Michael Poris, princi-
pal of McIntosh Poris
Associates, is the 2022
recipient of the Charles
Blessing Award, presented
by the Detroit Chapter of
the American Institute of
Architects. In an official statement about
the award, AIA Detroit said, “Michael
Poris, AIA, has been working to imple-
ment change in his hometown of Detroit
for 27 years. Under his design lead-
ership, McIntosh Poris Associates has
been transforming communities through
architecture, interior and urban design
throughout the region.”
Matt Friedman of
West Bloomfield,
co-founder of
Tanner Friedman
Strategic
Communications
in Farmington
Hills, was inducted into the Public
Relations Society of America
(PRSA) – Detroit Chapter’s Hall
of Fame. He also chairs the
Detroit Regional Chamber’s PR/
Marketing Advisory Council and
serves on the board of advisers
for the ChadTough Defeat DIPG
Foundation.
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B I R M I N G H A M
30 | DECEMBER 8 • 2022
T
he Foon family’s scrap
metal business was a one-
man operation when it
began during the 1930s. According
to Michael Foon, his late great-
grandfather, Louis Foon, rode
a horse and buggy to Detroit
manufacturing plants to collect
oily rags and metal scraps, which
he then sold to scrap dealers. By
the 1940s, Michael Foon explains,
scrap recycling had expanded to
serve the war effort that required
metal of all types.
“It was two men (his father
Steven and late grandfather Eddie)
and a truck until 1999 — the year
my grandfather died,
” Foon says.
Their scrap purchases were
limited to what the truck could
hold. In 2000, his father bought
land for a scrap yard in Sterling
Heights, which enabled them to
store, process and sell scrap to
other companies. Michael, now
president of Admiral Metals LLC,
joined the business in 2007 and his
brother Steven followed in 2009.
Today, the company acquires
scrap metal from manufacturing
plants and demolition sites
located primarily in tri-county
Family-Owned Admiral
Metals Evolves for 90 Years
From horse and buggy to scrap metal recycling yard.
SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Michael and
Elliot Foon
60-YEAR-OLD+ BUSINESSES
Shaya Baum, found-
er & CEO, Wing Lake
Capital Partners LLC, was
named the Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year
Michigan and Northwest
Ohio and is a finalist for
the national award. Shaya works with
companies that are undergoing finan-
cial and operational peril, including
those dealing with predatory merchant
cash advance loans. Over the past few
years, he has been able to save many
companies from going bankruptcy and
liquidation while saving thousands of
jobs in the process.