Herbert M. Hanson Jr.

Herbert Hanson, founder of the CA library

University President Robert Bruininks and Carlson School Dean Larry Benveniste announced the gift from alumnus Herbert M. Hanson Jr. and his wife, Barbara, on Friday at the Carlson School's Board of Overseers meeting.
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Hanson graduated in 1949 with a degree in economics.He went on to found the San Francisco-based Hanson Investment Management Co., a money management firm that had more than $3 billion in assets when he retired in 1993.

"My education was the key to my success and now I want to do what I can to help more of today's students get a good start in their careers," he said in a statement.

University graduate Herbert Hanson Jr., class of 1949, pledged $10 million to the undergraduate building expansion project.

He said he hopes the money will spur potential donors and the state to provide funding.
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Hanson said the fact that Carlson School accepts only 15 percent of applicants is "atrocious."

"We don't have the capacity to handle the people from the state who have a right to a quality education.

"I've never met such bright, intelligent and personable people as I have with my association here for the last five years," he said.
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Hanson said he went to the University after serving in the U.S. Army airborne division.

"After being in the service for three years, you have all this pent-up desire for a social life.

"I didn't ring any bells academically my first year," Hanson said.

But after doing poorly his first year, he said he knew something had to change.

"It was either get with it or get out.I knew something had to give, and it wasn't going to be my future," Hanson said.

He credits his mentor, late University professor Arthur Upgren, as his inspiration.

"He loved to talk with freshmen who were 23 or 24 because he knew they had been in the service and he respected that," Hanson said.

When graduation came, Upgren told him he had something for him, Hanson said.

"I said, oh my God, he's going to give me a statue that says ‘worst student ever' or something like that," Hanson said.

His mentor actually gave him letters of recommendation, which helped him land his first job at Wells Fargo in San Francisco.

From there he worked as a broker for Dean Witter & Company for seven years.

"I didn't enjoy it because there was such a large conflict of interest between what was good for me, in terms of commission, and what was good for the client," Hanson said.

"Starting my own business was the culmination of everything I hoped to have," he said.

He went on to start the San Francisco-based Hanson Investment Management, which managed more than $2 billion in assets at the time of its sale in 1993.

In 1999, Hanson honored his mentor by donating $1.25 million to establish the Arthur R. Upgren Chair in Investment Management at the Carlson School.

Herbert Hanson Jr. attributes his success to professors from management school in his native Minnesota
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RANCHO MIRAGE -- Herbert Hanson Jr., who built a business with $3 billion in assets, credits much of his success to professors he had decades ago.

And today, in part to honor them, the Rancho Mirage man announced he is giving $10 million to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Hanson, who has had a home in the valley for nearly 30 years, said his gift will support expansion plans for the school's undergraduate program, including the construction of a new educational facility.

Hanson, a Minnesota native and 1949 University of Minnesota alumni, founded Hanson Investment Management Co., a San Francisco-based investment counseling firm which carried more than $3 billion in assets when he retired in 1993.

Now at age 79, he still remembers the professors and programs who helped him get his start.

"I want to do what I can to help more of today's students get a good start in their careers," said Hanson, who returns to the Minneapolis campus twice a year as a guest lecturer.

Hanson said that although the Carlson School boasts one of the nation's top undergraduate business administration programs, its tight space limits growth.

"The school admits only 15 percent of those who apply.With my gift, that number will increase by 50 percent.That's an incentive enough for me," Hanson said.
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"I am so grateful for this gift, and for the time and effort Herb has dedicated to the Carlson School through his work with the students and faculty," Bruininks said.
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Hanson and his wife, Barbara, fell in love with the valley after joining Rancho Mirage's Thunderbird Country Club in 1977.They built a house nearby in 1988.

While Hanson enjoys desert weather, he takes every chance he gets to travel back to snowy Minnesota to teach at his alma mater.What students enjoy most, Hanson said, is listening to stories about his career.

"Undergraduates need to know the basics but MBA students have already been in working for five or so years.They're serious.They ask the meaty questions.I teach them what the textbooks don't," he said.

Hanson said he inquired about lecturing locally at the University of California, Riverside, but plans fell through.