Randy Berholtz

Interviewee: Randy Berholtz (Pennsylvania & Nuffield 1985) [hereafter ‘RES’]  

Moderator: Jamie Byron Geller [hereafter ‘INT’]  

Date of interview: 3 September 2025  

[00:00:04] 

INT: This is Jamie Byron Geller on behalf of the Rhodes Trust and I am here with Randy Berholtz, Pennsylvania & Nuffield 1985 to record Randy’s oral history interview, which will help us to launch the first ever comprehensive Rhodes Scholar Oral History Project.  Today’s date is September 3rd 2025 and we are so grateful to you Randy, for joining us in this initiative.  Before we kick off, would you mind please saying your full name for the recording? 

RES: Sure.  My Name is Randy John Berholtz. 

INT: And do I have your permission to record our conversation today? 

RES: You do.  I give you my permission. 

INT: Thank you.  So we are having this conversation virtually due to the magic of Zoom but where are you joining from today, Randy? 

RES: I’m in San Diego, California. 

INT: Right, and how long has San Diego been home for you? 

RES: Well, about 30 years. 

INT: Okay, wonderful.  So I would love to start at the beginning and I’m going to ask you to share where and when you were born? 

RES: Sure.  I was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania in 1961.  Shamokin is a town.  It’s a coal mining town in the North Eastern part of Pennsylvania. 

INT: Wonderful, and last time we connected Randy, you so kindly shared a little bit about your experience growing up in Pennsylvania and- as well as a little bit about your heritage.  I was wondering if you would mind perhaps starting there? 

RES: Sure.  On one side of my family I am what they call Pennsylvania Dutch, which is actually German and I can trace my earliest ancestor back to Switzerland and back from the days of the Reformation when a number of Swiss Protestant groups were either Anabaptist or Mennonites, who were facing a lot of religious persecution in Switzerland and at that time, they had to flee to Germany and then at one point the Queen of England said, “Hey, you rowdy Germans.  We need some more Protestants either in Ireland or in America,” and so my ancestors got on the boat and they went to New York State and then they wound up in Pennsylvania.  My first ancestor was actually in Pennsylvania prior to the development of the United States back in 1680.  On the other side they are German, Polish Catholics, coal miners.  My paternal grandfather and my paternal great-grandfather came over from the Silesian area that was in between Czechoslovakia and Poland and Germany, and back then was-  Part of it was owned by Prussia and in about 1890, that’s when they mined coal in Pennsylvania and then my paternal grandmother was actually born in the Russian part of Poland and she came over to the US in about 1904 when she was about 13 years old. 

INT: Great.  So-  Oh, sorry.  Go ahead. 

RES: No, no.  Please go ahead. 

INT: I was going to ask.  So had your family been in Pennsylvania for a few generations by- at the time you were born? 

RES: Well, yes.  So half of it had been there almost 300 years and the other half were really fairly recent immigrants as I mentioned.  Like, my grandmother was born in Poland and so a large part of my upbringing was in this Polish Catholic household where I was the only Protestant kid and I had about-  You know, I had-  My grandmother had six kids and so they all their kids and so, I grew up in this big whacky house of just Polish Americans and my grandmother was interesting.  My grandmother’s English wasn’t all that good and so, I think my grandmother actually learned to speak English from watching Jeopardy.  You know.  So whenever Jeopardy was on, it’s like the entire house stopped and we all had to watch Jeopardy from an early age. 

INT: Did you grow up in a multigenerational household?  Was your grandmother a part of your immediate household? 

RES: Well- well-  So my-  You know.  My parents-  We lived by ourselves but at that time, there wasn’t day care and so, my mother usually paid my grandmother to look after me and like a lot of sort of Polish Catholic houses at that time-  You know.  You had multi-generations of people.  You know.  Unfortunately, where I came from, a lot of the men died fairly early in the mines.  Yeah, my grandfather died at 59 years old of black lung disease.  My father had black lung disease and died of that.  My great-grandfather on my-  My paternal great-grandfather died in the coalmines and then my maternal grandfather died in the coalmines in an accident when he was 29.  You know.  So I grew up in this place where there weren’t a lot of older men but it was a lot of older women and a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins and it’s one of those types of places where you’re walking downtown and your mom says, “Hey.  This is your cousin on your mother’s side.” [laughs] And you’re just trying to figure out how you’re related but it was a small coalmining town.  It was-  You know.  Back when I was there, it was probably about 50,000 people.  Now it’s probably about 10,000 people but at some point- you know, with all the intermarriages everybody’s linked at some point. 

INT: And would you mind sharing a little bit, Randy about your educational experiences, both starting from the earliest educational experiences you can remember and then maybe sharing a little bit about High School as well? 

