Roger Ralph
Loeb BIO – Roger Ralph
The Loeb Fellowship experience quite unexpectedly changed the course of my life.
While a half semester Loeb in 1978, I continued working at the Columbia Association. I had left a management consultant job with Booz, Allen, and Hamilton focused on HUD’s model cities program in 1972 to become CA’s director of Human Services. These were terrific jobs as Columbia, MD, was a young new town started by a true visionary, James Rouse, who became my mentor. I got to develop bike paths, build an in town petting zoo, and run teen centers.
At Harvard I sat in on courses at the business school and before the end of the Loeb year visited its career counseling center. There at the age of 37 I took one of those “what do you want to do when you grow up tests?” The results suggested some potential entrepreneurial talent and after the Loeb I jumped off the diving board by leaving my job and salary to partner with
the manager of a local tennis club. We hoped to develop a new racquetball and health club. I spent a year writing business plans before finding a lender who did not think racquetball and health clubs were merely fads, though by that time my partner had moved on.
Finally in 1980–with the help of an SBA Guaranteed Loan and a silent partner–my wife Elaine and I opened the Bel Air Racquet Club. What started as a small 25,000 sq. ft. racquetball club on one acre with ten employees, in 20 years had become the 120,000 sq. ft. Bel Air Athletic Club, with 15,000 members and 350 full and part time employees.
We sold the business in 2000 and the next year after Cal Ripken, Jr., an old friend, retired from baseball, he asked me to help him with his business interests and getting the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation off the ground. Due to Cal’s interest and a terrific CEO and board, CRSF has become a national foundation of high quality: it built 75 professional quality turf fields in disadvantaged neighborhoods; and partnering with local Boys and Girls Clubs and law enforcement agencies serves thousands and thousands of kids from low income neighborhoods
In 2004 I returned to the health club industry and became a partner in developing the Hockessin Athletic Club, a $30M project that opened in 2007. We took a brownfields site and, working with the Delaware Department of Transportation, created a site that includes a 110,000 sf health club/aquatics complex, athletic fields, walking paths, and a parking deck.
Both with Bel Air and Hockessin my focus was on creating a vision and strategy that would work
and building a business culture that truly fosters the professional and personal growth of all staff.
In the downloads section of my web site (Rogerralph.com) there is considerable original material based on my experience in the business and non-profit world over five decades and a detailed bio.