WOW, look what I found!!!I did a quick google search on Peter Karmanos and this is what I found. He's more than your average buisnessman. He's a philanthropist with a penchant for cancer research and for good reason. Well done AHX! This is a major coup for this company! Good things are on their way!
Regards,DH ...
Peter Karmanos Jr.
Occupation: Chairman of Compuware Corp.
Why honored: Karmanos, who recently announced plans to move his company headquarters downtown, created an internationally recognized cancer center and supports a wide range of causes.
He’s a team player for anything that benefits the city
The death of longtime Detroit restaurateur Peter Karmanos Sr. left his namesake son with a nagging sense of unfinished business.
“I felt I didn’t do all the things or say all the things that I wanted to,” recalls Peter Karmanos Jr., the chairman and chief executive of the fast-growing Compuware Corp. “He had been in the hospital with heart problems and he was supposed to be released, but he passed away. I always felt something was missing. I didn’t close the loop.”
So when Karmanos’ first wife, Barbara Ann, was dying from cancer, Karmanos had time to think about the three sons they had raised and the legacy that he wanted to leave in her name. In her memory, he gave $15 million in 1995 to create the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in the Detroit Medical Center, which has become an internationally recognized research and treatment center.
“I just thought this was the right thing to do and I did it,” says Karmanos, whose gifts to the institute now total more than $26 million.
It was characteristic of Karmanos to give of his resources to a cause in the Metro Detroit community. As his company’s success has grown, so has his involvement in activities such as youth hockey, the arts, the redevelopment of downtown Detroit and cancer research.
“Thank god for Peter Karmanos,” said Betty Wolf of Chicago. “I never met the man and I don’t need to know that he helped make the world a better place. I watched my friend who lived in Detroit go through the final ravages of breast cancer. She always told me how great it was to go to the institute, how wonderful the people were. It was like an oasis.”
Karmanos, 56, was born and raised in Detroit and has never spent more than three or four weeks at a time outside of the state. His father ran Pete’s Coney Island on Lahser Road in northwest Detroit, and Peter Jr. went on to attend Wayne State University.
He and two friends created Compuware in 1973 when they pooled their income-tax refunds. The Farmington Hills company, which provides software and other technological services, has since grown to 10,000 employees, $1.5 billion in annual revenues and an annual growth rate of about 30 percent. It is the largest technology company based in Michigan, and recently announced plans to relocate to downtown Detroit.
Karmanos and his second wife Debra are active with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Oakland County Special Olympics, the Judson Center and HAVEN, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. They are also both involved in Race for the Cure, which raises money for cancer research nationwide.
Karmanos says his recent negotiations to move his headquarters to downtown Detroit has been motivated by “business reasons.” It is clear, however, that his roots in the community and his interest in helping to revitalize his hometown are also on his mind.
“I’m a very loyal person,” he says. “I’m a guy who used to look on the back of baseball cards, and if they were born in Detroit they were my favorite players.”
A lot of people feel that way about Karmanos, too. It wasn’t just that he was born in Detroit, but that he stuck around and gave something back.
— Jon Pepper
Copyright © 1999, The Detroit News