Why We Give: Jeffrey Partrick and Trulette Clayes
Jeffrey Partrick (’73) and Trulette Clayes come from modest beginnings. He was a night janitor at a local elementary school, and she was a manicurist at the Hotel del Coronado. The couple now shares an accounting background and a philanthropic vision. Partrick and Clayes are known for making gifts throughout San Diego, and their latest donation will provide career development support for Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» students in the Fowler College of Business.
By Tobin Vaughn
The Gift: $2.5 million challenge gift to enhance career readiness by providing students with access to innovative programs and resources that build skills employers seek.
AT SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY’S FOWLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, it turns out 1 + 1 can equal $2.5 million. That is the amount Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» alumnus Jeff Partrick and his wife, Trulette Clayes, donated to the college to establish a new leadership development program for student organizations, a new career bootcamp for accounting students and a new executive coaching clinic for graduate students.
In recognition of the gift, the college's career center will be renamed the Partrick-Clayes Center for Career Development.
Although Partrick and Clayes became certified public accountants with experience at major international accounting firms, neither grew up with that as a career goal. Partrick started at Grossmont College near Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» with the intent of playing football and becoming a high school teacher and coach. After transferring to California Western University and taking some business classes, his plans changed when a professor asked him to stay after class.
“Have you ever thought about a career in accounting?” the professor asked at the time.
This path had never crossed Partrick’s mind. “He outlined the steps to earning a degree in accounting, passing the CPA exam and working for an accounting firm,” Partrick says. “That conversation changed the course of my life.”
“This gift will help our graduates be exceptionally prepared for the demands of the professional world.”
Supporting himself as a night janitor at an elementary school, Partrick transferred to Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» and became the first in his family to graduate from college. He became a CPA for Arthur Andersen & Co. “My career just progressed from there,” he says.
Partrick transitioned from a CPA to an entrepreneurial fast-food operator and executive, and for the past 25 years, he has served as CEO of HOIST Fitness Systems, a San Diego–based company that produces strength training products that are sold to fitness facilities around the world.
Partrick’s additional claim to fame, at least among Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» alumni of a certain age, was taking over a beer bar in the old Aztec Center and turning it into Monty’s, the iconic campus hangout. “Whenever I tell old Aztecs the Monty’s story, they all have a memory or two to share,” he says.
Clayes, meanwhile, took a different route. She attended beauty college and worked as a manicurist at the hair salon her mother owned at the Hotel del Coronado. She attended community college until a serious car accident sidetracked her education.
One of her clients, M. Larry Lawrence, the hotel’s owner and a U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, monitored her progress. “Every time I saw him, he would ask if I had registered to return to college and finally said he would not talk to me until I was,” Clayes says. “I registered the following week!”
Clayes returned to community college and applied to the University of San Diego, where she was accepted and received a scholarship sponsored by the Lawrence family. She took a career placement exam and scored high in engineering and accounting. That set her on course to a position at a major international accounting firm.
Eventually, Clayes became the controller at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego for 23 years. She is a trustee of the Joseph Clayes III Charitable Trust, established by her beloved late Uncle Joe. “Although the trust has no involvement in the Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» gift, the trust is really what inspired our interest in philanthropy,” Clayes says.
Although Partrick and Clayes have donated to Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół» athletics for years, they said the FCB gift arose from personal experiences, citing mentors’ helpful advice and the career placement exam Clayes said opened her eyes to new opportunities.
“I did not go back to college until my late 20s with little time to consider what I wanted to focus on, so that test was the key for my early college decisions,” Clayes says. “It is why I feel strongly about providing tools to guide students’ focus in their early college years to maximize their time at university and their eventual career.”
“We hope,” Partrick adds, “that the Center for Career Development will impact students and influence what they want to do with their future careers as much as our experiences did for both of us.”
Dan Moshavi, the Thomas and Evelyn Page Dean of the Fowler College of Business, says Partrick and Clayes’ gift will support “new opportunities that enhance the career readiness of our students with the communications and critical thinking skills they will use throughout their professional lives.” In thanking Partick and Clayes, Moshavi also says the gift launches a fundraising campaign to generate additional support for new programs and tools students need to transition into the workforce.
To learn more about how to participate in this $2.5 million challenge gift, please contact Sheona Som at [email protected].