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life would unwind.”

CAREER PATH

Applebaum decided to follow his older
brother, Leonard, and become a pharmacist.
“I was thinking at first of going into law,
but my parents convinced me that I could
always do law after I finished pharmacy,”
he said in his oral history. “Pharmacy was
a more guaranteed profession where you
could make a guaranteed income and you
could get a job.
“It was a five-year class. I started in
1955 and graduated in 1960. I worked
three years for an independent drug store,
Merrill Drug at Puritan and Greenfield,
for Sam Perlstein, a very nice man, a very
smart man. Then I opened Civic Drugs
[in 1963], which was at Michigan and
Greenfield.”
From then on, he continued opening
stores. In 1974, all the stores were renamed
Arbor Drugs. From 1974-1986, he went
public with 50 stores under the Arbor
Drugs Inc. umbrella.
The growing drugstore chain was known
for its exceptional quality and outstanding
employees, many of whom would eventual-
ly take stock in the company as a reflection
of their confidence and pride in the busi-
ness. Arbor was named by Drug Store News
as “Regional Chain of the Year” multiple
times, and Applebaum was acknowledged
as a “CEO of the Year” by Financial World
magazine.
When Applebaum sold the chain in
March 1998 to CVS Corp. for $1.48 billion,
he had 208 stores.
“I loved what I did. I loved being
involved,” he said in the oral history. “I
chose all the Arbor locations; I signed
every one of the leases. At the end, we had
9,000 employees. I never had a layoff … We
kept growing and we built up a wonderful
organization.
“It’s almost a classic story of rags to
riches, so to speak,” Applebaum said. “It’s a
good Horatio Alger story — somebody who
started with one drug store and ended up
with a monster company. CVS wanted des-
perately to come into Michigan and, really,
I controlled Michigan at that time with a
50 percent market share, and the only way
they could bust in was to buy somebody
like me.
“It was a very exciting time; I had a won-
derful ride, but I’m glad I sold it at that
time. As it turned out, it was a very smart
time to sell it.”

PHILANTHROPY & LEADERSHIP

Following the sale, Applebaum was able
to focus more time on philanthropy in the
Jewish and general communities, much of
it focused on healthcare, education, the
arts and giving back to the Jewish commu-
nity that had given him so much.
Applebaum said it best himself:
“Philanthropy is part and parcel of life.

PHOTOS COURTESY LEONARD N. SIMONS JEWISH COMMUNITY ARCHIVES

continued from page 10

First you take care of your family, then your
community. Then you help the nation and
the world. This is more than an obligation.
It is a privilege.”
Beneficiaries of Eugene and Marcia
Applebaum’s decades-long legacy of sup-
port have included WSU, University of
Michigan and its entrepreneurial pro-
grams, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Symphony Orchestra, Michigan Opera
Theatre, Beaumont Health, the Mayo Clinic
and the Weizmann Institute of Science in
Israel, Tamarack Camps and many more.
They made a $5 million gift to his alma

mater, Wayne State University. The dona-
tion helped fund construction of the
Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy
and Health Sciences building, which
opened in 2002.
“I enjoyed going to Wayne; it was an
important place for an education for
people who couldn’t afford a lot of things,
but they gave you a great education in the
city of Detroit, and I think it is still a major
jewel in Detroit,” he said in his oral history.
“When the opportunity came, when they
were looking to get a better pharmacy col-
lege, I became part of it through President

continued on page 14

12

December 21 • 2017

jn

TOP: Fisher Meeting, 1999:
Eugene Applebaum, David
Hermelin and Max Fisher.
BOTTOM LEFT-RIGHT:
Applebaum, 1987.
Applebaumn received
Federation's Butzel Award
in 2013; he is with his wife,
Marcia, and daughters,
Pamela and Lisa. Applebaum,
2008.

