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43700 Woodward Avenue – Suite 208
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302
248-481-2100
Stanley
Winkelman
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Valet Service
Jeff Stewart
Assistant New Car Sales Manager
Serving the Community Since 1969
248-636-2736
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Serving Our Community For Over 45 Years!
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July 5 • 2018
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NEW DETROIT’S HISTORY
New Detroit was formed in response to Detroit’s 1967 civil disorder,
which is also described as a riot or rebellion. At the time, African-
Americans comprised 40 percent of Detroit’s population but had
minimal representation in the city’s leadership; its fire and police
departments were almost all white. Housing discrimination and
police brutality again African Americans were common. Similar con-
ditions existed in other American cities and some of these were also
the scenes of confrontation and bloodshed.
In Detroit, the five days of violence resulted in the death of 43
individuals, more than 300 injuries and the destruction of more than
1,000 buildings. Immediately after the city was calm, Michigan Gov.
George Romney and Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh asked busi-
ness executive Joseph L. Hudson Jr. to convene a coalition of local
leaders of business, labor unions, community and civic organiza-
tions, government, and academic and religious institutions “to find
possible ways to improve the lives of our citizens.” Their mission
was to identify what went wrong in July 1967, what needed to
change and how to make that change happen.
Since then, New Detroit Inc. has been a valuable forum where
Detroit-area leaders come Ftogether to listen and learn from each
other, developing relationships and working together. Such commu-
nication and cooperation seem obvious today but were not in 1967.
New Detroit has incubated and helped start some of the region’s
most important nonprofit organizations: the Detroit Economic
Growth Corporation and Wayne County Community College.
The nation’s first urban coalition encouraged government agen-
cies and employers to expand opportunities for minority residents
and treat all citizens fairly. In addition, New Detroit has provided
financial and organizational resources to community-based groups,
especially those working with minority groups.
In 1996, under the leadership of Chairman Thomas Jeffs II and
its late President William Beckham Jr., New Detroit’s mission was
revised: “To work as the coalition of Detroit-area leaders addressing
the issue of race relations by positively impacting issues and poli-
cies that ensure economic and social equity.” Today, New Detroit’s
website states that it “is a coalition of leaders working to achieve
racial understanding and racial equity in Metropolitan Detroit.”
at the Department of Energy, where
she worked for Secretary of Energy Dr.
Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning
physicist.
“Our goal was to develop a business
strategy to get solar energy to the price
of coal by 2020. It’s happening,” Stewart
says. “I grew up outdoors so how can
you not be concerned about the Earth’s
sustainability?” She says her father got
the family involved in camping when
she was young and she canoes, hikes,
runs, swims and cycles. She attended
the “more rustic” Camp Tamarack expe-
riencesand she wishes city kids had the
chance to experience the woods.
Stewart had thought about starting
an energy-related company but decided
she needed more business experience
and could gain that from her parents,
Barbara and Steven, top executives at
Gardner-White. Stewart returned to
Michigan in 2012, and they now share
management responsibilities for the
company, which was started in 1912.
Her grandfather, Irwin Kahn, joined
the company during the 1950s and
then began major expansion in Metro
Detroit. A photo of the original Detroit
store is on the wall outside her office.
While Stewart says that working in a
family-owned and family-run business
has some challenges, she knows “there
are two people who always have my
back and who I can trust.”
Her sister, Beth, is a physician in Salt
Lake City. Their grandmother, Ruth, was
the first woman executive at Gardner-
White. “She would have been an engi-
neer in a different age,” Stewart says.
When Stewart first started working
at Gardner-White, she would hear some
employees talk about customer service
issues as a “source;” they had extrapo-
lated from Grandmother Ruth’s Yiddish
description of tsouris, meaning trouble.
Her own business style is informal,
and she cites her father’s admonition to
her and her sister, “Don’t take yourselves
too seriously.” Stewart’s dog, Trone, a
mixed-beagle named after her paternal
grandfather who was an Olympic swim-
mer, sometime joins her at work.
Stewart focuses on the company’s
sales and merchandising and has initi-
ated energy conservation measures to
reduce energy use and costs. Renewable
applies to more than energy at Gardner-
White. Stewart is involved in the com-
pany’s partnerships with such nonprof-
its as Humble Design, which furnishes
homes for previously homeless families,
and works with the Salvation Army and
COTS. When Gardner-White delivers
new furniture to customers, the compa-
ny can help deliver the old furniture if it
is being donated to the Salvation Army.
Besides the New Detroit chairman-
ship, Stewart will have another new
responsibility this year — she and
her husband, Brian, a physician, are
expecting their first child. They live
in Birmingham and belong to Temple
Israel. •