* Maria Risoli; Shrimp Broker, Education Benefactor

Maria Risoli, 81, one of the world’s most successful shrimp brokers. In the 1970s, she bought more than $9 million worth of shrimp a year from fishermen based at Mexico’s Gulf of California ports, and sold it to U.S. and Japanese shrimp companies. Before her three-decade career as a shrimp middlewoman, Mrs. Risoli had bought and sold sugar in the Dominican Republic, cocoa in Central America, coffee in Brazil and cattle in Texas. Born in New York, she spent her childhood in Palermo, Italy, and returned to New York to attend high school. She was a benefactor of major universities in California, Arizona and New Mexico. She spent her retirement years in California. In Malibu on Feb. 13.