For the 50th Reunion

May 8, 2011

The Last 50 Years – I feel a great debt of gratitude to my teachers and classmates at LRCHS who have greatly increased my horizons and the quality of my life. Because LRCHS ranked so high academically nationwide I received a scholarship to Wharton Business School which I attended by hitchhiking 16 times between L.R. and Philadelphia. Subsequently I attended the Central University of Caracas by hitchhiking there and on to Rio de Janeiro where I worked for a USAID tax mission. These adventures caught the eye of graduate school admissions directors at Stanford and the University of Chicago. While working on my Ph.D. at Chicago I substitute taught in Southside Chicago ghetto schools which sensitized me to inner city challenges.

While working on my Ph.D. dissertation on the Politics of Deficit Spending and Inflation in Argentina my wife had a beautiful baby girl for whom I did most of the parenting. I was involved in real estate in Austin, TX and managed to have 10 rent houses, an apartment complex, and a small shopping center foreclosed on. When I went back to my 20th college reunion, my friends and I were sitting around talking about our goals for the next 10 years. My financial goal was to get back from negative to a zero net worth.

My mother used to say the Lord does not close one door without opening another one so I interviewed and started teaching a couple of classes on Public Policy at the University of Texas. This helped clarify what I really wanted to do so I hired others to work in an employee benefits business that I had maintained and focused on research and teaching. I then re-entered commercial real estate in Austin, Texas and am currently working on a book on the Politics of Deficit Spending and Inflation.

Today I am happily married to Jackie Hart Reutz, have a daughter Zoe, and have inherited two sons which is a blessing. I hope lots of our classmates come to the reunion and/ or let us know what they have been doing.

Best regards,
Ted Reutz