Michael Emile Mahfood (21 June 1949

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

- 21 September 2021

Tyler, Texas Tyler is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the largest city and county seat of Smith County, Texas, Smith County. It is also the largest city in Northeast Texas. With a 2020 census population of 105,995, Tyler was the List of cities in Texa ...

) was the founder of Group M7 (est. 1995), a web service company in the United States. He leveraged his wealth and business experience by assisting improvements to education and healthcare endowments in

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region consi ...

. His knowledge of technology and Internet workings was often used by local news media.

Life and career

Childhood, youth and education

Michael Emile Mahfood was born 21 June 1949 in Detroit, Michigan, to Emile Nageeb Mahfood (b. 17 Oct 1922

Half Way Tree Half Way Tree is a neighbourhood in the city of Kingston, Jamaica. It is the parish capital of St. Andrew. Half Way Tree is served by the Kingston 10 post office. In recent years, as a result of crime and violence in Downtown Kingston and Cr ...

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inter ...

– 21 Dec 2002 Tyler, Texas) and Maryrose Rasah (1927–2005).Maryrose Mahfood
U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current. Accessed via ancestry.com subscription site, 11 November 2023. His maternal grandparents emigrated from Syria ( Syria Vilayet,

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

) to Detroit, while his father was also of Syrian descent by way of Jamaica,

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were colonized British territories in the West Indies: Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grena ...

. His maternal grandfather Louis "Louie" Joseph Rasak became an exceptional businessman. As a private in the U.S. Army in World War I he learned butchery skills, then he became a building contractor in metropolitan Detroit during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. At age 49 during World War II, he owned Rasak Food Market. Michael's father worked for

Sears Roebuck and Company Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as ...

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

in 1944, before removing to Detroit where he married Maryrose on 9 February 1947. Michael's older brother was Phillip Emile Mahfood (14 Nov 1947 Detroit, Michigan – 10 May 2004) and his younger siblings were Rosemary Mahfood, Michele Marie Mahfood and David Emile Mahfood (b. 13 Oct 1965 Smith County, Texas, USA). When he was young, his parents moved their young family to

Longview, Texas Longview is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, and county seat of Gregg County, Texas, Gregg County; a small part of Longview extends into the western portion of neighboring Harrison County, Texas, Harrison County. Longview is located in East Tex ...

Business career

The jobs Michael gravitated to were those where he was of service to others. He could apply his intellect to optimizing solutions to problems. He became an experienced entrepreneur. He owned First Mark Trading in Tyler from the early 80s to 1992. In 1995, he started East Texas’ first website design company, GroupM7, when the internet was still in its infancy. By 2015, Group M7 managed in excess of 2,000 websites, and since his death has continued to thrive with expanded capabilities as a web support service company.

Family

In May 1971 at the age of 21, Michael Mahfood married Suzann Wilson in Smith County, Texas.Michael E Mahfood
Case Number 21221971048888. Texas, U.S., Marriage Index, 1824-2019. Accessed via ancestry.com subscription site, 11 November 2023.Michael Emile Mahfood
Texas, U.S., Select County Marriage Records, 1837-1965. Accessed via ancestry.com subscription site, 11 November 2023. They raised five children.

Religious and philosophical views

Mahfood served from 1986 to 1991 as a personal secretary to Bishop Charles Herzig, the first bishop of the

Diocese of Tyler The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tyler ( la, Dioecesis Tylerensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in eastern Texas in the United States. The episcopal see is Tyler, and the Cathedral of the Immaculate ...

. From November 2012 through July 2017, he served as the chairman of the Finance Board of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler, Texas, under Bishop Joseph Strickland. In support of the Church in East Texas, he was founder of the Michael and Suzann Mahfood Scholarship, which assists in the advancement of Catholic education. Michael served a term on the CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances Foundation Board beginning in 2017. He provided ongoing leadership through his service on the CTMF Foundation Community Health Care Innovation Fund Committee, which during his term annually awarded approximately $1 million (equivalent to $ million in ) to Northeast Texas non-profits with an emphasis on improving Catholic health care and education. In September 2017, Mahfood was elected to the

Holy Apostles College and Seminary Holy Apostles College and Seminary is a Catholic Church, Catholic seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, Cromwell, Connecticut. It was founded in 1956 on a property in Cromwell by Eusebe M. Menard to provide a program of education and formation for ...

Board of Directors.

Publications

Michael Emile Mahfood's publications include "Browsers, Business and Bandwidth: A Personal Journey down the Information Highway from the Beginnings of the World Wide Web to the Present", published by Rutgers University's Decision Line in October 2010, and many articles written for ''Tyler Today'' over the span of a decade.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahfood, Michael American businesspeople 1949 births Living people