Richard Rodnick’s legacy stretches beyond Orange County, where he built and sold a pair of companies focused on midsize businesses.
Rodnick, 81, died of respiratory failure related to cancer on Aug. 15 at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.
His business career was documented in the pages of the Orange County Business Journal, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.
“I don’t know how to play no-sweat basketball,” Rodnick, a self-described Type A personality and perfectionist, told the Business Journal in 1991.
Geneva
In 1977, Rodnick started Irvine-based Geneva Corp. as a one-man mergers and acquisitions firm and grew it into a top investment bank for midsize deals, a segment previously ignored by big Wall Street players.
Nearly a decade later, Rodnick sold Geneva for $30 million to Chemical Bank of New York, now JPMorgan Chase & Co.
He continued to run the business for a time before moving on.
In 1991, investors D.H. Troob & Co., Loeb Holding Corp. and Robert Lawrence Kuhn acquired Geneva. In 2000, they sold the business to Salomon Smith Barney, now Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
In the late 1990s, Rodnick went on to cofound EquiCo Resources LLC in Costa Mesa, which today is Costa Mesa-based McGladrey Capital Markets LLC and part of Kansas City-based H&R Block Inc.
Rodnick started the investment bank and consultancy for midsize companies with retired judge Sheila Sonenshine and her son Coby Sonenshine.
The Sonenshines were his only business partners, according to Sheila Sonenshine.
“I consider that a huge honor,” she said.
In 2001, the partners sold EquiCo Resources to H&R Block, which folded the company into its Chicago-based RSM McGladrey Inc. unit.
Rodnick was blind to stereotypes and labels, according to Sonenshine. He expected the best from people, she said, and if you earned his respect, he put no limits on his help for you to grow personally and professionally.
“It was empowering,” Sonenshine said. “I knew he had the same effect on other people, women and minorities. Richard’s legacy extends beyond Orange County.”
The Chicago native became a public speaker on business issues later in his life. Rodnick traveled the world and taught at the University of California, Irvine’s executive master’s program.
Rodnick himself had a bachelor’s in business administration from the University of Illinois and a business master’s from the University of Detroit.
Great at Cards
Those who knew Rodnick said he had a great sense of humor, played a mean game of blackjack and could have been a professional bridge player.
On a 1995 cruise through Europe and the Mediterranean, Tom Tucker said he remembers Rodnick’s ability to calculate the probability of cards as they flipped over.
“He was a mental actuary,” said Tucker, a philanthropist and former real estate developer. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
With wife Laurie, Rodnick also was a philanthropist, supporting the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Mind Research Institute, Hoag Memorial Hospital and other causes.
Rodnick’s favorite pastime was boating. After selling two companies, he could have spent the rest of his life on the water.
But he said in 1991 he had to limit himself because he feared boating would consume him.
“I’m compulsive,” he said. “I would buy books about it and immerse myself in it. I recognize I have a lot of liabilities. I’m a perfectionist.”
Tucker said Rodnick’s life was filled with triumphs, lessons, laughter and brilliance.
“He got the absolute most out of his dash,” he said. “We’ll miss him dearly.”
Rodnick’s funeral was last week at the Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach. He was buried at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar.
