The Breeden Co.’s founder and chairman, Ramon W. Breeden Jr., and his wife Lucy gave U.Va. $50 million to be split between the university’s renovation and expansion of its McIntire School of Commerce and construction of a new athletics complex.
A 1956 McIntire graduate, Breeden almost had to drop out of U.Va. due to family financial hardships.
The future Virginia Beach real estate magnate took on three part-time jobs to get through, though it meant the student-athlete had to leave the baseball team.
“The McIntire School broadened my education and gave me confidence in myself. I have many friends who attended Ivy League schools, and I can stand toe to toe with them in business, as I got just as good an education and, in some cases, better,” says Breeden, whose father worked his way up from sweeping floors to operating machines in an envelope factory.
“McIntire taught me not to give up and to keep pushing on in life.”
