Bernard Orsi is the Executive Vice President and
Director of S & P Company. He and his wife Sandra have four
children.
"I came from a typical working class family. I
would be running a fishing boat if it had not been for Saint
Mary's," he said. He had not even thought of college until Brother
Albert Rahill visited Orsi's San Pedro high school. "I filled out
an application because he asked me to," Orsi recalled. "I
asked him how I was going to finance it, and he said, 'We'll find a
way.' And he did."
Now Orsi is on the governing board of the College.
"The trustees are very cognizant of costs," Orsi said.
"Without the generosity of donors, we would have to cut back. If
these economic times continue, it is going to be tough. We have to keep
the financial aid budget up and diversify the student body. It is
clearly Lasallian to diversify. We need more endowment so that tuition
does not have to provide such a high percentage of the operating budget.
"Giving is a habit. I used to make excuses and tell
myself I would give next year. But you just have to do it, to pay back.
You may not realize for a long time all that the College has done for
you, and you are never really charged the whole cost."
He believes the College is doing a fine job, though it
is not the small, all-male school he remembers. "The human touch is
there," he said. "Even if you are not Catholic, you cannot
help but come out of Saint Mary's a better person."
Kristin agreed: "I loved my years at the College. I
earned my master's there, too." Kristin teaches fifth grade at
Union House Elementary in Elk Grove, California.
_____
_____. "Meeting the Challenge."
1992 - 1993 President's Annual Report.
Saint Mary's College of California - excerpts. (1993),
p. 19.
