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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here’s to

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. 

