Newport Beach-based technologist and philanthropist Fariborz Maseeh has given generously to causes here and elsewhere. Now he’s made his biggest gift yet—$24 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his alma mater, for scholarships, fellowships and a renovated dormitory that is being renamed in his honor. “The economic multiplier on this investment is very high,” said Maseeh, an Iranian immigrant who embodies the American Dream. He struck it rich pioneering MEMs, microscopic devices mounted on chips that are used in pacemakers, automobile air bags and aircraft landing gear. He operates his own investment firm, Picoco LLC, and the Massiah Foundation, whose beneficiaries include UCI, CHOC, Hoag and Newport Mesa School District. He ranks 20th on the OCBJ’s wealthiest list with a conservatively estimated worth of $375 million …
Power couple Kristina and Larry Dodge, namesakes of Chapman U’s film school, are turning pregnancy into a major production. After her 10-year try at in vitro fertilization, which is being told in a book, Kristina went a different route and now triplets are on the way. Close friend DeAun Nixon, who with her four kids lives with the Dodges in their cliffside Monarch Beach home, offered to be the surrogate. The embryos were produced by Laguna Niguel fertility doc Brian Acacio, who mixed Larry’s sperm with eggs donated by Kristina’s massage therapist. Real estate agent Marcy Weinstein (Surterre Properties) was throwing a shower for Kristina last weekend at her Newport Coast home, with a guest list of 150 socialites and friends, plus an L.A. film crew. The whole thing is being shopped as a reality series titled, “Under One Roof” …
Former Laguna Beach Mayor and ex-C.J. Segerstrom & Sons political consultant Paul Freeman still works on entitlements and other stuff when he’s around. But he has spent much of the past three years as an international troubleshooter in Pakistan, Zimbabwe and now Afghanistan, where he’s an observer for the upcoming parliamentary elections. “In Kabul, soon to fly south to Uruzgan, a fairly remote southeastern province,” Freeman e-mailed, adding, “There was a demonstration starting at my hotel and ending up at the U.S. Embassy, protesting the pastor’s plans in Florida to burn a certain book” …
Stop the presses! We’re diverse! “Orange County is no longer Nixon country,” declared the New York Times, sounding surprised to find so many ethnicities and so few John Birchers here, and reporting that Republicans are down to 43% of registered voters, a 70-year low. The Insider observes that the shift is to independents; Democrats remain where they were 10 years ago, at 32% …
Golf news: Swimsuit king Raj Bhathal (Raj Manufacturing, Tustin) got a hole-in-one on the seventh hole at Big Canyon. And as Bill Taylor and Drew Giese are his witnesses, EE RR shot an albatross (double eagle) on the par-5 sixth hole at Strawberry Farms.
