Blitz at Ritz; GSF Gives; Thorp’s 3×3

How did the multibillionaire Koch brothers raise $60 million over lunch last week at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point? In big chunks, according to an attendee who told the Insider that a meal-time call for donations led to a flurry of multimillion-dollar pledges. Sources said the event drew hundreds of other billionaires, and the money they put up will go toward putting the U.S. Senate back in GOP hands this November … Golden State Foods continued its impressive growth to keep a grip on the No. 2 spot on our annual list of the largest private companies based in OC, with $6.4 billion in revenue following an 11% hike last year for the food maker and distributor. There are a number of stories related to the list—which starts on page 12 in this special issue—and not all of them are about revenue. Check the front-page feature on kids who got a boost from the Golden State Foods Foundation’s “Build-a-Bike” program … Irvine-based Felt Bicycles and Goodwill of Orange County teamed up last year to give a two-wheeler to Gen. George Casey, a one-time commander of U.S. and Allied forces in the Persian Gulf. It was a thank-you for his help on Goodwill OC’s annual golf tournament, which benefits vets. Casey passed the bike and a challenge along to a sailor who lost his right leg below the knee in the line of duty, he told Goodwill OC’s Frank Talarico. “His name is Jose Miranda, and he called me in April and said he was ready for a long ride, and I went to Texas and rode 35 miles with him into Dallas Cowboys Stadium.” Casey was back in OC for this year’s tournament, and Goodwill had a surprise in store—Talarico tracked down Miranda and invited him to join his riding partner for dinner after the golfers finished up at the Monarch Beach Golf Links … Ed Thorp is a one-time math professor who beat Vegas with card counting and went on to run hedge funds and become known as “King of the Quants”—so it’s clear the guy can appreciate numeric possibilities. Wonder what Thorp makes of the possibilities for trilingual triplets—something else he knows about, since he’s grandfather to just such a set. They’re soon-to-be-seniors at Sage Hill in Newport Coast and fluent in Mandarin and Spanish. Thorp reports that Edward recently served as translator for a group of Sage Hill kids who made a trip to China, while Claire made use of her Spanish on a class trip to Argentina. Christopher decided to stay home and play baseball and build gadgets—a habit that helped his grandpa when he first set out to find a way to beat the house … Kudos to the kids behind Flip!, the first graphic anthology produced at the Orange County School of the Arts. It’s a fine example of the genre, thanks in no small measure to Patrick Williams, who’s director of digital media at OCSA and landed a grant from the Center for Cartoon Studies in River Junction, Vt. to pay for the class … Is anyone more global than Wing Lam? The ethnic Chinese, Brazil-born cofounder of the quintessentially Californian Wahoo’s Fish Taco recently hosted a stopover by his brother Yong Lee, who carried his own citizen-of-the-world credentials from Shanghai en route to their old stomping grounds in Sao Paolo to soak up the World Cup. Lee left Brazil years ago for studies at UC Berkeley, then returned home to start on a medical degree, which he finished at Baylor University in Texas. He went on to become a leading doctor for expatriate execs in Shanghai … Lam and Lee aren’t the only one with ties to South America—look to the right for a page full of stories about business ties that stretch from OC to the Southern Hemisphere.