Peter Karmanos Jr.
Peter Karmanos Jr. is the co-founder and former Chairman and CEO of Compuware Corporation, an enterprise software and services company, and founder of and General Partner and Fund Manager of MadDog Ventures. Karmanos is also the minority owner and alternate governor of the Carolina Hurricanes hockey franchise. He served as their principal owner from 1994 to 2018. He also owned the Plymouth Whalers junior hockey club from its establishment in 1990 until 2015, and was the majority owner of the Florida Everblades from 1998 to 2019.
Early life
The oldest of three children, Karmanos Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan to Greek immigrant parents who owned a small restaurant in Detroit called "Pete's", where Karmanos waited tables during his high school years. In 1961, Karmanos graduated from Henry Ford High School and would go on to attend Wayne State University. While attending Wayne State University, Karmanos landed an entry-level job at Mechanical Mailing, helping run the company's new installed IBM mainframe computer. Shortly thereafter, he would be promoted to senior systems analyst. In 1965, Karmanos took a job as a data processing manager at Giffels & Rosetti, a Detroit architectural firm. He would later become vice president of a Minneapolis-based firm, Technalysis, managing its Detroit office.Compuware Corporation
In 1973, Karmanos and partners, Thomas Thewes and Allen Cutting, each contributed $3,000 in startup money to found software company Compuware Corporation, with the simple mission to "help people do productive things with computers." In 1977, Compuware launched its flagship software product, Abend-AID, a mainframe productivity tool that helped businesses reduce the time and cost associated with running their IT operations. Along with File-AID, a file and data management tool released in 1981 and the company’s thousands of professional services employees, Abend-AID would be used by countless companies around the world across every industry to solve their Y2K issues by programmatically finding and fixing Y2K-related date issues in hundreds of millions of lines of mainframe computer code.With the rise of distributed computing systems and the Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Compuware would expand its solution portfolio to help customers build, test, and manage business applications hosted in these new environments. The company would be known globally as a leading provider of software productivity tools for enterprise-level IT organizations, becoming the largest technology firm in Michigan and one of the largest software companies in the world.
Compuware went public in December of 1992 at $22 per share under the ticker symbol “CPWR,” setting a then record for a tech IPO by raising $207 million. Over the next 15 months, Compuware’s share price would rise to $47 and would reach $79.81 per share in 1999 during the boom of the Y2K era. At its height in the early 2000s, Compuware achieved annual revenues of greater than $2 billion with a market cap exceeding $15 billion.
In 2003, Karmanos moved Compuware’s headquarters from Farmington Hills, Michigan to downtown Detroit on the long-vacant site of the former Kern Department store at One Campus Martius. Construction of the 1,088,000 square foot, $350 million high rise began in 2000 and concluded in 2003, with approximately 4,000 Compuware employees moving into the tech company’s new headquarters building the same year. A long-time supporter of Detroit, Karmanos was the first major business leader in the 2000s to move his company to the distressed city, proving a catalyst in enticing more businesses to move to Detroit and the revitalization that has followed in the downtown area as a result.
Karmanos served as Compuware's CEO until June 20, 2011, when he became executive chairman. Karmanos retired from Compuware on March 31, 2013, but maintained a consultant role within the company. Compuware terminated his post-retirement consulting agreement, effective October 1, 2013. Karmanos subsequently sued Compuware for wrongful termination, and for improperly stripping him of vested stock options. In 2015, an arbitrator ruled that Compuware must pay $16.5 million to Karmanos, which represented the largest arbitration award for an employment case in Michigan history. The Michigan Court of Appeals subsequently upheld the arbitration award in 2016.
