58 | NOVEMBER 14 • 2019 

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B I R M I N G H A M

here’s to

business SPOTlight

Gov. Gretchen Whitmenr 
installed appointees on the 
Michigan Strategic Fund 
Board of Directors. The board 
approves tax incentives 
for business development 
projects managed by the 
quasi-governmental Michigan 
Economic development 
Corp. Among those installed 
was Charles Rothstein of 
Farmington Hills. He is the 
founder and senior managing 
director for the private equity 
firm Beringea LLC.

‘It’s Been a Good Run’

Retiring clothier Ron Elkus looks ahead 
to volunteer work and travel.

SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
R

on Elkus, owner of 
the popular Shirt Box 
men’
s clothing store, 
will miss some aspects of 
his retail life when he retires 
early in 2020. But mostly he 
is grateful for the relation-
ships he has built 
with customers 
and for their loy-
alty to him during 
the past 38 years.
When his plans 
to close The 
Shirt Box were 
announced, Elkus, who is 
60 and a Huntington Woods 
resident, was shocked and 
surprised at the reaction of 
his customers. “I was over-
whelmed by the response. 
They sent flowers, cakes and 
gift certificates. The store is 
being eulogized,” Elkus says.
Customers clearly appre-
ciate his approach to retail, 
which he describes as “ser-
vice, price sensitivity and 

relationships.” Some of those 
customer relationships extend 
over multiple generations.
When one of his customers 
heard about Elkus’
 retire-
ment, he expressed regret 
because “I really wanted to 
bring my grandson here.”
Elkus’
 retail career began in 
1981, soon after college grad-
uation, when he opened a 
store selling shirts and ties in 
a small house in Southfield. 
Over the years, he expanded 
his merchandise to include 
virtually all components of a 
man’
s wardrobe from shoes 
and jeans to dress shirts 
and outerwear. The Shirt 
Box moved to a much larger 
location on Northwestern 
Highway in Farmington Hills 
in 1987. 
As customer needs and 
habits changed, so did The 
Shirt Box. “Casual Friday 
became casual every day,” he 
says. Today 60 to 65 percent 

of his customers buy business 
or dressy clothes compared to 
90 to 95 percent in the past. 
Customers range in age from 
30 to 70 and come from all 
over the Detroit area.
While Elkus added an 
online presence, 95 percent 
of sales occur in the store. 
“Customers say they love 
the brick and mortar. People 
want those relationships,” he 
says.
Elkus is pleased that the 
store has continued to do well 
but several reasons inspired 
him to retire. He cites the 
death of his longtime busi-
ness partner, Rod Brown, last 
year, and the upcoming end 
of the store’
s lease.
“I’
ve had a good run and 

I’
m healthy,” Elkus says. 
Owning the store made it 
harder to travel and that will 
be one of his priorities after 
early 2020, the planned clos-
ing date.
He is training for anoth-
er charity cycling event for 
Make a Wish. Elkus has par-
ticipated in its three-day, 300-
mile course for nine years 
and promoted the event at 
The Shirt Box.
Elkus has worked with 
multiple organizations to help 
a wide range of people in 
the Jewish and general com-
munities. The Shirt Box has 
donated clothes to Jackets for 
Jobs — a program to “suit-
up” low-income job appli-
cations for job interviews. 

Ron Elkus

Ron Elkus shows 
dress shirts to cus-
tomer Tony Bordoley.

COURTESY OF CATALYST MEDIA

The Michigan Chapter of the American College 
of Physicians has presented Jack D. Sobel, 
M.D., dean of the Wayne State University School 
of Medicine, with its Lifetime Achievement 
Award, which is presented to a member who 
has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the 
organization of internists. Sobel has also served WSU as chair 
of Internal Medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious 
Diseases. He is a distinguished professor of Internal Medicine.

U.S. Air Force Air National Guard Airman Dylan 
M. Froling graduated from basic military 
training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in 
San Antonio, Texas. He completed an intensive 
eight-week program. Froling is the son of Tom 
and Kylee Froling of Beverly Hills.

Ben Falik has been named 
chief program officer at Jewish 
Family Service. Falik is current-
ly the principal of Do-ocracy, 
a consultancy that provides 
project management, public 
speaking and freelance writing for social 
impact initiatives and institutions. Before that, 
he was the corporate social responsibility 
lead for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, directing 
its national volunteer program. He was Repair 
the World’
s first Detroit director and, as a 
college student, he was a founder of Summer 
in the City, a nonprofit organization that, since 
2002, has changed the impact that volunteers 
have on Detroit and that Detroit has on volun-
teers. Falik also writes the “Jewfro” column 
for the Jewish News.