RES: Oh, sure.  Sure.  So I was-  So my father had actually-  He was like a fourth grade dropout.  So my father had no education really.  Back in his days, he went to Catholic school and what they did was, when he was a kid-  So my father was born in 1921.  My parents were a bit older.  My mother was 44 when she had me and my father was 40.  When my father went to school they were taught Polish in the morning and English in the afternoon and so, at some point I think he was kicked out of the Catholic school for being bad and they later kicked him out of public school.  So my father went to work in the mines very early.  You know.  He had a lot of problems reading and writing in English.  My mother was very smart.  She was born in 1917 and she missed graduating from High School by about three months.  Back in those days- you know, the families thought it was more important to go to work right away and my mother had an agreement with her brother.  My mother was sent-  You know.  Sort of worked for her brother to go to a Bible College and so, my uncle actually went to college at a Bible-  You know.  They had a Bible College and my mother was supposed to go to college at that time but the favour was never returned.  So I grew up with-  You know.  I always say that at least one parent has to be motivated I think to motivate kids and I was very lucky in that education was always very important from my mother. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: So I went to school when I was five.  Kindergarten back in those days, we had sort of neighbourhood schools, which you don’t have a lot anymore and so, yeah.  I was always interested in learning.  I was always interested in playing sports.  I was always the kid who was the sweatiest or the one who was the dirtiest- you know, as far as doing-  You know.  Even though I liked academics and I loved History and Social Studies and English, I always seemed to like Recess a lot more than anything else.  So for me-  You know.  I was always taught to be a scholar athlete and so-  You know.  So I was playing sports ever since I was a little kid, and baseball.  Baseball, basketball and football.  You know.  I switched over from basketball to wrestling at one point in High School but-  You know.  I always liked Math.  I liked Social Studies.  I loved History.  I always had an artistic bit though too.  I can’t sing.  I was kicked out of-  I turned up for choir when I was seven and they said, “Oops, that’s not working!”  And then I couldn’t draw for anything but the one thing I could always do was write and so, I remember I had a teacher when I was in Sixth Grade, a guy named Mr Procopio and this guy was-  He was-  This was 1973. 

[00:10:00] 

RES: The Vietnam War was sort of ending for America and I had this whacky and brilliant guy- you know, who would just encourage us to write poetry and to write fiction and he used to encourage us to like, get up in the room and dance if we wanted to.  And I remember once, he had a poster in his room of Hemmingway and once he just scared us all and he said, “Do you know what Hemmingway did once?  He took a gun and he shot himself,” and I’m like, this is like in Sixth Grade.  You know?  But he was somebody who just made us think outside of the box and at one point, that teacher got into a fight with the school’s district principal because-  You know.  When I was about 12 or 13 it was a big time in American history because when I was in Elementary School, you could have the Bible in class and you could have like, Christmas.  You know.  You could have a kind of Santa Clausy Christmas and then you’d have maybe like- you know, a Bible Christmas.  But when I was like 12 or 13, that’s when there was the big movement for more separation for church and state and so, at that point-  You know.  There was just this separation.  I remember signing up for a Bible School, a Bible class in public school and they made me buff to like a separate site.  But the reason I’m saying this is, Mr Procopio once brought in the Bible and said, “It’s illegal for me to have this in the classroom.”  So this guy was just like that but-  You know.  Also, remembering Sixth Grade as we’re talking about it-  You know.  We were encouraged to write a lot about the Vietnam War.  You know.  We were encouraged to talk about our families’ circumstances and I mentioned I grew up in this big family and one of my cousins, my cousin Bobby, when he graduated from High School he was 17 years old and he didn’t have a father.  So my grandmother actually signed for him to go into the Marines in Vietnam. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And so my cousin Bobby was-  First- so his first day, he was sent into Vietnam on December 31st 1967- you know, as a 17-year-old.  By the time he was 18, he had been wounded twice and actually had an honourable dis- a discharge but so-  You know.  As I tell people, I grew up in a place of soldiers and athletes and it just seemed like-  You know.  If you didn’t go to college, you went into the military and that was just the way of life.  You know.  It’s like the mines to the military and those were the-  Those were the types of men I had to look up to.  So, yeah. 

INT: Mhmm hm.  And I’m curious Randy, if you had a sense as you were growing up of-  You know.  As you saw some of the different paths that others in your community and family were taking, if you had a sense of what direction you hoped that your career might bring you on one day? 

RES: Sure.  Well-  You know.  I think a lot of what we do, as you said, is dependent on sort of the examples we have and one of the problems in sort of working class communities sometimes is that your work is very important but one of the problems in my community was-  You know.  When I was growing up, my mother and father had a coal truck at first.  At first they owned one and then they had to rent one and in 1966 the coal business started to die and I can remember the day exactly.  It must have been 1967.  I’m upstairs with my mum and my dad.  You know.  And they look at each other and they say-  Most people are getting imported oil to the country now.  They’re not using coal as much.  The price of coal is becoming too expensive.  What are we going to do?  And at that point my mum said, “I’ll go and work in the dress factories,” and my dad said-  You know.  He’ll go and help other people on their coal trucks or to get other types of jobs. 

