J. Edward Martin
Profile -- (Spring 2002 Newsletter)
[interview below]
When it comes to shaping Los Angeles, few arch-itectural
firms have had as much of an impact as AC Martin Partners,"
said the Los Angeles Business Journal in a 1998 profile. And
the same might be said when it comes to shaping Thomas Aquinas
College: few individuals have had as much of an impact as
that firm's long-time managing partner, J. Edward Martin.
For more than 30 years, Martin has lent his vast expertise
in business and fundraising for the benefit of the College.
Indeed, in certain respects the College would not have existed
without him.
As Martin explains it, he's had a knack for being in the right
place at the right time. In 1916, Martin was born, the fifth
of six children, into a family with founding roots in Southern
California. Martin's great-great-grandfather, Christian Borchard,
was the first Anglo settler in Ventura County, where Martin's
father, Albert C. Martin, Sr., built many landmark buildings,
including the Ventura County Courthouse, with the firm that
bore his name.
Albert had two sons, and he declared that one would be an
architect and the other an engineer. After Ed's older brother
by three years, Al, Jr., went to the University of Southern
California to become an architect, Ed pursued studies to become
the architectural engineer - a field well-suited to him, given
his remarkable ability to solve simultaneous mathematical
problems in his head. He spent his first two years at USC's
architectural program and then completed his engineering degree
in 1939 from the distinguished program at the University of
Illinois.
Over the next two years he worked as a construction superintendent
for one of his father's clients. But watchful of mounting
global tensions, Martin sought to enter the Navy's civil engineer
corps. In December, 1941, he made an appointment to interview
for a commission in San Diego. The next day, Pearl Harbor
was bombed.
In April 1942, he arrived at Pearl Harbor as a public works
officer, one of a handful of civil engineers in the entire
4th Naval District. There he was involved in the seven-month
salvage operations of the many vessels sunk there, the success
of which was heralded at the time as an astonishing engineering
feat, later confirmed when 19 of those ships were re-commissioned
and in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered.
Such performance earned him the right to pursue the assignment
of his choice. He picked Kodiak, Alaska, where the war was
thought to be heading next. It didn't, but he spent a year-and-a-half
acquiring even more hands-on engineering skills in Spartan
conditions.
In 1944, as he was returning to his next assignment at Port
Hueneme back in Ventura County, he stopped in Chicago to marry
Betty Hines, a pretty young liberal arts co-ed who had worn
his fraternity pin at the University of Illinois. Betty then
left her family in the Hyde Park district of Chicago to start
a home out West.
At Port Hueneme, he served as a technical training officer
for more than 30 different Naval schools and as a martial
officer in over 1,000 disciplinary cases. By the time the
war ended, he had acquired a portfolio of experience that
made him exceptionally well-qualified to assume management
control as a partner back at his father's firm.
Over the next forty years, Martin and his brother Al ran
the company. By the late 1980s, it had grown to 385 employees
and had designed about half of all office space in downtown
Los Angeles. Much of the company's success arose in the 1950s
through the space technology industry when two young scientists,
Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge, acquired government support
for strategic testing analysis and hired his firm to design
its research and development facilities. This new client grew
to 12,000 employees the following year, becoming aerospace
giant TRW.
Martin's firm went on to build other facilities and office
buildings for TRW as well as for such companies as Aerospace
Corp, Space Technology Laboratory, Lockheed, North American,
and for Edwards Air Force Base. The firm also designed offices
for Parker-Hannifin Aerospace, the Los Angeles Department
of Water & Power, and the U.S. Air Force.
In 1964, Martin's firm designed the first high-rise in Los
Angeles, the Union Bank Square, which was the first building
designed, in close association with Dr. Charles Richter, to
account for potential movement of the earth. Other prominent
earthquake-resistant skyscrapers followed: the Arco Plaza,
the Security Pacific World Headquarters, Bank of America,
Wells Fargo, Hydrill Technology Center, Century City Twin
Towers, and what many say is the prettiest building in the
Southwest, the Sanwa Bank Plaza. Nine regional shopping centers
were also part of their building legacy.
And because of the Martin family's commitment to the Catholic
Church over the years, the firm designed and built such magnificent
churches as St. Vincent's, St. Basil's, and Padre Serra's.
In 1975, his firm prepared the Master Plan for the College
at its new campus in Santa Paula, together with all the preparatory
site development work, and the design of the College's first
permanent multi-purpose building, the St. Joseph Commons.
