Alumni Dinner Honorees 2008
Larry Platt '68
Twenty-two years ago, Larry Platt ’68, began supporting his alma mater by responding to mailings with donations, then attending an Alumni Dinner, and then by becoming a regular Corporate Sponsor at the Alumni Golf Outing. In 2000, Larry came to his first of many Career Days, which is where teacher Susan Lucheon heard what he had to say about starting RQA Inc, and suggested that someone schedule a meeting with him. At that meeting Larry launched his commitment to create and annually fund one of the most valuable scholarships available to Brother Rice students.
The Larry Platt Scholarship annually awards two $3000 scholarships, two $2000 scholarships, two $1000 scholarships, along with ten $100 bookstore gift certificates to juniors and seniors who during the end of sophomore year, excelled in the annual Larry Platt Essay Contest. Writing checks since 1989, including leading investments through his scholarship beginning in 2003, would alone qualify Larry for Man of the Year this year, but he does much more. Not only does he read and help score the essays along with wife and business partner Mary Ann, for the last two years Larry also has spent an entire day at Brother Rice High School promoting the scholarship in sophomore English classes. As a result, participation doubled, with a record 71 sophomores in three different computer labs accepting the challenge in 2008 to write their way to tuition scholarships.
“My involvement developed over several years from supporting Brother Rice with small donations.” Larry said “I also saw new developments on the campus while I was playing in the alumni softball league. Eventually, I had the means to provide a higher level of support and chose to do so in a manner that financially helped the students and supported my goal to promote oral and written communication skills for technical personnel entering the workforce.”
“We started the scholarship program in 2003 working with Jim Casey ’70 and Michelle England, who does most of the scoring, from Brother Rice, and since then over four hundred students have participated, with over fifty receiving scholarships or monetary awards,” Larry added.
“We recognized that oral and written communication skills in new candidates for technical positions in our business were not up to the standards we required. College graduates were highly qualified in the technical aspects of their degrees, but they lacked the ability to communicate the results of their work,” Larry said. “Our goal is to increase awareness of the importance of writing skills in the business world,” he added.
Larry’s involvement showed him that “many things have changed yet many things remain the same,” with the one constant being that Brother Rice students are responsible “for their own success.”
Larry thinks his father made the choice of where he and younger brothers Bill ’69, Mark ’71, and Gary would go to high school by moving to 99th and Ridgeway during the summer before entering Brother Rice in the Fall of 1964. While attending St. Killian grade school, Larry thought he would end up at Leo, St. Rita, or Mt. Carmel, but like for many 8th graders back then, the choice was made for him.
At Rice, Larry played sports all year long, so he has strong memories of what he tried to accomplish with teammates and coaches like Morhman for cross country and track, Johnson and Mitchell for football, Sedlacek and Kellogg for basketball, and he credits them for having a definite impact on his development. “In retrospect, Brother Crane was also an inspiration in the classroom, even though he seemed a bit quirky at the time,” Larry said.
Larry founded RQA, Inc. in 1989 after spending 18 years working for Unilever in several management positions which covered USA and International assignments. RQA now has eight divisions and along with affiliated companies, they have personnel in 120 countries globally. Operations are directed from offices in Chicago (World Headquarters), New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tampa, Boulder, Toronto, Sao Paulo, London, Nice, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Larry’s wife, Mary Ann, joined the company in 1998, “after a very successful career ranging from doing polymer research for Nalco Chemical to serving as the Global Vice President of Manufacturing for Monsanto Consumer Products, which included product lines as diverse as Roundup® weed-killer and NutaSweet/Equal® sweeteners. In addition to acting as the Executive Vice President for RQA, she is responsible for two additional businesses: she serves as the President/CEO of CNS/RQA FoodSafe™, a food safety consultancy based in Los Angeles and serves as CEO of EGG Strategy, an Innovation and Branding company based in Boulder CO. During the last three years, my brothers Bill and Mark have joined RQA in management positions after successful careers with the Chicago Transit Authority. Bill is the Director of Operations for our Product Retrieval and Recall Business and Mark is the Director of Operations for Product Dynamics, our Consumer Research and Sensory division. My brother Gary’s wife is our Human Resource Director. My son Kevin is responsible for our Brand Integrity division, which performs counterfeit investigations for consumer products companies and my daughter Kimberly is responsible for Auditor Relations for over 6,500 field personnel in North America,” Larry said, emphasizing family involvement.
Given the demands of such a large company, Larry said, “Time is often the more difficult thing to contribute. We spend a day visiting the sophomore classes to introduce the program to the students and encourage them to participate. Mr. Casey and Ms. England do the bulk of the program work, proctor the sessions and perform the initial grading. After this is completed, we read every paper to complete the grading and select the winners. The winners and their parents are then invited to an awards dinner to recognize their accomplishment and reinforce the message of the program,” he added without mentioning that he sponsors this dinner as well.
Larry is motivated by the desire “to raise the student’s awareness of the requirements in the business world and to give something back for the educational foundation and intellectual discipline” he gained from his alma mater. Larry added, “I have seen the results of our efforts through some of the students that have worked as summer interns at our company and, hopefully, they will continue to develop as successful members of society.”
Brother Rice High School asks alumni to give whatever they can give of their time, talent, and treasure, and it is because Larry Platt has given and is giving so much of all three, that we proudly induct him into the Alumni Hall of Fame as a 2008 Man of the Year.