Ronald Gregoire '71 Accounting

One of Ron Gregoire’s career mentors told him long ago that there is no luck in business: success occurs at the intersection where opportunity and preparation meet. This perspective helped Gregoire parlay an accounting internship into a full-time job, and then a position as business manager for a Ford dealership. His auditing skills and financial know-how led to a chance to buy and operate his own new car dealership; first one, and then several more, many located in the busy Cerritos Auto Square.

“I followed my dreams,” he says. “I had my own dealership at 29. It was fun, and I enjoyed it.”

The automobile market in Southern California is huge.  It’s a very tough, complicated and capital-intense business. Gregoire and his business partner had the investment skills and ingenuity to grow their business to seven very profitable franchises.

He retired from running the dealerships at 49. Since then, he has served on a number of charitable boards and focused on giving back.

“I like to support organizations that provide incredibly useful services to show people how they can make it on their own for the rest of their lives,” Gregoire says.

Cal Poly Pomona, he adds, is one, in that it provides a solid education using the applied learn-by-doing approach and offers a robust internship program to enable success: the very program that gave Gregoire his career start.  

“Interning with a company that is involved with your major field of study is invaluable,” he says.

Gregoire’s generosity may be difficult to measure in terms of lasting impact. There are scholarships, funding of the Leadership Forum and $2.5 million for the new school of business building, for which he led a donation challenge to raise even more. Previously, Gregoire was inducted into the college’s Accounting Hall of Fame, named a Distinguished Alumni and in 2014, presented with an honorary doctorate. Truly, it is a lifetime of achievement.