Richard S. Ziman. UCLA, Unabashed.
Richard Ziman is chairman of AVP Advisors, LLC, the exclusive advisor to American Value Partners. The Center for Real Estate at UCLA bears his name.
“Los Angeles is the largest, most diversified economy in America. There is no other place like it in the world today. Entertainment, fashion and pop culture, of course. Manufacturing, services, exports and imports: Huge. An extraordinary mass of medical, scientific and high technology that dwarfs the Silicon Valley and Greater Boston combined. (Yahoo! planted a flag in Santa Monica. Ditto Microsoft, in downtown Los Angeles.)
Los Angeles runs on a premium blend of expertise and innovation. Its unique, start–up–centric economy couldn’t work without a highly educated work force. And vice versa.
“And, one constant in all the variables: a network of top–flight universities.
“Universities raise the level of what’s possible. They can draw upon not just their own resources, but the community at large. Universities can get academics, researchers, politicians, entrepreneurs, dreamers and doers in the same room to seize moments, face issues, define problems, change priorities, do something.
“Consider UCLA.
“Unequivocally, it’s a first–rank national university. (There are very few in its class. A dozen, maybe.) It attracts highly talented, highly motivated students and research fellows who involve themselves in the UCLA experience and go on from there with the UCLA attitude—a deep commitment to education and inquiry.
UCLA is a mirror of Los Angeles. (Actually, maybe more like an IMAX.©)
“UCLA ranks fourth in the country in research expenditures. The people who issue those competitive grants — NIH, DOD, NSF and all the others — look at UCLA as a very, very significant research institution with the collective intellect to accomplish what they want to accomplish.
“UCLA is a state institution — of, by and for the people of California. Certainly, you want students from other states, other nations, with different ideas and values and experiences. But when you educate Californians, there’s a bonus: They don’t leave. They stay in California. All of us share the benefits of their education.
“UCLA is a big–city school. It’s not out somewhere in No Man’s Land. It’s here in one of the most important metropolitan centers in the world. It feeds off that. And the city and its entrepreneurs/creators feed off it, too.
“Our company couldn’t exist without very capable people at every level. A very large percent of our senior staff are UCLA graduates. I suppose that indicates a certain lack of objectivity on our part.”
UCLA, Unabashed.
Eli Broad Brad Delson Diane Watson Julia Gouw Sherry Lansing
Moctesuma Esparza Paul Boyer Warren Furutani Betsy Knapp Karen Bass
- Spotlights published by UCLA Marketing & Communications
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