EDUCATION LEADER Rickey Gelb The Gelb Group Rickey and Robbi Gelb Charitable Foundation Inc. Rickey M. Gelb is opening the day’s mail, which invariably includes about eight or 10 solicitations for donations. “See, this one has no name on it. It’s going in the trash,” he tells his visitor. Gelb’s insistence on knowing at least some of the individuals involved with any charity may seem to say he is no soft touch. But then he begins to talk about education. The Gelb Group, his Encino-based real estate company, donated a building to Jeopardy Foundation to provide a place where at-risk youth can get educational and other after-school services. The Rickey and Robbi Gelb Charitable Foundation Inc. has donated over $1 million since it was formed, much of it going to scholarships. And employees get full tuition reimbursement, whether or not their school courses pertain to their jobs. <!– Gelb: Foundation focuses on education. –> Gelb: Foundation focuses on education. “Rickey is a great person,” said attorney Joel Simon, who, as president of the Encino Chamber of Commerce, has worked with Gelb, currently CFO of the chamber, on several of his pet projects. “He has sponsored for as long as I can remember the Encino Teacher Recognition luncheon we put on. He believes very much in education and teachers, and he has been really upfront providing an ability to help in that area.” Gelb and his wife Robbi, also a partner at The Gelb Group, started the foundation about 10 years ago to simplify their charitable efforts. While the foundation donates to numerous charities, mostly in the Valley (provided Gelb knows those affiliated with the organization) the bulk of efforts are reserved for educational endeavors. “I missed being educated,” he said. “My parents never had the money.” A Valley resident since his family moved to the region from Missouri when he was 3 years old, Gelb took about five years to graduate from Los Angeles Valley College and never had the opportunity to attend a four-year school. “I went day and night but I worked in between,” Gelb recalled. “I used to work in between classes.” As an adolescent entrepreneur Gelb began selling greeting cards door to door. When he realized that a lot of would-be customers were turning him down because they couldn’t read the English-language greetings, the 12-year-old Gelb hitched a ride with his older brother to Mexico and began sourcing Spanish-language greeting cards for his business there. Eventually he went into the retail business selling televisions like his father. But when his dad lost a lease on his store because the property was sold, Gelb decided that it wasn’t enough to own a business. It was essential to own the building where the business was located. “My father had the business for many years, and the landlord sold the building and he had no place to go,” Gelb recalled. The time was the 1970s and vacancies in commercial buildings around the Valley were plentiful. Gelb struck up deals with landlords by persuading them that they would make more money financing the sale of the building to Gelb than by leasing the space. By 1985, Gelb and his father owned 18 stores. Eventually, he sold them and began redeveloping the real estate they had occupied. “TV is a hard business,” said Gelb. “I used to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. In real estate you work five days a week and the real estate works for you the other days.” Today, the Gelb Group owns and occupies about 1 million square feet of commercial space, the majority in the San Fernando Valley where Gelb grew up. And Gelb has never lost touch with his alma mater. He is a past president of the Los Angeles Valley College Alumni & Friends Association and a past vice president of the school’s Patron’s Association. He still wonders what he might have done had he had the financial wherewithal to attend a four-year college, and he directs many of his efforts to those with similar financial limitations. He likes to tell you that the first employee at Gelb Group to take advantage of the company’s tuition reimbursement program to attend trade school is now an air conditioning technician at “double his former salary.” And he has uses his civic roles to push educational agendas. “Every time I get involved in an organization I make them get involved in giving money to scholarships,” Gelb said. Take the Armand Arabian Leaders in Public Service Luncheon that the Encino Chamber of Commerce has held for the past seven years. Gelb, who currently serves as CFO of the chamber, devised the event along with Arabian, now retired California Supreme Court Justice and Bert Boeckmann, owner of Galpin Ford. It was Gelb who built the event to a level of profitability and then spearheaded an effort to donate the proceeds to a scholarship fund for high school students. “He has taken that event and made it a premier event,” said Simon, who is an attorney with Alperstein, Simon, Farkas, Gillin & Scott LLP. “He does it entirely on his own. He has developed that and nurtured it and made it fantastic.” Gelb was also one of the creators of the chamber’s Teacher Recognition program, which each year holds a luncheon to honor 12 local teachers, again sponsored by Gelb. Each of 12 recipients receives DVD players, compliments of Gelb, along with a stipend to use in the classroom. “He doesn’t really want to spread the word, but I’m sure everyone recognizes him as a civic leader,” said Kirsten Y. Chong, CEO of the Encino Chamber. Mostly, he says, he’d like to be certain those who want to go to college get the opportunity he never had. “They may not have had the opportunity to go to college without the money,” he said.
