Thank you, Ron Brandolini

In August of 1991 I sat in a room with around 20 people interviewing for the job I have held for the past 21 years.  I was 24 years old at the time, fresh out of graduate school and very nervous about my prospects. 

Sitting only a few feet to my right was a man who kept grinning during my interview.  I did not know if he was grinning because he was thinking, "Man what a dunce", or if he was grinning because he liked my answers.

When the interview concluded, rather than have me spend another $20 for a cab ride to the airport, this man offered to give me a ride. 

Along the way we talked about economic philosophy, our views on the world around us and other personal matters of interest to us.

I took an immediate liking to this polite, calm, generous person who could tell how badly I wanted this job.

When we pulled up the airport he gave me the same gentle smile you see in the photo below and said, "Don't worry, I think everything will turn out fine."

He was very reassuring in his demeanor which allowed me to think that things might actually turn out well for me.

 

 

What I did not know was that he had to go back and push hard for me to get the job.  Many in the department wanted to keep the current part-time professor who had filled in when a full-time professor passed away.  Others may have thought I was too young or had detected (though I tried to keeep it from being obvious) that I was a staunch free-market economist.

Ron Brandolini convinced Valencia College to give me a chance.  A year or so later  - when he started our Honors Department - he gave me the chance to teach honors courses.  A few years later he gave me some great advice on how to survive in higher education when your views are despised by most of your colleagues.

 

 

What follows is the obituary from today's Orlando Sentinel.  While it captures many things that were true about Ron Brandolini, it does miss one thing.

Ron Brandolini was an intellectual champion of liberty, free markets and the rights of all human beings to plan the course of their lives without the force  - or the threat of it - to guide them.  He had great natural instincts about how markets worked. 

The economics community has lost a great economist. 

I know I will be forever grateful to him for convincing Valencia to give me the job I have proudly held for two decades.  I am convinced now that he was grinning during my interview because he could tell we shared similar beliefs about the world around us.

Thank you and God bless you, Professor Brandolini.

By Jeff Kunerth, The Orlando Sentinel

The Mod 3 faculty lounge on the west campus of Valencia Community College seated 10 or 12 uncomfortably. The chairs were metal. The room was narrow and cramped, its walls painted concrete block, the floor covered in commercial-grade carpeting.

"It was utilitarian and stark like a train station in London said Ron Nelson, 69, a retired English professor.

What made the room special was the ongoing, free-floating conversation and intellectual debate among the faculty members who occupied the place in the 1980s. There were English teachers, accounting professors, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, psychologists, and this one economics professor who seemed to stand out among them all — Ronald Brandolini.

"He was one of the shining stars in that group of people," Nelson said. "The quality of conversation was a lot better because he was there."

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Ron Brandolini, of Orlando, died June 16 after a long battle with cancer. He was 65.

Brandolini, who came to Valencia in 1976, was the founding director of the college's honors program in the 1980s and served in that capacity for 20 years. During that time, he recruited top students and teachers for the program, elevating the program's stature throughout the country.

Honors students from Valencia went on to North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke, Ivy League schools and top-tier state universities.

"It was rated one of the highest community college programs in the country," said Ivan Applebaum, 76, a retired psychology professor.

Brandolini's intellect allowed him to converse on any subject with experts in their fields, but his personality made him accessible to teachers and students alike. For his students, Brandolini had the ability to translate the principles of economics into the language of everyday life.

"He would take events from TV and apply it to his lecture and make it interesting. His students would say, 'I never thought of it that way. It makes sense,' " said his wife, Nicoleta Brandolini, 43.

Brandolini liked to view things from afar and get the big picture, whether it was from the peak of Machu Picchu in Peru to the backyard telescope he programmed with a computer.

He liked to fish, but always let his catch off the hook. He knew how to invest, but never cared much about money. He liked to sit at home in a buttery-colored love seat, facing the entertainment center with the television off, and listen to music. Mozart. Springsteen.
Willie Nelson.  Elton John. The Drifters.

To his friends and family, Ron Brandolini had that rare combination of soaring intellect and common sense, far-reaching vision and fine attention to detail, self-confidence without the self-centeredness.

"He did not have much of an ego," Applebaum said. "His interests were in others, not himself."