John Fetzer

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John Earl Fetzer (March 25, 1901 - February 20, 1991) was a radio and television executive who was best known as the owner of the Detroit Tigers from 1961 through the early 1980s.

Fetzer was educated as an electrical engineer, started a radio station in 1930 and bought a television station in 1950. His holdings became a corporation, Fetzer Broadcasting. In 1956 he bought part ownership in the Tigers and became full owner in 1961. He was active in negotiating [[Major League20 kW and WBCT-FM)

He founded the Fetzer Institute "Our mission, to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community, rests on our conviction that efforts to address the world's critical issues must go beyond political, social, and economic strategies to their psychological and spiritual roots." Approximate endowment = $400 000 000 in 2006.

Bio from the Fetzer Institute website:

The founder of the Fetzer Institute, (John Earl Fetzer), was familiar with the call of the sacred within the secular. Trained as an electrical engineer, John E. Fetzer began his career in 1931 by designing, building, and operating his own radio station that he then expanded into a Michigan-based, multistate broadcasting empire including radio, television, cable, and closed-circuit music transmission. In his private life, John Fetzer had an intense intellectual curiosity about the "unseen elements" of life. He studied various forms of meditation, prayer, philosophy, and positive thinking, and explored other ways of healing. Throughout his life he was also passionately interested in baseball, an enthusiasm that led him to purchase the Detroit Tigers baseball club. In his later years, the sale of the team and his media holdings resulted in the endowment of the Fetzer Institute. The interests that shaped John Fetzer's life can be seen as the seedbed for the questions that define the work of the Fetzer Institute: How can the secular and sacred elements of life be better integrated? How can the insights of science and the powers of technological innovation be utilized to explore the capacities of the mind and spirit? How can the wisdom and insight gained through inner exploration be used to better our individual and collective health? And how can the entrepreneurial spirit and financial resources gained from the American business sector be used in the service of creating a better world?

Radio stations he was involved with: