CHARLES NEWMAN:
Founder, CEO, and President of ReCellular Inc. in Ann Arbor. Newman has been instrumental in developing a secondary user market for used wireless handsets. ReCellular is the largest company in this market and currently processes more than 450,000 phones per month. Newman has been an entrepreneur since starting his first company while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in 1961. Among the numerous companies he founded were Astrotype, developers of the first computerized word processor; CompuMart, the first retail computer store in Michigan; and Rent-A-Byte, the first computer rental store in the United States. Along with his wife, Sharon, he also established the Jewish Community Center of Ann Arbor. In addition, he is a principal of the Newman Computer Group. He was a founder and director of the Bank of Ann Arbor and a director of Gelman Science. Newman is a director and past chairman of the board of Hillel, the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, an organization active on more than 500 campuses worldwide. He is also a director of EMU Hillel, the International Myeloma Foundation, and the Graham Sustainability Institute, and is co-founder and president of the Michigan Israel Business Bridge. He is a past president of the Michigan Jewish Conference and a former member of the executive committee of the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
