Liberal Arts Week

Eli Savit serves as the elected Prosecuting Attorney for Washtenaw County. A Washtenaw County native, Eli grew up in Ann Arbor and graduated from Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, and from Kalamazoo College. Eli started his career as a public school teacher, teaching special-education and general-education 8th grade American history. He then returned home to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan Law School.

Eli has dedicated this career to public service. After law school, Eli worked for two federal judges, then as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. In private practice, he dedicated significant time to pro bono matters—representing children with disabilities, victims of consumer fraud, and asylum applicants fleeing domestic violence and spousal abuse.

Most recently, Eli served as the City of Detroit’s senior legal counsel, where he led criminal-justice reform work for Michigan’s largest city. Eli is also a nationally recognized attorney who has led public-interest lawsuits against some of the country’s toughest adversaries—adversaries such as banks, the opioid industry, slumlords, and corporate polluters. Eli continues to teach at the University of Michigan as a Lecturer.

Throughout his career in public service, Eli has witnessed first-hand the cascading consequences of a broken criminal-justice system. He ran for Washtenaw County Prosecutor to ensure equitable justice for all Washtenaw County residents and he is humbled by the faith and trust that the voters of Washtenaw County have placed in him.

In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.

Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $65 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.

Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Alicia Puig is the curator & co-founder of PxP Contemporary, Director of Business Operations for Create! Magazine, an arts writer, and a regular guest host of The Create! Podcast. She is also a co-author of The Complete Smartist Guide, a bestselling business book for emerging artists. She has worked in the arts industry for over a decade for galleries, museums, art fairs, private collectors, art publications, and an auction house in the US, The Netherlands, and Costa Rica. Her writing has been featured in magazines and on blogs including All She Makes, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, Art She Says, Artwork Archive, and Artspiel, among others. Additionally, she has served as a guest curator for Hastings College, All She Makes, Rise Art, SHOWFIELDS, Visionary Art Collective, and Altamira. Her booth at the Fall 2022 edition of the Affordable Art Fair in New York City was awarded the Honorable Mention for Curatorial Excellence out of over 70 participating galleries.