A Legacy of Changing Lives
Ron Davis didn’t plan to go to college. Growing up in Southern California, Davis describes a challenging childhood. Neither of his parents valued education, but when a friend suggested he take classes at a nearby junior college, he signed up.
In 1960s California, community college classes were free. When Davis transferred to Cal State Fullerton (CSF) to complete his degree, he paid twelve dollars per semester. “The reason I value education is that I would not be in the position I am today if I’d not had the opportunity” to attend college, Davis shared. “I find it absolutely deplorable how higher education has become so expensive,” he said, adding, “It is just too hard for poor and middle-class kids today to get an education.”
Davis, for whom Colorado Mesa University’s Davis School of Business is named, went on to earn an MBA and build the nation’s largest bottled water company, The Perrier Group, which sold to Nestlé in 1994. He then went into private equity before retiring to the Vail Valley. Along the way, his entrepreneurial eye turned to education, and he founded Guardian Scholars to provide financial, social, and emotional support to first-generation college students from Eagle County, Colorado.
Guardian Scholars was founded at CSF in 1998 with a focus on helping deserving foster youth attend and succeed in college. Previously, Davis had tried supporting two students from a local high school, both of whom lasted only one semester. “A very valuable lesson that I learned is that they had not worked hard for the opportunity to go to college. So, it became an entitlement, as opposed to a reward,” he explains.
Davis also learned that first-generation students achieve higher success when they have a support system and mentors. “We do a very good job of screening people up front and providing them with mentoring, coaching, love—knowing when to give them a hug and when to give them a kick in the pants,” he said.
Becky Wells is an original Guardian Scholar. Wells was a teenage single mother in the foster system when Davis met her. “I was going to graduate one way or another,” says Wells, noting her determination to prove her doubters wrong. “But when Guardian Scholars came about, it gave me that insurance policy that I wasn’t going to slip through the cracks and that I didn’t have to do it alone, and that was everything for me.”
After moving to Colorado, Davis committed to a new version of Guardian Scholars, this time serving highly motivated, academically minded first-generation students from Eagle County. Looking for a permanent home for his program, Davis found CMU when a mutual acquaintance introduced him to President Tim Foster. Davis believes that CMU is a “perfect match” with Guardian Scholars, noting CMU’s affordability “and a value system of putting the student first, as opposed to putting the institution first.” Currently, there are forty to forty-five Guardian Scholars each year at CMU, and they are succeeding, thriving, and graduating.
Looking forward, Davis, who is a CMU trustee, will increase his focus on the Davis School of Business. “How do we build the Davis School of Business into a unique opportunity for students?” he asked. “How do we better engage the community and provide networking opportunities for the students that are graduating?” He added that he hopes to create the “same kind of legacy with some of the business students” that he has created with Guardian Scholars.
Looking back over his life, the highs and the lows, Davis calls himself “the luckiest guy in the world.”
“I had the opportunity, by happenstance, to fall upon something that has become a life mission and the most meaningful thing in my life. At my funeral, I don’t think anybody will talk about how much water I sold. They might talk about the lives I’ve changed."