Thomas Stephen "Tom" Monaghan (born March 25, 1937 in
Ann Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. It is the state's seventh largest city with a population of 114,024 as of the 2000 Census, of which 36,892 are university or college students...
) is an
entrepreneurAn entrepreneur is a person who has possession of an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. It is an ambitious leader who combines land, labor, and capital to often create and market new goods or services. ... The term is a loanword...
and
CatholicThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
philanthropistA philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
who founded
Domino's PizzaDomino's Pizza, Inc. is an international fast food pizza delivery corporation headquartered just outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Tom Monaghan. There are currently about 8,500 corporate and franchised stores in 55 countries, including all 50 US states...
in 1960. He owned the
Detroit TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in . The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant 10 times...
from 1983-1992.
Monaghan sold Domino's in 1998 and has subsequently dedicated his time and considerable fortune to Catholic philanthropy and political causes. A champion of the
pro-lifeThe pro-life movement is a political and social movement focused chiefly around opposition to abortion, and especially support for the criminalization of abortion. Those involved in the movement generally maintain that human fetuses and embryos are persons, and that therefore they have a right to...
cause, Monaghan has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on philanthropy and activism, which has garnered both appreciation and criticism.
He and his wife, Marjorie Zybach, were married in 1962 and have four adult daughters.
Early life
After his father died when Monaghan was four years old, Monaghan's mother had difficulties raising him alone, and at age six, in 1943, Monaghan and his younger brother ended up in an orphanage until their mother collected them again in 1949. The orphanage, St. Joseph Home for Children in
Jackson, MichiganJackson is a city located along Interstate 94 in the south central area of the U.S. state of Michigan, about west of Ann Arbor. It is the county seat of Jackson County. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 36,316...
, was run by the
Felician SistersThe Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice, or Felician Sisters, are one branch of the Third Order of St. Francis. The active-contemplative order was founded in Warsaw, Poland, in 1843, by Sophia Truszkowska, and named for a shrine of St. Felix, a 16th century Franciscan saint especially devoted to...
of
LivoniaLivonia is a city in the northwest part of Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Livonia is a very large suburb with an array of traditional neighborhoods connected to the metropolitan area by freeways. The population was 100,545 at the 2000 census...
; the nuns there inspired his devotion to the Catholic faith and he later entered a minor seminary, with the desire to eventually become a priest. Subsequently, he was expelled from the seminary for a series of disciplinary infractions.
In 1956 Monaghan enlisted in the
United States Marine CorpsThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States armed forces responsible for providing force projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
by mistake; he had meant to join the
ArmyThe United States Army is the branch of the United States Military responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military and is one of seven uniformed services...
. He received an honorable discharge in 1959.
Domino's Pizza
Monaghan returned to
Ann Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. It is the state's seventh largest city with a population of 114,024 as of the 2000 Census, of which 36,892 are university or college students...
in 1959, and enrolled in the
University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
, intending to become an architect. While still a student, he and his brother James borrowed $500 to purchase a small pizza store called DomiNick's in
Ypsilanti, MichiganYpsilanti is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 22,362...
. This business would, after a lawsuit from Domino's Sugar, grow into
Domino's PizzaDomino's Pizza, Inc. is an international fast food pizza delivery corporation headquartered just outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Tom Monaghan. There are currently about 8,500 corporate and franchised stores in 55 countries, including all 50 US states...
. Tom, after opening a further three stores, traded his brother James a
Volkswagen BeetleThe Volkswagen Type 1 is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003. It used an air cooled rear engined rear wheel drive ....
for his half of the business. Monaghan dropped sub sandwiches from the menu and focussed on delivery to college campuses, inventing a new insulated pizza box to improve delivery. The new box, unlike its chipboard predecessors, could be stacked without squishing the pizzas inside, permitting more pizzas per trip, and keeping them warm until they arrived. Spreading his model to other college towns through a tightly-controlled
franchisingFranchise generally means a right or privilege. It may refer to:......*Suffrage, the civil right to vote*Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business, such as:...
system, by the mid-1980s there were nearly three new Domino's franchises opening every day.
Monaghan returned to Domino's in 1991 after its fortunes worsened and helped the company recover. The
National Organization for WomenThe National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members and 5987 chapters in all 50 U.S...
(NOW) called for a boycott of Domino's because of his views, but it is unclear what effect, if any, that had on the company's sales. He sold his controlling stake in Domino's Pizza in 1998 to Bain Capital, an investment firm based in Boston, for an estimated $1 billion.
Leisure
The wealth Monaghan amassed from Domino's Pizza enabled a lavish lifestyle. However after reading a passage by
C. S. LewisClive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist...
on pride (from
Mere ChristianityMere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II...
