Thomas Monaghan

The entrepreneur and philanthropist Thomas S. Monaghan achieved enormous success as the Founder, Chairman and President of the Domino's Pizza chain, but he did not have an easy start in life. His father died when he was only four. His mother was unable to care for him alone, and Tom Monaghan spent ages six to 12 in a Catholic orphanage in Jackson, Michigan. Monaghan has credited the nuns of the orphanage for instilling in him the powerful faith that has animated his life and philanthropy. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, Monaghan was a student at the University of Michigan when he borrowed $500 to buy a small pizzeria in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Soon, he expanded the business to more locations, focusing his attention on delivery to college campuses. He invented a new, insulated pizza box that kept the pizzas warmer longer, and could be stacked without crushing the pizzas inside, allowing more deliveries per trip. By the 1980s, Domino's was the world's largest pizza delivery company and the second largest pizza chain in the country, with three new franchises opening almost every day. The success of Domino's enabled Thomas Monaghan to fulfill a childhood dream; he bought the Detroit Tigers baseball team in 1983, and saw them win the World Series the following season. At first, Monaghan used his riches to support a lavish lifestyle, but in the 1990s he began to divest himself of his personal possessions and devote more of his resources to Catholic charities, education and pro-life activism. Monaghan sold the Detroit Tigers in 1992, and in 1998, sold his controlling interest in Domino's Pizza to Boston-based Bain Capital, for a reported $1 billion. Monaghan founded the Ave Maria Foundation to fund Catholic education throughout the Americas; its projects include the Ave Maria Law School in Florida, and the Spiritus Sanctus Academies for elementary education in Central and South America. Among many other projects, he has paid for the building of a new cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua, to replace the old church, destroyed in an earthquake. Tom Monaghan addressed the Academy of Achievement at its 1984 Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shortly after his acquisition of the Detroit Tigers. In this audio podcast, Monaghan reflects on his experience building Domino's Pizza, and how he succeeded in business by making every possible mistake, and learning from his mistakes.