Michael J. Levitt founded Michaels in 1973. Back then it was a four-man operation developing subsidized housing. Today, Michaels is a national leader in residential real estate and one of the nation’s largest privately-held owners of affordable housing. Mike and his wife Patricia Levitt established The Michaels Organization Educational Foundation in 1993, which administers scholarships to Michaels residents, and which matches every private donation to the educational foundation two-for-one. Mike is remembered as a housing visionary, a philanthropist, a world-class angler, and a 2012 inductee into the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame.