TIME
TIMELESS GENEROSITY
A legacy of excellence lives on .
BY MELINDA BATTENBERG
IT MAY SEEM A RELIC from a time long gone , but for decades the Hamilton “ Traffic Special ” pocket watch has been indispensable for Harry Markowitz , keeping time throughout his life , lecturing the next generation of leaders . Though the ticking of its hands may be a foreign sound to his students , the watch remains steadfast and relevant to the modern age , much like its owner .
Though he turned 90 this year , Markowitz is relatively young when it comes to his career at UC San Diego ’ s Rady School of Management . He began as an adjunct professor of finance and accounting in 2006 , yet has since called UC San Diego and the Rady School “ my home .” Markowitz ’ s watch has all the while tracked the minutes of his career at universities around the nation , and will continue its faithful reckoning long after his last lecture , thanks to a planned donation of the timepiece to the Rady School . The donation will be part of a gift that creates the $ 4 million Barbara and Harry Markowitz Endowed Fellowship , which will benefit Rady students
who have demonstrated a financial need or who are from underprivileged backgrounds .
Along with his cherished pocket watch , Markowitz will give the Rady School his 2013 Wharton-Jacobs Levy Prize for Quantitative Financial Innovation , the John von Neumann Theory Prize awarded in 1989 , and last but not least , his 1990 Nobel Prize in economics . ( No need to wind those .)
That Markowitz has received some of the most prestigious prizes in his field comes as no surprise . When he developed Modern Portfolio Theory in the early 1950s , it was completely novel and groundbreaking . Understanding the need to weigh investment risks against returns , Markowitz developed a formula that analyzed how diversity in investing can achieve optimal results . His formula forever changed investment management , and is still utilized today .
In addition to his pioneering work in economics , Markowitz has also made significant contributions in computer
modeling for manufacturing and operations , and developed techniques that are now standard in production software for optimization programs . Such diverse interests and accomplishments have led Markowitz to resist being defined by one subject .
“ My field is not finance . A better definition is something called operations research — the use of mathematics , computers and statistics to solve practical problems . I ’ m a philosopher .”
Leave it to a philosopher to give the gift of time . Markowitz ’ s pocket watch , his awards and the gift of education will live on at the Rady School in perpetuity , a timeless reminder of the outstanding impact Markowitz has made to the school and in the futures of the many students he ’ s taught .
TRITONMAG . COM 11