Photos by Jennifer Weisbord

The Brothers
Wittenberg

From West
Bloomfield to
Wall Street,
there's no grass
growing under
their feet.

10/31

1997

88

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN
Staff Writer

hings have certainly
changed for Jeff and Ken
Wittenberg.
The West Bloomfield
duo used to run their own car-parking
business at local country clubs. They
now spend their days and nights on
Wall Street, turning profits for clients
around the world.
It started when Jeff was 16. He
bought his first share of stock from a
broker who basically pulled a fast one
— "I didn't think he had my best
interests in mind," Jeff recalls nine
years later.
Why did a suburban teen have an
interest in the stock market? Simply,
"the money that you can make," says
Jeff, who can't even remember what
stock he purchased.

Says Ken, 28, "Basically, I've always
Today, he remembers every single
enjoyed building things." He was the
share. The brothers work together as
main proprietor, along with his broth-
retail stockbrokers in Manhattan and
ers (the third is currently studying in
travel the globe in an effort to give a
Jerusalem),
of Classic Valet Parking
bit of personal touch to their growing
Systems, parking cars at
clientele.
Franklin Hills and Tam-0-
The
Some months, they travel
Wittenberg
Shanter country clubs.
every week, while others are
brothers, by
"I realized through being
more home-bound. The idea is
the Wall Street in that business that being
to meet face-to-face with
bull. A fore- able to make money for peo-
clients, to build confidence and
cast
of things ple and build their financial
relationships.
to
come?
stability — really building
"You have to have a broker
somebody a better standard of
who is going to look at your
life — you can do that through this
situation, see what your goals are and
business," Ken says.
try and meet your goals, not his
So why can't the Brothers
goals," says Joseph Gallodoro, a client
Wittenberg do that from the suburbs
of the Wittenbergs' from Chalmette,
of Detroit?
La. He says the Wittenbergs look out
"Because in Wall Street, you meet
for his personal goals. "My personal
some of the sharpest, smartest,
account is up over 110 percent — I've
brightest young people that you
been with [them] a little less than a
could possibly be in touch with in
year."

