Many of Orange County’s wealthiest are homegrown, having started companies here or amassed local real estate empires.
But the county is home to another phenomenon: Folks who’ve made fortunes somewhere else and essentially retired to a life of giving and investing here.
The county’s lifestyle and weather have lured them here. Now OC benefits from their giving.
Take Larry and Kristina Dodge. They’ve put their might,both cash and vision,behind Chapman University’s dream of building a film school.
The Dodges gave $20 million to the film school, which now goes by The Kristina and Larry Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
The Dodges split their time between Monarch Beach and Kansas City, Mo., where some of their businesses are based. The businesses fall under American Sterling Corp., Larry Dodge’s Irvine-based holding company.
One of them, American Sterling Bank, recently opened its first local branch in Foothill Ranch.
One of the Dodges’ other businesses is American Sterling Productions Ltd., which produces movies.
Chapman film school Dean Bob Bassett said he met the Dodges at the premiere of one of their productions, “The Annihilation of Fish,” which showed at the Newport Beach Film Festival.
The Dodges also funded Chapman’s Institute for the Study of Media and the Public Interest, which looks at how media affects society, an interest of Kristina Dodge.
They are big political givers, backing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bid to be governor. They also donated several million to St. Margaret Episcopal School, a San Juan Capistrano prep school, the Ocean Institute in Dana Point and the Boys and Girls Club of Capistrano Valley.
Marc Levin
Another transplant is Marc Levin of Levin Capital Management Inc. He tired of running a hedge fund in Chicago and came to OC in 2003. Since then, he’s bought stock in local companies, met chief executives and become involved in charities.
This past year, Levin, who lives in Laguna Beach, played Donald Trump in the Children’s Hospital of Orange County’s “CHOC Follies.” He also was recruited to the board of Children First, a foundation started by another wealthy transplant, Paul Merage.
Levin also has contributed $35,000 to the Mind Institute, a Costa Mesa-based nonprofit that uses brain research to help prepare elementary students. He’s a member of the institute’s newly formed advisory council, set up to help bring in more donors.
“He jumped in with both feet,” said Mickey Shaw, director of development for the Mind Institute. “He does a tremendous amount of due diligence.”
Paul Merage
Merage, who invented Hot Pockets frozen foods, has made a big mark on OC since coming here a couple of years ago.
Originally from Iran, Merage moved to Newport Coast after selling his Denver-based Chef America to Nestl & #233; SA in 2002 for $2.6 billion.
Merage made headlines earlier this year after pledging $30 million to the University of California, Irvine’s business school, which now bears his name.
Besides Children First, Merage runs two other foundations,the Merage Foundation for the American Dream and the Merage Foundation for U.S.-Israel Trade.
Merage’s actively involved with all of the foundations, said Shelley Hoss, executive director of the Irvine-based Orange County Community Foundation.
“He’s been to every meeting that I’ve been to,” said Hoss, who’s on the board of Children First.
Marshall Kaplan runs Merage’s foundations. He met Merage in Denver, where Kaplan was the dean of the University of Colorado’s Graduate School of Public Affairs.
“We met and became friends,” Kaplan said.
When Merage sold his company Kaplan said he called him and said, “I want to give back to America.”
“I found that to be a very profound comment,” Kaplan said.
So Kaplan followed Merage to OC to head up his foundations, at first just on leave. But Kaplan recently resigned his post at the college.
“Paul is a wonderfully persuasive guy,” he said.
Why did Merage choose OC?
“He loves California,” Kaplan said. “It’s not as cold as Colorado.”
Merage himself has said he likes the business climate in OC. He considers the county’s innovation economy as a model for the private sector.
All three of Merage’s foundations have something to do with education, Kaplan said. Children’s First, funded through the donations of wealthy retirees’ social security income, helps develop and enhance early childhood education programs.
The foundation also places skilled retirees who want to work with early childhood development providers.
Retirees want more than golf now, Kaplan said. They want to be involved and give back to their communities, he said.
Fariborz Maseeh
Another Iranian immigrant, Fariborz Maseeh, came here after selling his Massachusetts technology company to Corning Inc. in 2000. Earlier this year, he gave UC Irvine $2 million for a Persian studies center.
The center is aimed at enriching OC’s Iranian community as well as educating the public at large.