), Monaghan divested himself of most of his more ostentatious possessions, including the
Detroit TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in . The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant 10 times...
in 1992. He gave up his lavish office suite at Domino's headquarters, replete with leather-tiled floors and an array of expensive Wright furnishings, turning it into a corporate reception room. He also ceased construction on a huge Wright-inspired mansion that was to be his home. (The house remains half-finished.)
Detroit Tigers
In 1983, Monaghan bought the
Detroit TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in . The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant 10 times...
, who won the
World SeriesThe 1984 World Series began on October 9 and ended on October 14, 1984. The American League champion Detroit Tigers played against the National League champion San Diego Padres, with the Tigers winning the series four games to one....
a year later. He became close to Major League Baseball commissioner
Bowie KuhnBowie Kent Kuhn was an American lawyer and sports administrator who served as the 5th commissioner of Major League Baseball from February 4, to September 30, . He served as legal counsel for Major League Baseball owners for almost 20 years prior to his election as commissioner...
, who remained a close friend, business associate and participant in his many philanthropic works. Monaghan ultimately sold the Tigers to his competitor
Mike IlitchMichael "Mike" Ilitch Sr. , is an entrepreneur and owner of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers. In addition to his sports ownerships, he is the founder and owner of Little Caesars Pizza since 1959, which has become an international fast food franchise...
of
Little Caesar's PizzaLittle Caesars is a pizza chain, estimated to be the 4th largest in the United States. However the company claims to be the largest carry-out pizza chain in the world.-History:...
in 1992. Combining his passion for pizza and baseball, his 1986 autobiography was titled
Pizza Tiger.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Monaghan is a fan of
Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500 completed works....
's architecture, and the Domino's headquarters in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan strongly resembles Wright's
Prairie SchoolPrairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
architecture adapted to a larger scale. He has been one of the foremost collectors of Wright artifacts, including an oak dining room table and chairs for which he paid $1.6 million. He even purchased a portion of
Drummond IslandDrummond Township is a civil township of Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 992 at the 2000 census.The township consists of Drummond Island, one of the largest islands in the St. Mary's River at the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and numerous nearby...
in Michigan, where he created a private resort complex featuring buildings designed in the style of Wright.
Other
Another of Monaghan's expensive passions has been automobiles, and for a time his collection included one of the world's six
Bugatti RoyaleThe Bugatti Type 41, better known as the Royale, was a large luxury car with a 4.3 m wheelbase and 6.4 m overall length...
s, for which he paid $8.1 million in 1986. He later sold the car for $8 million.
In the early 1990s he also built a mission in a Honduras mountain town, and funded and supervised the construction of a
new cathedralThe Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception , referred to as the New Cathedral , is located in Managua, Nicaragua...
in
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
,
NicaraguaNicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km
2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of...
, after the
old cathedralThe Old Cathedral of Managua is a cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua.It was designed in, and shipped from Belgium in 1920. The cathedral survived the 1931 earthquake but was extremely damaged due to the 1972 earthquake and was condemned, which led to the construction of the new cathedral of Managua,...
was destroyed in a
1972 earthquakeThe 1972 Nicaragua earthquake was an earthquake that occurred at 12:29 a.m. local time on Saturday, December 23, 1972 in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. With a magnitude of 6.2, it occurred at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the center of the city. Within an hour after the main shock,...
.
Catholic philanthropy
Monaghan is a
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
with a particular interest in pro-life causes and the appointment of pro-life Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. He established or helped establish a number of Catholic organizations and Catholic educational establishments. In 1987 Monaghan received Holy Communion from
Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła served as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate; only Pope Pius IX served longer...
in his private papal chapel at the
VaticanThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and speaks for the whole Catholic...
. The orchestral
Ave Maria Mass, by composer Stephen Edwards, was commissioned by Monaghan "to express in music the spiritual commitment behind the founding of Ave Maria College and Ave Maria School of Law." This mass has now been dedicated by the composer to the victims of
September 11The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners...
. Monaghan publicly promotes daily attendance at
MassIn physics, mass commonly refers to any of three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent: inertial mass, active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass...
, daily recitation of the
rosaryThe Rosary or "garland of roses" is a popular and traditional Roman Catholic devotion. The term denotes both a set of prayer beads and the devotional prayer itself, which combines vocal prayer and meditation...
and frequent sacramental
confessionThe confession of one's sins is a religious practice important to many faiths, e.g., Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.- Christianity :...
. He has also committed to spending what remains of his $1 billion fortune on philanthropic endeavors.
