Business giant Fromstein also was Jewish activist

          After Milwaukeean Mitchell S. Fromstein, 85, died Nov. 8, the Milwaukee news media took note.

          Fromstein was the former chief executive officer of the Milwaukee-founded and now world-wide temporary help firm Manpower. He not only helped lead the company to huge success. He defeated a hostile takeover of the firm by a British company, Blue Arrow PLC, a 1987-1989 business drama that made international news.

          What the general news media didn’t record was Fromstein’s long record of activity within the Milwaukee Jewish community.

          A search of Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle back issues through the website newspapers.com, which made those issues available through a partnership with the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, shows Fromstein’s activities going back at least to 1955, when he was program committee chair for the B’nai B’rith Lake Shore Lodge.

          He seemed to be particularly active in the Milwaukee Jewish Federation in the 1980s. During that decade, he served as MJF treasurer, chaired or co-chaired such events as annual meetings and campaign kickoffs, served on the MJF board of directors and the Karl Campus board of governors, and chaired the Jewish Community Foundation’s grants committee.

          His MJF activities continued into the 1990s. He was a featured speaker at a 1994 MJF Economic Forum, where he discussed the aftermath of the 1991 recession and the boost it was giving to Manpower’s business (Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, Oct. 21, 1994). He also was a member of the 1999 MJF campaign cabinet.

          The MJF wasn’t Fromstein’s only Jewish cause. He was a trustee for Mount Sinai Hospital in the 1970s, co-chair of a 1991 Israel Bonds dinner and in 1986 co-chaired for Lubavitch of Wisconsin a concert featuring violin star Itzhak Perlman that honored Milwaukee businessman and philanthropist Max Karl.

          On Oct. 25, 2011, Fromstein recorded an oral history interview for the Jewish Museum Milwaukee that covered his start in business and his Jewish background.

          Born in 1928 in Milwaukee to the children of Russian Jewish immigrants, Fromstein graduated from Shorewood High School. He also attended religious school at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun and was confirmed there.

          Fromstein said his parents kept a “culturally Jewish home” and that “there is no question that the culture of the religion has impact on everything that I do: ethics, respect for education, the importance of family, regard for health, sensitivity to the needs of everybody in society.”

          He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison worked toward a business administration degree in marketing. A Milwaukee Magazine article of April 1989 by Mary Van De Kamp Nohl said Fromstein left the school six credits shy of the full requirements for graduation.

          In the oral history, Fromstein said that fundamentally marketing was what he practiced for “the rest of my business life.” The subject fascinated him because it is “a blend of history, economics, current affairs and psychology.”

          “I understand now that I was blessed with doing what I enjoyed doing,” he said. “That is one of the secrets of a happy life.”

          He married Lita (nee Emerman) in 1949. After about a year in Cleveland, his wife’s hometown, the couple returned to Milwaukee, where eventually he opened his own advertising agency “with no accounts but a lot of confidence,” he said. “To some degree I have a gambling instinct… I am a risk-taker.”

          The couple also was among the founders of Congregation Sinai in 1955, he said, to which he and his family belonged for the rest of his life.

          Fromstein said he had a talent “to see and take advantage of opportunities that came along.” He was able to move from being the outside marketer for clients to an inside board and staff member.

          Ultimately, that’s what he did with Manpower, which had been founded in the 1950s by Aaron Scheinfeld and Elmer Winter. “I went from ankle deep to knee deep to hip deep” into that firm, Fromstein said.

          Fromstein bought into the company and became president in 1975; and “it was my life” not only until he retired in 1999, but even after. “I still watch the company,” he said in the oral history.

          In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughter Jane (Kenneth Henley) Fromstein Henley, son John (Elizabeth) Fromstein, brother James (Ruth) Fromstein and five grandchildren.

          Blane Goodman Funeral Services handled arrangements. The funeral took place Nov. 10 at Congregation Sinai. Burial was in Second Home Cemetery.

          The family suggests memorial contributions to the J-Help project of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.