Michael Ilitch

Mike Ilitch was a once-in-a-generation entrepreneur and champion for Detroit.

He and his wife, Marian, invested their family savings in 1959 to open the first Little Caesars store in Garden City, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. That single mom-and-pop pizza shop grew into the largest carryout pizza chain in the world, with restaurants in 23 countries and territories across the globe. The success of the business was built upon the exceptional quality and value of the Little Caesars menu and Mike's marketing savvy and imaginative ideas in production.

The growth of Little Caesars helped Mike and Marian create other leading brands in the food, sports and entertainment industries.

The couple purchased the Detroit Red Wings in 1982. While the team was known as the Dead Wings at the time, Mike and Marian believed they were a sleeping giant and immediately took charge to turn the team around. By 1997, the Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup in 42 years, and they went on to win three more. Four Stanley Cup parades held along Woodward Avenue in Detroit attracted hundreds of thousands of people, many from the suburbs who had not been to downtown Detroit in decades. Detroit became known as Hockeytown and brought a sense of pride to the area's hockey fans and the community as a whole.