By Donald H. Harrison

DEL MAR, Calif. — The first graduating class of MBA's of the UCSD Rady School of Management was jovially advised on Sunday, Aug. 21, by the school's major benefactor, Ernest Rady, to "find a job and make some dough!"

Rady recently sold his Irvine-based Westcorp, a bank and automobile finance company, to Wachovia Corp. for nearly $3 billion, but still controls American Assets, a conglomerate of companies in the field of financial services, investment management and real estate assets.  Additionally, he is chairman of the Insurance Company of the West, which focuses on property and casualty insurance.

From a stage constructed on a  gently sloping lawn on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean—on a property purchased for a future residence by fellow Rady School of Management benefactors, venture capitalist William & Carol Stensrud—Rady shared with the 58 capped- and gowned-graduates the three ingredients in his recipe for making that dough: "ideas," "capital," and "people."

Chancellor Mary Anne Fox adjusts microphone
for Ernest Rady at UCSD graduation ceremony.

Best known in San Diego as the benefactor who donated $30 million to start the UCSD's School of Management, and more recently $60 million to support the work of Children's Hospital, which was renamed Rady Children's Hospital in his honor, the Jewish philanthropist said students should try to live up to what has become the school's motto: "Transforming innovation into revolutionary change."

"Our world is being powered by a supercharged engine, fueled by new ideas and technologies," he said. "It wasn't so long ago that the net was something needed just for fishing or basketball,  java was a cup of coffee, surfing was a sport involving water, and yahoo was a lame cheer from forgettable old movies from the Old West."

In his own start-up day, about 35 years ago, "I saw an opportunity for an auto finance company... providing auto loans to prime and non-prime borrowers," Rady said.  "I started the company with $850,000 in capital and grew our company in excess of $17 billion in assets and $7 billion a year in annual originations, a company that Wachovia purchased.  My point isn't so much the numbers but rather the idea.  You don't have to discover the next gadget or cure a disease—although that would be great.  There still remain untapped business markets in and around the city, state, country and world that seek your intellect and skill."

In what must have been the second-best piece of news for the students behind notification that they had graduated, Rady said there is an excess of money available in the world today for capital investment, an unusual situation that has led to "increased competition for investments."

"This imbalance may prove strategic to you and your future business success, especially those of you who are in entrepreneurial start ups possibly finding it much easier to raise capital to fund your own company," Rady said.  "For others, you may find yourself pushed harder, challenged beyond the norm to realize the higher returns that the investment community seeks. 

"Nevertheless, inherent in either situation is the need for you to maintain your ethics, morals and values," the

                                                             UCSD Rady School MBA David Harrison is congratulated by his
                                                                                 wife, Hui-Wen,  who also has connection to a Rady philanthropy;
                                                                                 She works as a decision support analyst  for the Rady Children's  
                                                                                  Hospital.  The Author of this story proudly acknowledges that
                                                                                  David is his and Nancy's son.  Mazal tov!
 
philanthropist stressed. The stage at which you contemplate compromising these, that is the stage at which you lose your credibility, integrity, sense of self-worth, and, I believe, substantially reduces your chances of success."

The benefactor said as important as ideas and capital are to a business, "people are by far the most important element in any business success...Good people can make a bad business good, and a good business better." Recognizing this, businesses are investing more and more in their people— many, for example, permitting their employees to take time off to attend such programs as UCSD's MBA program.  Furthermore, he said, businesses more and more are looking at employees as "associates" rather than as "workers."

"Businesses have given a new sense of value to persons, guided at least in my companies by the utmost of ethical and moral responsibility," Rady said. "Each person is seen for their full potential creativity and A-plus attitude..."

Rady and his wife Evelyn, have been workers, volunteers and financial contributors to various Jewish institutions in San Diego County, and those who have known him since his days as a president of the United Jewish Federation (1980-1981) were not surprised by the way he returned in his speech to the importance of ethics, values and morals.

Honored guests at the graduation ceremonies—seated just behind the graduates themselves—were other philanthropists who have contributed to UCSD and to the Rady School, among them such members of the Jewish community as Pauline Foster and Arthur Brody.  Foster, in fact, had succeeded Rady as UJF President (1981-1982) and recently donated $5 million to the School of Management to endow the chair now held by the Rady School's dean, Dr. Robert Sullivan. Brody, founder of the Brodart Corp, known best for the book coverings used by libraries, is the treasurer of the UC San Diego Foundation.

Some other contributors to the school from the San Diego Jewish community include Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Sheryl and Harvey White (both families of Qualcomm); Daniel and Phyllis Epstein (ConAm Management), and Jerome Katzin (retired Lehman Brothers managing director).

During the ceremony, graduates and guests were saluted by what some members of the Rady bunch dubbed the "Del Mar Air Force" — a fly-over by a squadron of seagulls in "V" formation.