Catholic organizations
In 1983 he established the Mater Christi Foundation, today known as the
Ave MariaAve Maria may refer to:*Ave Maria , the "Hail, Mary", a traditional Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox prayer calling for the intercession of Mary, the mother of JesusIn music:...
Foundation, to focus on Catholic education, Catholic media, community projects and other Catholic charities. In 1987 he helped form Legatus, an organization of Catholic business leaders to promote the ideals of the Catholic Church in society. The name was taken from the Latin word for
commander of a legion. Legatus was to serve as a spiritual resource and social community for "top-ranking Catholic business leaders".
His 1987 Vatican visit moved him so much he returned to the United States committed to promoting the Catholic faith. He soon established Ave Maria Radio, the Ave Maria List pro-life political action committee, and the
Thomas More Law CenterThe Thomas More Law Center is a conservative Christian, not-for-profit law center based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and active throughout the United States. Its stated goals are defending the religious freedom of Christians, restoring "time honored values" and protecting the sanctity of human life...
, a public interest law firm focused on defending the rights of Christians. The foundation donates resources to help alleviate poverty in Central and South America. In addition, his foundation established the
Spiritus Sanctus AcademiesSpiritus Sanctus Academies is a group of private schools based in southeastern Michigan teaching the Roman Catholic faith and regular classes founded by Thomas Monaghan and run by the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. Currently, there are two active schools...
. These elementary schools are administered by the
DominicanThe Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic in the early 13th century in France...
Sisters of Mary, Mother of the EucharistThe Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist is a Roman Catholic religious order that was started out of Pope John Paul II's call in Vita Consecrata. The community is part of the Dominican Order...
. This order of teaching sisters has benefited from Monaghan's philanthropy. In 10 years, it has grown rapidly, from 4 to 70 nuns.
The Ave Maria Foundation has subsequently fine-tuned its focus to higher education, and has established both a university and a law school. Along with that change in focus, many of the other non-profit entities that the Ave Maria Foundation established have become independent or are in the process of being weaned from Ave Maria Foundation grants. This narrowing of focus and the recent geographic re-alignment to Florida (see below) have ignited no small amount of controversy among those who share his religious convictions.
Ave Maria School of Law
The
Ave Maria School of LawAve Maria School of Law, a Roman Catholic law school, located in Naples, Florida, was founded in 1999. It received full accreditation by the American Bar Association in 2005...
, previously located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, opened its doors in 2000, and received full accreditation from the
American Bar AssociationThe American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
in 2005, the earliest possible date under ABA rules. The school was a dream of several professors from the
University of Detroit MercyUniversity of Detroit Mercy is a comprehensive university in Detroit, Michigan, United States, created in 1990. With origins dating from 1877, it is the largest Roman Catholic university in Michigan. UDM is one of the twenty-eight member Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the...
, who publicly left that institution when it allowed several
pro-choicePro-choice describes the political and ethical view that a woman should have complete control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy. This entails the guarantee of reproductive rights, which includes access to sexual education; access to safe and legal abortion,...
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 UniversityFranciscan University of Steubenville is a Catholic institution located in Steubenville, Ohio, 40 miles west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school was founded in 1946 by the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular. In 1974, Fr...
) to provide significant funding through his Ave Maria Foundation. Together they enlisted Bernard Dobranski, Dean at
The Catholic University of AmericaThe Catholic University of America , located in Northeast Washington, D.C., is the national university of the Roman Catholic Church and the only higher education institution founded by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops...
'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.
Faculty members have included conservative legal scholar and Supreme Court nominee Judge
Robert BorkRobert Heron Bork is an American legal scholar who has advocated the judicial philosophy of originalism. Bork formerly served as Solicitor General, acting Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...
. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scaliais an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan having previously served on the D.C. Circuit and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and teaching law at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago...
assisted in developing the school's curriculum, and the school's first annual Ave Maria Lecture was presented by Supreme Court Justice
Clarence ThomasClarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, having served since 1991. Justice Thomas is the second African American to serve on the nation's highest court, after Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom he succeeded.Thomas grew up in Georgia, and graduated from...
in 1999. The school's stated goal is to educate competent moral attorneys who will influence all aspects of the legal profession and advance
natural lawNatural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a...
theory. The Ave Maria Law School graduated its last Michigan class in Spring of 2009 and relocated to Naples, Florida permanently immediately thereafter.
Ave Maria College
As a step to fulfilling his dream of creating a new Catholic university, Monaghan founded
Ave Maria CollegeAve Maria University - Latin American Campus ' is a branch campus of Ave Maria University in Florida. It is located in the small town of San Marcos, Carazo, Nicaragua...
in Ypsilanti, Michigan. In various attempts to accelerate accreditation, Monaghan acquired
St. Mary's College of Orchard LakeSaint Mary's College, also known as St. Mary's College of Madonna University, is a college located in Orchard Lake Village, Michigan. St. Mary's College shares its campus with St. Mary's Preparatory and SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary. It is located on the former site of the Michigan Military...
and a campus in Nicaragua, renamed Ave Maria College of the Americas.
