Financial Advisor Ric Edelman Donates $1 Million to Alma Mater
For Immediate Release
May 21, 2002
Media Contact: Will Casserly
wcasserly@ricedelman.com
(703) 251-0110
Ric Edelman and his wife Jean have donated $1 million to Rowan University for the enhancement of a planetarium being constructed in a new science building. It is the largest gift of any undergraduate alumni in Rowan's history. The university has named the planetarium the Ric and Jean Edelman Planetarium in honor of the gift.
In 1987, Ric, a 1980 graduate, and Jean, a 1981 graduate, founded The Edelman Financial Center Inc., consisting of Edelman Financial Services Inc., Edelman Mortgage Services Inc. and Edelman Business Services Inc. He also has business overseas, with Edelman Communications International and Edelman Japan. Based in Fairfax, Virginia, the organization has won more than 40 professional, business and community service awards since it began. The planning firm is now the 5th-largest independent financial planning firm in the nation, according to Bloomberg, and handles nearly $2 billion in assets for more than 5,000 clients.
In 1994, Washingtonian magazine named Ric one of the top financial experts in the Washington, D.C. area. Four years later, Ric was appointed by the president to serve at the National Summit on Retirement Saving. He has written the best-selling books The Truth About Money, The New Rules of Money and Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth, and his newest, Discover the Wealth Within You, has just been released. He frequently appears in newspapers, and on radio and television networks nationwide, as well hosting his own weekly radio and television shows.
Ric is also involved in a variety of programs supporting financial education, including Junior Achievement, Jump$tart Coalition, the American Savings Education Council and The Foundation for Financial Planning. In recognition of his philanthropic activities, Ric was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Rowan University in 1999; he received its Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1994.
Jean is president of Edelman Business Services. She also serves on the board of the Northern Virginia Family Service. While at Rowan, Jean was the first female to be elected president of the Student Government Association. In 1981, she received the Distinguished Senior Award ? Rowan's highest student honor ? and in 1994, the University's Distinguished Alumnus award.
The new, three-story $45 million, state-of-the-art science building will house the Biological Sciences, Chemistry and Physics departments. In addition to the planetarium, the building will house an observation deck that will include a 16-inch telescope feeding live celestial images to the planetarium's screen as well as to an Internet site. The new Ric and Jean Edelman Planetarium, as well as the rest of Rowan's new science building, is scheduled to be completed in January 2003.
Although the planetarium will reflect the Edelman's name, it will do so only for a time. In making their gift, the Edelmans insisted that the university agree to one day name the planetarium for a member of the university community whose contributions are worthy of the honor.
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