Commitment recognizes school's growing recognition and its impact on technology entrepreneurship and economic development

With a $30 million lead gift in 2004, Evelyn and Ernest Rady and the Rady Family Foundation helped establish UC San Diego's world-class, entrepreneurial business school--the Rady School of Management. They also contributed $5 million toward the expansion of the business school's campus, and gave other significant gifts to ensure excellence at the school. Today UC San Diego announced that the Rady Family Foundation has made a $100 million commitment to help recruit and retain faculty and fund strategic priorities at the Rady School of Management.

"What a magnificent first 10 years--and the school is just getting started," said Ernest Rady. "Dean Sullivan and other leaders within the community held a vision of a business school in a symbiotic relationship with the innovative culture of our region. The school is already exceeding expectations and there is so much more to come."

UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla said, "The Rady School is an integral part of UC San Diego and a vital, entrepreneurial component to San Diego's science and technology communities. The generous commitment from Evelyn and Ernest Rady and the Rady Family Foundation allows the school to continue its tradition of success and impact."

For Ernest Rady, one of San Diego's most prominent philanthropists and business leaders, this recent commitment to the Rady School is driven by his "Return on Life (ROL)" philosophy. "We want the resources that we've been fortunate enough to accumulate to go to help other people," he explained. That help could be for a student who receives a fellowship to attend the region's top business school. Or success for a startup whose founders learned how to turn ideas into opportunities. Or saving a child through technology and science developed by a Rady graduate.

"The Rady School has had an impressive first decade as measured by quality of faculty and successes of its entrepreneurial alumni. However, the best and most significant impact is on the horizon," said Dean Robert S. Sullivan. "The transformational support from Evelyn and Ernest Rady is the largest single commitment in history to a business school of Rady's size and youth and will continue to propel the Rady School on its meteoric rise - enabling the recruitment of world-class faculty, attracting the best and brightest students, and pioneering with creative new academic initiatives."

The past decade has held many accomplishments for UC San Diego's Rady School of Management, including the prestigious accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the launch of over 80 sustaining companies and 100 "intrepreneurial" products and services by students and alumni, the construction of the Rady School campus, and the recognition of outstanding faculty research through national and international publications. Recently Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the school as the number one MBA program in the U.S. for Intellectual Capital.

Since its founding a decade ago, the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego has distinguished itself as a pioneer in a new model of business education. The school's concentration in innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration has led to rapid success--borne out by outstanding achievements of its students, faculty and alumni.

Rady School alumni have had an economic impact on the local and state economy. Over the past decade, Rady students and alumni have created 82 companies that are operational today--hiring employees, launching products that save energy, providing goods and services, and improving and saving lives. Last year, Rady alumni-founded companies contributed an estimated $2 billion to the regional economy.

One such local impact was realized through the work of Ashley Van Zeeland, Ph.D., a 2012 Rady alumna and co-founder and CEO of Cypher Genomics, Inc. This leading genome informatics company helps people like Lilly Grossman, a local 16-year-old, who had experienced a mysterious form of muscle weakness and seizure-like fits since infancy. She and her parents were desperate for a cure. Thanks to genomic sequencing built on technology developed by Van Zeeland and Cypher Genomics, Lilly's medical team identified two suspicious gene mutations. This discovery improved her doctors' understanding of the disease, and is now guiding the treatment protocol. With renewed hope, Lilly is now visiting universities and looking forward to life as a college student.

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Evelyn and Ernest Rady commit $100 million to UC San Diego's Rady School