Gift From John E. Anderson : Management School at UCLA Gets $15 Million

John E. Anderson, a Los Angeles attorney and entrepreneur who built a private industrial empire with little public visibility, Friday gave $15 million to the UCLA Graduate School of Management--the largest gift by an individual ever received by the University of California.

In recognition, the school will be renamed the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management, J. Clayburn LaForce, dean of the school, told a press conference attended by Anderson, a UCLA alumnus, and his wife, Marion.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young said Anderson’s gift will be the cornerstone of a major fund-raising campaign to build a $50-million facility for the graduate business school, which has risen in stature in the last decade and ranks consistently among the nation’s top 10 business schools.

“John was the one who proposed the development for a new school,” Young said. UCLA will seek an additional $10 million in private gifts, and the UC system plans to match the donations with an additional $25 million, he said.

Young said Anderson’s gift is “one of the three largest gifts to a school of business in the United States.” Three years ago, industrialist Samuel C. Johnson gave $20 million to the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. Businessman Curtis L. Carlson last year gave $18 million to the School of Management at the University of Minnesota. And last October, former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon helped to raise $15 million--about half of which he donated--for the University of Rochester.

Anderson, who graduated from UCLA in 1940 with honors, said: “Education has made the difference in my life, and UCLA has had a powerful influence on me and on my family. Three of our children are MBA graduates of UCLA. I want to assure the future of the management school and the opportunity for others to benefit as I did.” Anderson’s gift includes an endowed teaching chair named in honor of his wife.

After his graduation from UCLA, Anderson earned an MBA degree from Harvard. Later, he earned a law degree from Loyola University in Los Angeles. He co-founded the Los Angeles law firm of Kindel & Anderson with another UCLA alumnus, James Kindel.

He is still active in the law firm, although he has devoted most of his time during the last 15 years to his successful entrepreneurial activities. Topa Equities, a holding company owned by Anderson and his family, has more than 20 subsidiaries and annual revenues of $350 million. His businesses include real estate, financial services, beverage distribution and ranching.

The new facilities at UCLA will have greatly expanded teaching and student activity space, computer and library facilities, faculty and research areas, administrative offices and an executive education center. Young said the university hopes to complete the center by 1992.

La Force said: “We’re crowded. We don’t have enough space for students. Classrooms are inadequate. Our computer facilities are inadequate although we’ve got great IBM and Hewlett Packard hardware. Our library is too small.”

At a reception Friday, Anderson told the UCLA business school’s staff and faculty: “We’ve got lots going, but we’ve got pretty shoddy facilities. We hope to change that.”