MadDog Technology and MadDog Ventures
Following his retirement from Compuware, Karmanos, along with several partners, launched Mad Dog Technology in 2014 and in 2017, acting as a venture operator and investor focused on companies that develop and market cloud-based business applications that disrupt existing industry models and help monetize underutilized information. Located in Birmingham, Michigan, MadDog Technology, through its venture arm affiliate, MadDog Ventures, provides both capital and operating expertise to help businesses grow and meet their full potential. The MadDog portfolio companies include , a provider of building-performance analytics software, and , an online lending platform. The firm also holds investments in other, non-MadDog portfolio technology companies. Karmanos is currently a General Partner and Fund Manager of MadDog Ventures.Hockey ventures
Karmanos co-founded the Detroit Compuware Hockey organization in the late 1970s with Thewes. The organization has included all levels of hockey from recreational to youth AAA and junior A. The Ontario Hockey League awarded an expansion franchise on December 11, 1989, to be known as the Detroit Compuware Ambassadors. The team later became the Detroit Junior Red Wings, Detroit Whalers and then Plymouth Whalers following a relocation to nearby Plymouth. In 2015, Karmanos sold the Whalers to the owners of Flint's Perani Arena and Event Center, and the franchise was renamed Flint Firebirds. He also sold the Plymouth arena to USA Hockey.Karmanos, his Compuware partner Thewes, and former player Jim Rutherford purchased the Hartford Whalers in 1994. Following the 1996-97 season, the franchise was moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and renamed the Carolina Hurricanes. Since their arrival in North Carolina, the Hurricanes have captured three division titles, two Eastern Conference championships and the Stanley Cup in 2006, with Karmanos eagerly donning his skates, hoisting the Cup, and skating around with it briefly after the game seven win. For his day with the Stanley Cup, he brought it to Compuware headquarters in Detroit and allowed employees to get their photo taken individually with the Cup.
Karmanos also sponsors youth hockey programs in Michigan. Under his backing, Karmanos' youth hockey teams have accumulated numerous state, national and international tournaments.
On January 11, 2018, it was announced that he had sold controlling interest in the Hurricanes to Thomas Dundon, while retaining a minority interest. He sold the Florida Everblades in August 2019.
Philanthropy
An active philanthropist, Karmanos and his wife, Danialle Karmanos, established the Karmanos Center for Natural Birth at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan in 2015, which offers a supportive, home-like environment for expectant mothers looking for a safe, natural childbirth experience with leading training and research.Karmanos donated money to the Michigan Cancer Foundation, which was renamed the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in 1995 in memory of his first wife, Barbara Ann Karmanos, who died of breast cancer in 1989. Since then, Karmanos, along with his wife, Danialle, has continued to actively support KCI, both personally and through corporate philanthropy.
In addition to the Karmanos Center for Natural Birth and KCI, Karmanos and Danialle Karmanos also dedicate their efforts in philanthropic endeavors such as education and the arts. In 2017, they donated money in support of undergraduate student scholarships at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.. In 2014, Karmanos and his wife, Danialle, endowed, in perpetuity, a scholarship that will be given annually to a student from the Metro Detroit area to study for a semester at the American College of Greece in Athens. They are also founding donors of the Detroit Public Theatre.
Other philanthropic endeavors include the Detroit Zoo, the Belle Isle Conservancy, Alzheimer's Association, Michigan Humane Society, Dutch Symphony Orchestra, Grace Centers of Hope, and many other worthy charities.
Awards and honors
In 2015, Karmanos was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder Category - defined as an individual who has contributed to the development of the game of hockey, moving the game forward.In addition to his selection to the Hockey Hall of Fame, Karmanos has collected a number of major awards during his career as a hockey builder, including the Lester Patrick Award after the 1997-98 season, the Bill Long Award in 2010 for outstanding contributions to the OHL and the USA Hockey Distinguished Achievement Award in 2012. He is also a member of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.
Karmanos was honored by City Year Detroit with the Idealist in Action Award for 2013.
In 2000, Karmanos received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Wayne State University.
In recognition of Compuware’s stock-price leadership, Karmanos was awarded Mitchell and Company’s CEO 100 Award for 1998.
Karmanos' initiative and business prowess were recognized in 1989 by the Institute of American Entrepreneurs, which named him Entrepreneur of the Year.