Audra Carson grew up watching her parents run block clubs on the northwest side of Detroit. Her mother started junior block clubs. Her father is still listed as president of the 14200 Cloverlawn Block Club. Carson absorbed the model early and carried it for 30 years before doing anything about it professionally.
She also absorbed the 1971 Keep America Beautiful television ad featuring the Crying Indian character, which she saw during cartoons as a child and on school classroom walls. "I took those things to heart," she told Model D Media in a profile published this week.
Carson spent a combined 30 years as a business analyst, first at MetLife and then at a major healthcare organization. During visits home to Detroit she kept noticing tire dumps near her old neighborhood. "People were dumping tires where I used to live. This troubled me, seeing those piles of tires in areas that I used to play," she said. "My heart was pricked, my brain was enlightened, my soul was called to try to do something about it."
In 2009, she founded De-Tread, a social enterprise focused on reducing tire waste and improving environmental conditions in Detroit neighborhoods. The name was a deliberate reference to Detroit's identity as the car capital of the world. The goal was to recycle discarded tires into alternative pavement material for roads. According to the Federal Highway Administration, Americans discard nearly 300 million tires annually. Tire piles that ignite cannot be extinguished with standard methods. Tires exposed to sunlight leach toxic chemicals into soil and groundwater.
"Once I began to do my research, I recognized that it was a tremendous global issue, not just in the United States alone," Carson said.
Carson joined Tech Town's first business incubator cohort, Start Studio, to develop the concept and connect with advisors. She also created Izzie Logistics and Distribution as a sister organization to handle tire transportation. Detroiters began calling her the Tire Lady. The Skillman Foundation and Patronicity provided grants and crowdsourced funding for cleanups across the city. Carson developed branded apparel as an additional revenue stream. De-Tread received a Motor City Match grant, a Keep Michigan Beautiful award, and a Spirit of Detroit award.
Izzie Global, her current company, grew out of that trajectory. Named after her mother, it provides waste management and beautification services across Detroit, partnering with local businesses, government agencies, and community organizations to maintain walkways, lots, and parks.
"I saw the way in which they stewarded property and community," she said of her parents.
The shift from De-Tread to Izzie Global is a shift in scope, not in premise. The premise was always stewardship: sustained, neighborhood-scale work that does not wait for conditions to get bad enough to make news. The Tire Lady built a company that keeps doing it without the nickname.
