MSA Pure Spirits 2018 Q2 - 10

HOMETOWN BOY

MAKES IT BIG IN
SPIRITS INDUSTRY

ike Keyes-President of the Brown-Forman
Corporation, North America-has enjoyed
a long, distinguished career in the beverage industry. He's come a long way since the 1960s.
Back then, he was just a typical kid from Michigan
who liked sports, history and the local sports teams.
This is the story of Mike Keyes, his career, and the Detroit Tigers.

10 PURE SPIRITS

Keyes was born in a working-class community on
the west side of Detroit in 1960. He lived here until his
sophomore year at the University of Michigan when he
moved out of the dorms to become a full-time resident
of Ann Arbor.
"Believe it or not," he says. "I never saw the East
Side of Detroit until...the early 1980s. It was a whole
new world for me. I didn't know houses were that big
or that people actually lived like that!"
It was a completely different world-but only a few
minutes away, on the other side of town.
An excellent student, Keyes was awarded a scholarship to attend and board at the prestigious Cranbrook
School, a college prep academy on the north side.
These were confrontational times, however. Keyes has
vivid memories of the race riots that plagued Detroit
during the mid-late 60s. It was terrifying, he says, to
see armed National Guardsman patrolling the streets.
To a young kid, they were a personification of the soldiers on "The Rat Patrol," his favorite TV show.
Keyes started working for the Stroh Brewery Company in 1980. He worked two summers during college. Stroh's was a family-owned business for over
200 years, an iconic local brand. According to Keyes,
Stroh's was "a fantastic company with tremendous
people." He first worked as a Teamster in the keg room.
The job paid well but the shifts were grueling-12
hours a day, seven days a week. In his eyes, the job was
Dickensian: "the best of times, the worst of times."
In 1983, Keyes began working full-time at Stroh's,
after a stroke of luck. A family friend, Eileen Doherty,

COURTESY OF MIKE KEYES

Born and raised on the west side of Detroit, Mike Keyes has traveled a path that's bounced around
the nation, culminating with the presidency of Brown-Forman, North America. The two things that
have stayed in his hometown for all his life? His heart and his love of the Detroit Tigers.

MSA Pure Spirits 2018 Q2

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