relations campaign. Wildlife defenders also challenged the development, stating that it is destroying the endangered habitat of the Florida panth
Tom Monaghan Ave Maria Mutual Funds
By asking friend George P. Schwartz of Schwartz Investment Counsel, Inc. to launch the Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund in May 2001, Monaghan helped set up the Ave Maria Mutual Funds. Five Ave Maria Mutual Funds are now available. They are described as targeting investors who seek to invest their money in companies whose operations are consistent with the Catholic Church’s core teachings. The fund calls its shareholders “morally responsible investors.” With a minimum investment of $1,000, the funds are open to individual investors.
Monaghan is a Catholic Advisory Board member. The board sets the religious criteria that screen businesses before they invest in the funds. Some issues that disqualify a company from the fund are involvement with contraception, non-marital partner employee benefits, pornography, and abortion. The other members of the Catholic Advisory Board of the Funds are Lou Holtz, Larry Kudlow, Michael Novak, Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Roney. Cardinal Adam Maida (from the Detroit Archdiocese) is the ecclesiastical advisor to the board.
Tom Monaghan Legatus
In 1987 he helped form Legatus, an organization for Catholic CEOs of businesses earning more than $4 million a year to promote and support”… moral business ethics in accordance with the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings so that the lives of all can be enhanced.” The name for a legion commander was taken from the Latin word. Legatus was to serve “top-ranking Catholic business leaders” as a spiritual resource and social community.
Tom Monaghan Florida
In early 2002 Monaghan sought to establish the Ave Maria … new Catholic university and town, Ave Maria, Florida.
Tom Monaghan Gyrene Burger Company
In December 2011, by starting Gyrene Burger Company, Monaghan embarked on its second fast service restaurant brand. The concept of the military-themed burger delivery was a throwback to the U.S. days of Monaghan. Marines. The term “Gyrene” was used as a nickname for Marines in the 1940s and 1950s. Monaghan provided franchise incentives at Gyrene Burger to eligible Marines and other military branches veterans. Before moving to Knoxville, TN, the brand’s flagship store was located in Naples, FL. As of August 2018, no locations are in operation.
Tom Monaghan Frank Lloyd Wright
Monaghan is an admirer of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the headquarters of the Domino in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan resembles Wright’s larger-scale Prairie School architecture. The address of 24 Frank Lloyd Wright Drive’s headquarters also shows the admiration of Monaghan. He was one of the leading collectors of Wright artifacts, including a table and chairs in the oak dining room for which he paid $1.6 million. He bought a part of Drummond Island in Michigan, where he created a private resort complex with Wright-style buildings and later sold it to Clifton Haley and Denny Bailey.
Tom Monaghan Book
Tom Monaghan Leisure
A lavish lifestyle was enabled by the wealth Monaghan accumulated from Domino’s Pizza. After reading C’s passage, though. S. Lewis on pride (from Mere Christianity) divested Monaghan of most of his most ostentatious possessions, including the 1992 Detroit Tigers. At Domino’s headquarters, he gave up his lavish office suite, full of leather-tiled floors and a range of expensive Frank Lloyd Wright furnishings, turning it into a corporate reception room. He also stopped building a huge mansion inspired by Wright to be his home. (The house is still half finished.)
Tom Monaghan Detroit Tigers
Monaghan bought the Detroit Tigers in 1983, who a year later won the World Series. He became close to Major League Baseball Commissar Bowie Kuhn, who remained a close friend, business partner, and participant in his many philanthropic work. In 1992, Monaghan finally sold the Tigers to his Little Caesar’s Pizza competitor Mike Ilitch. His 1986 autobiography was called Pizza Tiger, combining his passion for pizza and baseball. Monaghan made the decision to fire legendary broadcaster Ernie Harwell, which was much maligned and eventually reversed.
Tom Monaghan Contacts
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