When Ron was putting together his Vail fundraiser for the rescue workers of 9-11, he got a number of the local leaders and long-term residents to help: Vail mayor Rod Slifer and his business partner Harry Frampton (slifersmithframpton.com; eastwestpartners.com); skiing legend Pepi Gramshammer (www.pepis.com); Vail co-founder Dick Hauserman, etc. He even approached President Gerald R. Ford. Unfortunately, President Ford couldn’t attend, but Ron was invited up to his house in Beaver Creek to visit. (The secret service must have missed the fact that Ron was a well-known short seller when they cleared him. Or perhaps they decided to overlook it, since Ron was co-chairman of President Ford’s re-election campaign during Ron’s sophomore year at Yale.) During his visit, they talked about the President’s career, and how it was that he wound up going into public service after graduating from Yale Law School. Ron related that he had considered doing the same after graduating from Harvard Law, but that he went to Wall Street instead. Still, Ron wondered whether or not he should someday, perhaps when he retired from the hedge fund business. President Ford then gave Ron some fatherly advice: “Don’t. Instead, just enjoy your children, make a lot of money, and keep giving to charity.” It’s advice that Ron took to heart.