Due to lack of funding, the college, against faculty and student protests, closed in 2007. Although the college continued to operate in Ypsilanti, as promised, through the 2006/2007 academic year, the president told students that graduating from Ave Maria College meant receiving a substandard educational experience. Alternative funding was not secured to prevent the school's closure. St. Mary's College was sold and is now under the auspices of nearby
Madonna UniversityMadonna University is a private, non-profit, Catholic university located in suburban Livonia, Michigan, on the western perimeter of metropolitan Detroit. Conducted by the Felician Sisters, it has extension campuses in Southwest Detroit, Orchard Lake, Michigan Madonna University is a private,...
.
Ave Maria University, Florida
In early 2002 Monaghan sought to establish the
Ave Maria UniversityAve Maria University is a private university with a Roman Catholic character and liturgical tradition in southwest Florida, founded in 2003 by Tom Monaghan, Catholic philanthropist and retired founder of Domino's Pizza. Bishop Frank Dewane, the local Catholic ordinary, has endorsed the university...
in Ann Arbor, at Domino's Farms, the large corporate office park that he owned and leased to Domino's Pizza. The plans included a 250-foot
crucifixA crucifix is a cross with a representation of Jesus' body, or corpus. It is a principal symbol of the Christian religion...
- taller than the
Statue of LibertyThe Statue of Liberty , officially titled Liberty Enlightening the World , dedicated on October 28, 1886, is a monument commemorating the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, given to the United States by the people of France to represent the friendship...
. Local officials refused to approve the zoning change, forcing him to look elsewhere for a site. Eventually community leaders in Collier County, Florida, offered him a large undeveloped tract of land thirty miles east of
Naples, FloridaNaples is a city in Collier County, Florida, USA. As of 1 July 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 21,653. Naples is a principal city of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated total population of 315,839 on 1 July 2007...
to develop the university.
In February 2006, ground was broken for the new
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
university and town,
Ave Maria, FloridaAve Maria, Florida, United States is a planned college town currently under development in Collier County, near Immokalee and Naples. Local community and business leaders have partnered with the Ave Maria Foundation to create a new community that will have a new 5,000 student Roman Catholic...
. A joint venture, in which Monaghan is a 50% partner with developer Barron Collier, controls all non-university real estate in the town, and plans to build 11,000 homes and several business districts. Pulte Homes has been signed up to build most of the private homes. Monaghan said in 2005 that any town retailers would not be allowed to sell contraceptives or
pornographyPornography or porn is the depiction of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement.Over the past few decades, an immense industry for the production and consumption of pornography has grown, with the increasing use of the VCR, the DVD, and the Internet, as well as the...
, a statement which drew legal and moral criticism from the ACLU. Threatened with lawsuits, Monaghan and the developers went on a national PR campaign in March 2007 to retract the notion that Catholic doctrine could ever be enforced as law. Defenders of Wildlife has also challenged the development, stating it is destroying habitat of the endangered
Florida PantherThe Florida panther is a critically endangered representative of cougar that lives in the low tides, palm forests and swamps of southern Florida in the United States. Its current taxonomic status is unresolved...
.
Ave Maria Mutual Funds
Monaghan helped to establish the
Ave Maria Mutual FundsAve Maria Mutual Funds is a U.S. mutual fund family that targets clients interested in financially sound investments in companies that do not violate certain religious principles of the Roman Catholic Church...
by asking friend George P. Schwartz of Schwartz Investment Counsel, Inc. to launch the Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund in May 2001. There are now five Ave Maria Mutual Funds. They are described as targeted at investors seeking to place their money in companies whose operations are in keeping with the core teachings of the Catholic Church. The fund calls their shareholders "morally responsible investors." The funds are open to individual investors with a $1,000 minimum investment.
Monaghan is a member of the Catholic Advisory Board. The board sets the religious criteria that screen companies before the funds will invest in them. Involvement with contraception, non-marital partner employee benefits, pornography, and abortion are some issues that disqualify a company from the fund.
Lou HoltzLouis Leo "Lou" Holtz is a former football head coach. Currently an author, television commentator, and motivational speaker, Holtz is the only coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the final top 20 rankings...
, Larry Kudlow, Michael Novak, Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Roney are the other members of the Funds' Catholic Advisory Board. Cardinal Maida (of Detroit) is the board's ecclesiastic advisor.
External links