Ernest Rady and his wife, Evelyn, came to San Diego from Manitoba, Canada in 1966 simply looking for a home where Evelyn’s allergies wouldn’t be so bad. “We tried several places, and we ended up in San Diego, and she hasn’t had allergies in 60 years,” Rady says. “So that was a good move.”
Little did the Radys realize that, within a few decades, it would be impossible to live in San Diego without knowing their name.
Rady founded his primary business, American Assets, Inc., in 1967. The real estate company grew substantially over the years, eventually going public in 2011 as American Assets Trust. In 1971, Rady launched the Insurance Company of the West. The success of those businesses has allowed him to offer changemaking contributions to some of the biggest medical, educational, and cultural institutions in town.
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
UC San Diego’s graduate business school bears Rady’s name, as does the now-iconic, shell-shaped, open-air music venue operated by the San Diego Symphony at the Embarcadero.
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park broke ground in September 2019 and opened in August 2021, so most of the construction took place in the throes of the pandemic. San Diego Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer recalls staring out at the build site with Rady, contemplating the future in an era when so much was uncertain. “Standing next to him on those occasions, I felt his great humanity and that this was something that was making him optimistic about emerging from that time,” she says. “If you look at Ernest’s great contributions around our city, they are human-based.”
Rady himself would prefer everyone focused on other humans—not him. “You know, if I had my druthers, I’d just as soon be less prominent and visible,” he says.
For him, it’s all about Rady Children’s Hospital.
The children’s hospital broke ground in 1953, over 50 years before it was renamed in honor of the Radys.
Rady ended up on the hospital’s board in the ’80s because he owed a building-related debt to Tom Carter, who, at the time, was the chief loan officer at Great American Bank. Carter, whose son was born with a hearing impairment, was active with the children’s hospital.
“Tom took me out for lunch one day and said, ‘You want to be on the board of the children’s hospital?’” Rady recalls. “And I said, ‘Okay.’ I owed them so much money that it wasn’t really optional.”
A few years later, the then-chairman told Rady it was his turn to step up. He began his tenure as chairman of the board of the hospital, serving from 1990 to 1993.
“I had other opportunities which would have been less costly than my involvement with what is now Rady Children’s, but foolishly, I chose the hospital,” Rady jokes.
Massive financial gifts from the Rady family have allowed Rady Children’s to majorly expand.
During his tenure on the board, he recruited other members and supported the hospital’s leaders. Since he stepped down more than 20 years ago, “they’ve done fantastic without me,” Rady says. “I tell them, ‘You didn’t really need me, and you probably didn’t even want me.’ If I’m anything in this environment, I’m a cheerleader.”
His cheerleading has included major financial gifts.
After Rady and Evelyn announced a $60 million contribution in 2006 that helped pay for a massive expansion of the institution’s treatment capacity, the hospital was renamed for the family. That donation has since been dwarfed by the Radys themselves, more than once.
A second gift of $120 million in 2014 became the seed money for the Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, designed to help the hospital tailor treatment to each patient’s DNA and research the genetic underpinnings of common childhood diseases.
Then, in 2019, the Radys made the single biggest donation in the hospital’s history—$200 million—to redevelop and expand its facilities. In August of last year, the hospital broke ground on a new, seven story tower. Projected to open in 2028, it will house 140 intensive care beds and four operating rooms, doubling the size of the emergency department. The building will also include three dedicated intensive care units.
The project is slated to cost around $1.2 billion, and Rady Children’s CEO Pat Frias says Rady’s donation made it possible for them to raise the other funds needed for the massive undertaking.
“He’s someone who has been innovative in his career and life, and he likes to hear about the opportunities to innovate,” Frias adds. “But he also wants to support things that we need and not just bright shiny objects.”
Rady insists that writing the check is the easy part.
“I get gratitude from people whose children have been served, and I tell them, ‘Don’t thank me. Thank the people at the hospital who do all the work,’” he continues. “I’m grateful to have my name associated with this magnificent institution that is the children’s hospital, even though I deserve very little of any credit.”
Rady also emphasizes that everyone in the community has a responsibility to give back—and that you don’t need wealth to make a difference. “This isn’t only about money,” he says. “They have, I don’t know, 500 or 1,000 volunteers at Rady Children’s. Some people provide service animals to come and amuse the children. There are all kinds of things that people can do and, frankly, that require a lot more effort than what I do.”
Rady’s primary emotion is gratitude—that he lives in San Diego; that his health has allowed him to continue working and giving back; that he has his wife of 64 years, three children, and five grandchildren.
“You know, people have to find a vocation, a hobby, an interest that gives them satisfaction,” he says. “Those who have [resources] ought to feel that they should be a part of the community and do what they can.”
According to Frias, the hospital and many other nonprofits in San Diego are only able to provide comprehensive assistance and services to the community because individuals like the Radys contribute to their causes. Gilmer agrees.
“If you’re going to get anything like a hospital built or create a performance space, or if you’re going to invest in infrastructure to support better living conditions for people, it doesn’t just happen with earned revenue or government subsidies,” she says. “It doesn’t happen without individuals. Without philanthropy, we wouldn’t have the city we have. There are some incredibly generous people in this city, and Ernest and Evelyn are some of them, as quietly as they want to do it.”
