Tom Monaghan is known for founding the first Domino's Pizza location in Ypsi in 1960 (he has since sold his stake in the company), and for using his subsequent fortune to champion conservative Catholicism.

Monaghan owned the Detroit Tigers from 1983 to 1992, and he hired Bo Schembechler as president of the Tigers in 1990. He purchased Ann Arbor radio station WPAG in December of 1987 and converted the call sign to WPZA.

Monaghan founded Ave Maria College, north of downtown Ypsi, in 1998; after failing to win zoning approval from Ann Arbor Township to build a full-scale campus on the grounds of Domino's Farms, he decided instead to build a campus - and a new town around it - in Florida. Ypsi's Ave Maria campus had only 3 students enrolled for the 2006-2007 school year, and will close at the end of that year; many of its buildings, on W. Forest Street and N. Adams Street, have been sold.

In 2002, Monaghan sponsored the petition drive by the group Ypsilanti Citizens Seeking Equal Rights Not Special Rights, which sought unsuccessfully to overturn Ypsilanti's Human Rights Ordinance

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