Philip Zelkowitz, 81, a colorful entrepreneur who owned a company that developed a popular paint thinner, another that sold pool tables and retired from a third that fashioned die-cast aluminum products, died Sunday, Jan. 14, in Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs, Calif., of a heart attack. “He was always thinking of new ideas, always wanting to do something more,” said his son-in-law Jeff Richardson. “He was an entrepreneur by nature–he enjoyed building businesses from scratch and then selling them.” Mr. Zelkowitz left Marshall High School to drive a truck for Superior Coffee. While doing the same for Schiffman Bros. Oil Co. some 10 years later, he decided owning an oil company would be more rewarding than working for one. The result was the Empire Oil Co. One of the byproducts developed by the business was a paint thinner Mr. Zelkowitz called “Tirpoline,” which was stocked on the shelves of Sears and Montgomery Ward stores. He sold the business in the late-1950s, and within a few years started Rozel Industries, a sporting-goods supply business that specialized in building and selling pool tables. Trade boomed after Mr. Zelkowitz met pool player Minnesota Fats and the billiards giant gave Mr. Zelkowitz the right to use his name, thus giving rise to the Minnesota Fats Pool Tables Co. in the mid-1960s. It was sold in the late-1970s, and Mr. Zelkowitz joined the Albany Chicago Co., a die-casting business that he helped build into a company that supplied diesel engine parts to Navistar, Caterpillar and John Deere. Though the business was sold in 1983 to Orion Corp., Mr. Zelkowitz stayed on until his gradual retirement in the late-1990s. He had spent his winters in California since 1972, most recently living in Rancho Mirage and on the Gold Coast. He was a philanthropist to Jewish and civic causes and was a founding member and board member of Beth Jacob Synagogue and the Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation. Survivors include his wife, Nettie; two daughters, Merle Friedman and Barbara Richardson; a sister, Miriam Cowan; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday in Weinstein Family Services Wilmette Chapel, 111 N. Skokie Blvd., Wilmette.
