3 minute read
The Last Laugh
BY LORI GILBERT
Richard Ronten is having the last laugh.
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A member of the Stanislaus State Foundation Board, he punctuates much of his conversation with an easy laugh, but particularly relishes the story of his Summerville High School counselors.
“They looked at my grades and told me I should go to trade school,” Ronten said.
Even if he didn’t have grades that inspired his teachers or counselors to expect much of him, Ronten knew he was destined for something more.
He was curious and loved to read. He largely taught himself about stocks and investing and has successfully invested for most of his adult life. But he turned down an opportunity to work as a stockbroker to put his Stan State Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration to work in other ways.
“I knew I wanted to work in business, some business,” Ronten said.
It turned out to be the food business, first at Tillie Lewis Foods in Stockton, where he rose from assistant to the senior vice president of manufacturing to corporate manager of inventory control and production planning.
It was during his tenure at the company that Ronten developed his love for Stockton.
Although his career took him to Fremont — where he spent more than 30 years working for MJB/Hills Brothers Coffee, and then as a corporate executive with Nestlé in San Francisco and later as a business consultant — a part of his heart has remained in the port city.
Ronten now has eight income properties in Stockton in addition to income properties in other cities. He still maintains a home in Fremont but also has another home in Stockton to maintain his Stockton and Stan State connection.
From that vantage point he can see the possibility of Stockton and Stan State’s campus there.
“The potential for the Stockton Campus is off the chart,” he said. “People in San Joaquin County are not using it to the degree they should be, and I think it’s because they don’t know it’s there and don’t know what’s available to them. I think the Stockton Campus is an underutilized resource and asset.”
He is an unabashed cheerleader for the Stockton Campus in his role on the Foundation Board, for which he’s chairman of the Finance and Investment Committee, and a member of the Foundation’s Executive Committee. He also serves on the Stan State Alumni Council, the Advisory Board for the College of Business Administration and the Board of Directors of Auxiliary and Business Services.
His dedication is driven largely by his love for his alma mater.
— RICHARD RONTEN
“I feel like I received a quality business education at Stan State. A lot of my success I had later was due to what I learned at Stanislaus,” Ronten said. “When I was there it was very small. Thomas Barrett was the head of the business department, and I had a good relationship with him. The education I received there really did prepare me well for the future.”
That he would end up with a college business degree was something his parents, who were children of immigrants, always envisioned for their only child.
“They grew up in Tuolumne City, were born there, and that was the vision they had, that I needed to go to college,” Ronten said. “There was never any discussion about it. I was going to college, something that they were not able to do themselves during the Depression.” They knew there was a better future beyond Tuolumne City, so they sent him to Modesto Junior College and then to Stanislaus State, the closest colleges to them. He worked all through college including summers at the mill.
It was while in Modesto that Ronten began studying stocks and how the market worked, but it was his business degree that carried him into his professional career. Even in “retirement” he continues to revere that education and still reads at least three hours a day to continue the self-education that enabled much of his joy and success.
“Education is a lifelong journey, not a destination,” he said.
