Michael Amin

When Michael Amin arrived in America at the age of 17, he chose the Golden State as his adopted home and has lived there ever since, eventually settling in the west-coast metropolis of Los Angeles. It is from this base of operations that he runs his several businesses and administers his nonprofit organization.

 

In 1976, Michael came from Iran to enroll as an international student at Malibu’s Pepperdine University. He transferred to Cal State - Northridge, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Business. While still studying, Michael helped manage his family’s apartment complex, ultimately converting it into condominiums and selling the refurbished units on the open market.

 

When he entered the working world, Michael Amin founded a series of businesses. The first was a one-hour photo development company called QuickPix, which was one of the first of its kind in the United States. Initially, he planned to franchise the business. However, as the 1980s progressed, he gauged the market for one-hour photo development and determined it to be oversaturated, and so moved on to other endeavors. Among these were Primex Talking Yellow Pages and Top Attorneys Directory, both of which were referral services.

 

After much consideration, Michael chose his next enterprise: he would take up the family business, as practiced by three generations before him, and develop a pistachio farm. Not long after, he would buy a second, and then a third. As the new millennium dawned, Michael Amin found himself in possession of several pistachio nut farms—so many, in fact, that he formed Primex World Inc., a management company tasked with overseeing the affairs of his ever-expanding interests. As the years went by, Primex World Inc. added other assets, equities, and real estate holdings to its purview. Michael serves as that company’s CEO to this day.

 

Now a materially wealthy man, in 2001, Michael Amin created the charitable and humanitarian organization Maximum Difference Foundation (MDF) in order to give something back to his community and the world. The foundation motivates parents to learn the art and science of good parenting through reading books, attending seminars, watching helpful videos, and, if necessary, referring families to therapists. MDF’s primary goal in this respect is to prioritize children’s happiness, personal growth and spirituality, ultimately empowering them to make a positive impact on the world. The foundation’s name reflects its central mission: to make a positive difference in the lives of children and families in order to create the greatest possible positive impact on the future. The foundation motivates parents to learn the art and science of good parenting through reading books, attending seminars, watching helpful videos, and, if necessary, referring families to therapists. MDF’s primary goal in this respect is to prioritize children’s happiness, personal growth and spirituality, ultimately empowering them to make a positive impact on the world. In the two decades since its inception, MDF has done this through sponsoring a number of important initiatives spanning a diverse range of causes. Maximum Difference Foundation has also cultivated strategic partnerships with other global nonprofits, such as Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Jewish Voices for Peace, Middle East Children Alliance, and American Near East Refugee Aid.

 

In addition to his own efforts in the nonprofit sphere, Michael Amin serves as a trustee for several artistic, historical, and cultural associations, most prominently Vasht and the Farhang Foundation.