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.