UC Irvine gets $30 million for business school

Andrew Edwards

The man who gave the world Hot Pockets pastry snacks is now behind

the largest single gift in UC Irvine history.

Newport Coast’s Paul Merage, 61, has donated $30 million to the

university, Andy Policano, dean of UC Irvine’s Graduate School of

Management, announced Wednesday. The donation exceeded separate

single donations of $20 million by local billionaires Donald Bren and

Henry Samueli.

In a telephone interview late Wednesday, Merage said the idea to

make a donation to UC Irvine’s business school first ignited about

two years ago, after a conversation with Ralph Cicerone, the

university’s chancellor. Merage said Cicerone told him one of his

goals was to enhance the university’s business program.

“It really triggered something in me,” Merage said.

In consideration for the endowment, the university will rename a

school for Merage, as it did with Bren and Samueli to recognize their

contributions. In Merage’s honor, the Graduate School of Management

will be renamed as the Paul Merage School of Business, Policano said.

A $20-million gift from Bren resulted in his becoming the namesake

of UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer

Sciences. An equal donation from Samueli put his imprint on the

university’s engineering school.

The donation will be the start of a new direction for UC Irvine’s

business classes, Merage and Policano said. The school plans to shift

its focus in preparing students to sustain American business growth

in an innovation-driven economy.

“We will put a program together that when it’s all done, the

graduate students from UC Irvine, the business graduates, will be the

best-qualified and best-equipped to grow the U.S. corporations,”

Merage said.

Part of the transformation will be to recruit five new professors

to endowed chairs, Policano said.

“When you do that kind of recruiting, it raises your recognition,”

Policano said.

The professors recruited for the endowed chairs will be experts in

specific areas of business research, though school officials have not

yet decided what specialties they want, Policano said.

What the school does want, Policano said, are professors who look

at business through a futurist’s lens. The school’s theme will be to

teach students how to address the problems of American manufacturing

jobs being shipped overseas and the prospect of the United States

losing its technological superiority.

“We want the individuals to be very passionate in this approach,”

Policano said.

Societal change often sparks innovation, Merage said. Tomorrow’s

business leaders will have to adapt to seismic shifts like the

economic ascendancy of China, India and Eastern Europe and the

homegrown challenge posed by the aging of the Baby Boomer generation.

Merage, an alumni of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley,

said he chose to donate to UC Irvine because while the Haas School

already has an established reputation, UC Irvine is still making a

name for itself.

“It’s really challenging itself to be a distinguished school, and

I think that’s exciting,” Merage said.

Born in Iran, Merage came to the United States in 1960 and founded Chef America, Inc. in 1977 with his brother David. The company

introduced Hot Pockets to the American snacker. Merage sold Chef

America to Nestle in 2002.

Merage is a member of the UC Irvine Foundation and the Graduate

School of Management’s board of directors. He is also the founder of

the Merage Institute Fellows Program, which aids immigrant students

and the Merage Foundation for U.S.-Israel Trade, which promotes

Israeli exports to the United States.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards

@latimes.com.