Max Fisher

Max Martin Fisher (July 15, 1908 – March 3, 2005) was an American businessman and philanthropist.

He was a benefactor/alumnus of the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University.

He spent much of his life raising money for philanthropic and political endeavors and was a supporter of charitable and civic organizations.

His diplomacy skill made him an advisor on Middle East and Jewish issues to every administration from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's to President George W. Bush's.

Fisher was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents and grew up in Salem, Ohio, where his father owned a clothing store.

He attended The Ohio State University on a football scholarship and graduated with a degree in business administration in 1930.

While a student at OSU, he was initiated into the Alpha Epsilon chapter of the Phi Beta Delta fraternity, which is now part of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.

In 1930, Fisher joined his father's Keystone Oil Refining Company, a motor oil reclamation business, in Detroit as a $15-a-week salesman before forming his own company in 1932.

In 1934, he married Sylvia Krell who died in 1952.

They had one child:

In 1953, he married Marjorie Faith Switow.

They had two children together:

Switow also had two children from her prior husband, George Allen Frehling, whom Fisher adopted:

Fisher has 15 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

He grew the business, Aurora Gasoline, into one of the largest gas station chains in the Midwest before selling the business in 1959 to Marathon Petroleum, after serving for 27 years as its chair.

Following the sale of Aurora to Marathon Petroleum for $40 million, Fisher invested his fortune in real estate after retiring from business in 1963 where he sat on the board of Comerica, the consumer and investment bank, Sotheby's, and United Brands, in addition to serving as the Honorary Chairman of United Jewish Communities (UJC), Council of Jewish Federations, and the American Jewish Committee.

He supported Jewish and general causes worldwide and played a major role in almost every major Jewish communal organization.

He was also the subject of articles, debates, TV documentaries, and a biography, entitled Quiet Diplomat by Peter Golden.

For decades Fisher also served as a trusted advisor to U.S. presidents and Israeli prime ministers, rallying for causes from the Six-Day War to Ethiopian Jewry.

By quietly forging new ties between Washington and Jerusalem, he pioneered a new era in American Jewish activism and politics and was considered the elder statesman of North American Jewry.

He was a delegate from Michigan at the 1964, 1968, and 1976 Republican National Conventions, and an alternate in the 1988 Republican National Convention.

In Detroit, Fisher backed the $60 million Max. M. Fisher Music Center, which serves as the home for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and includes a public high school for the performing arts center called The Max.

Fisher served as national chairman of UJC's predecessor organizations, the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) from 1965 to 1967; president of the Council of Jewish Federations from 1969 to 1972; and chairman of the United Israel Appeal, Inc. (UIA) from 1968 to 1971; and president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit from 1959 to 1964.

In addition to being honorary chair of UJC, he was founding chairman of the board of governors of UJC's overseas partner, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI).

He was also active in the American Jewish Committee, B'nai B'rith International, and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Fisher was married twice:

Jimmy Carter invited him to watch the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1977.

In 1977, he joined with Taubman and Henry Ford II to buy the 73000 acre Irvine Ranch south of Los Angeles for $337 million; Fisher's group would sell the property six years later for an estimated $1 billion.

He also leveraged around $20 million to finance Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business for development of a new six-building business campus that opened in 1998.

In 2004, Max Fisher had amassed a net worth of $775 million.

At 96, he was the oldest member of the Forbes 400.

Max Fisher's papers are available for public research at the Walter P. Reuther Library in Detroit, Michigan.

The library's website explains that, "This large collection documents Fisher's life and career as a successful Detroit industrialist and investor, influential Republican Party fundraiser and power broker, Jewish community leader, and major philanthropist. It includes correspondence, documents, speeches, interviews, photographs and other media, and documents from his biographer."

An additional pledge of $5 million was given to the Fisher College of Business in February 2005 to support Master of Business Administration programs.

He died March 3, 2005, at about 11:30 am in his home in Franklin, Michigan, surrounded by family and is interred at the Clover Hill Park Cemetery in Birmingham, Michigan.

Fisher financed the schooling of his nephew Stephen M. Ross, who called him, "the most important role model and inspiration for me in life".

In March 2006, a male chapter of BBYO was founded by 12 young men from the state of Michigan with the name of Max Fisher AZA (AZA standing for Aleph Zadik Aleph, the male sector of the organization).

Following the foundation, the chapter was officially recognized by the Fisher Foundation in early April.

The chapter's charter number is #337.

Since Fisher's charter in 2006, the chapter has flourished at the chapter, regional, and international level.