Through the years, Martin's main hobby was horses. He rode,
trained, and bred them, and for more than 30 years was the
Field Master and Master of Fox Hounds for the West Hills Hunt
Club. He and Betty were also past grand marshalls for the
Forum International Horse Show in Inglewood. But in 1986,
while readying a horse for a steeplechase race his horse fell
and Martin sustained a serious concussion. He spent two years
recuperating. His son Chris took over management of the firm,
as Al resigned along with Ed. An early retirement at age 70
was not what Ed had in mind, but he accepted it nevertheless.
Having been instrumental in funding the College at its founding,
Martin joined the Board of Governors just before the College
opened in 1971. In 1998, he was elected a Governor Emeritus.
Ed and Betty have three sons, two daughters, and 15 grandchildren,
including Jenny Martin who graduated in the class of 2001
and Brian Martin who is currently a sophomore.
Thanks in part to Ed and Betty, the College has been built
on solid ground. They would know.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2001
Interview with J. Edward Martin:
Q. How did you first come to hear of the College?
Sometime in 1970, a good friend of mine, an excellent priest
by the name of Fr. Harry Marchowsky, approached me and told
me about a group of educators from St. Mary's College in Northern
California who were interested in founding a college in accord
with the traditional philosophy and theology of the Catholic
Church. He said they had just hosted a kick-off dinner in
San Francisco and had gotten Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Brent
Bozell as the principal speakers for the event.
Bozell was the publisher of Triumph magazine and I had been
a big fan of his and the magazine's ideas. Fr. Marchowski
told me that Bozell was coming to Southern California to help
raise money for this new college and he wanted to know whether
I would be interested in meeting him. I said, certainly.
So I hosted a reception at the California Club in downtown
Los Angeles - I think it was the first reception hosted in
Southern California for the College. And there I got to meet
Dr. Ron McArthur, the founding president of the College, and
hear his plans. And I could see that his vision was sound
and good. I became a supporter then from day one.
Q. What was it that interested you in their plans?
I thought the Church at the time was in a crisis. In many
respects, it still is. I was concerned that the time-tested
philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church was being set
aside in many quarters. I could see that Dr. McArthur wanted
to recover those principles in founding a college according
to the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. I thought
it was critical, and I still do think it is critical, to have
a college that is committed to the sound theological principles
of the Catholic Church and its metaphysical reality.
Q. You were involved in a critical "go/no-go"
decision for the College. What happened?
I had been trying to get Dr. McArthur in touch with different
people who I thought might be in a position to help out the
school. I had founded a group known as the Roman Catholic
Latin Mass Society and I got to know not only Fr. Marchowsky
through it, but several other exemplary people who became
instrumental in the school's founding, namely Rube Hayden
and Sid Sidenfaden.
I met with Hayden and Sidenfaden from time to time, urging
them to give their support to the school, which they did.
One day in June of '71, I got a call from Dr. McArthur. He
told me that things weren't looking good enough for the school
to be able to open. He said that he had the students, he had
a campus, but he had no money to open it up. He was very discouraged
at the time and said that if he didn't have the money raised
by the Fourth of July, that he would have to call everybody
up and tell them the school was off. So several of us started
scrambling around to see if we could line up support from
certain people.
The day was approaching and still we were having no success.
McArthur said that he had contacted everyone he could think
to contact and was out of time. The deadline came and he called
me and said, "Ed, it looks like we're going to have to
call the project off; the money just isn't there." I
told him to wait one minute while I tried to get a hold of
Rube Hayden. I knew he was on vacation at Lake Arrowhead.
I called him there and told him the urgency of the situation.
He said, "Ok, count me in for $30,000." I called
McArthur back, who called Hayden to confirm the commitment.
McArthur was able to open the school.
Q. You were the linking agent for all sorts of other people,
too?
I went to Fritz Burns to interest him in the school. Fritz
was a large real estate developer in Southern California.
Fritz said he was happy to hear about the plans, but said
he was involved already with Loyola's law school. I made the
case to him that undergraduate education was vitally important
because it was more formative than graduate school. He agreed
and later became a very generous patron of the College. While
he has since passed away, his foundations have remained strong
generous supporters to this day.
Other friends of mine have been wonderfully generous to the
College over the years: Sir Daniel Donohue, president of the
Dan Murphy Foundation, Francis Montgomery, Felix McGuiniss,
Tom Sullivan, the Honorable William Clark, and the Honorable
William Wilson, and many others. It has been my distinct pleasure
to have helped out when I could.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2002
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