So when people talk about the deindustrialisation period, I lived it and-  You know.  It’s very tough for a community and especially men in the comm-  You know.  Especially sort of big tough men in a community- you know, where there are working class jobs and now all of a sudden, you have none and I remember at one point, my dad used to do odd jobs and then-  You know.  He would commute to Philadelphia, which was two-hours each way a day sometimes to do construction jobs but-  You know.  I was going to say, some of my earliest memories growing up-  You know.  We talk about like, kids going to summer camp now.  You know.  Back in the old days, summer camp for me was getting up at 4 O’clock in the morning, sitting in between two big guys on a coal truck and just hearing the coal go down the shoot at the colliery and just-  You know.  It would just seem like it was-  You know.  These rides would be hours and hours and hours until we found somebody to like, buy a full load of coal.  But to this day-  You know.  Having that coal-  You know.  It was valuable to us.  It was how we ate.  You know.  But I can always remember as a little kid there just being these adults and it was hard and you’ve got these two big guys and they’re taking this coal from like the workplace and all I kept thinking about was there was this place we used to stop for ham sandwiches.  So ham sandwiches kept me going through that. 

But I guess my point there though was that-  You know.  A lot of the male role models we had were workers and some of them were non-Union, some of them were Union and the like.  So- you know, in my area you either went into the mines or you went into the mills or you had odd jobs and you stayed in your town, or you went into the military and if you were lucky, you got a sports scholarship to go to college.  Very few people went to college without having the sports scholarships and so, for me-  You know.  There was this added pressure of playing sports.  You know.  Because my coaches would always say to me-  You know.  It was like they’d say, “Berholtz, you have to play this sport.  This is the only way we can get into college.” 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: You know.  So- you know, that scholar, athlete part.  You know.  It has a lot of importance to us and so-  You know, and when I was in High School, some of the people I looked up to were like Football or Baseball or Basketball players who went to play at Ivy League schools.  Because for us-  You know.  You either went to play at a Division One school, where you just focused on your sport and you took the chance that you either would succeed or you wouldn’t and there was nothing to fall back on, or you did what I did, which was to play sports, to do well in school and then to get into a college where the sport would keep you in and then-  You know.  There was always this thing in the back of your mind.  What happens if you get hurt?  You know.  What happens with that?  Do you have a plan B?  And so, when I was in High School, I actually played three sports and it was like-  It was like constant, just sport after sport after sport- you know, without much breaks.  But I remember in my junior year, I got hurt in double sessions.  I had a knee injury and at that time, it was the first time that I could actually think to myself about academics and about achievement and in my junior year when I got hurt, I started thinking, well-  You know.  Am I going to play a sport at college, or am I going to be injured?  Am I going to be-?  If I fail in that sport, am I going to be back in Pennsylvania?  You know, essentially with nothing and so-  You know. 

At that time, I started to-  You know.  I was always an A-, B+ student but at that time I started to say, you know what?  You know.  I can be that or I can be an A or an A+ student- you know, if I do work just a little bit harder.  And so at that point I said-  You know.  I want to be the A+ student who has alternatives and that’s what I did.  You know.  I played in all three sports.  In my senior year I said, “Look.  I’m just going to focus on baseball.”  I was-  I signed-  I had a trial with the Cincinnati Reds, a professional baseball team when I was 16.  The Scouts told me to come back. 

[00:20:00] 

RES: I hurt my knee at that time after that and-  You know.  So there I am, a senior.  I got into Cornell.  I got into a couple of other schools and I just said to myself-  I said, my knee keeps going out all the time.  You know.  What’s going to happen to me?  Am I going to flunk out of school?  You know.  Is somebody going to take my scholarship away?  So I was lucky.  I got into a couple of schools like Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Tufts and places like that but-  You know.  It’s more academic schools rather than a university in Southern California or an Arizona State, which were the big- other big baseball schools at that time.  But I just said to myself at that time-  Well, I was going into college and I said-  You know.  I was lucky because at Cornell they had a scholarship programme that was based on you rather than sports.  So you sort of got in also if you played sports but I didn’t have to play baseball. 

So I walked into my baseball coach’s office in the summer and before I started, I said, “Coach, I have one shot.”  You know.  And I said, “I have one shot and I can either focus on baseball or I can focus on academics.  I really can’t give my all above,” and I said at that point, “Look, I’m going to focus on academics,” and he said, “Good luck.  More than likely you’re going to flunk and you’ll be back in Pennsylvania.”  And so it was four and a half years.  I took a couple of leaves of absences and hopefully, I proved them wrong.  You know.  So I did have that experience of being an athlete who had an injury and a lot of people go through that.  So early in my life I had to have that plan B or that plan C or that D.  But we were lucky though too because the way you got out from the core regions was if you had somebody who went to the college before and I was lucky at Cornell.  There were two guys, two twin guys from my hometown who went to Cornell and both of them played baseball and football and the coach knew them. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And even at Johns Hopkins-  You know.  I got into Johns Hopkins because my baseball coach’s son, well a rival coach’s son was actually the coach there.  So, you know.  Those are the networks we used. 

INT: And did you mention that-?  Sorry, I don’t think we touched on what you- your course of study at Cornell.  Yeah, as you mentioned, started kind of leaning more and more it sounds like into academic studies.  Did you have a sense of what you wanted to pursue at that time? 

RES: Well- you know.  I got these sort of like maybe do or try interests and for me on the one hand, it’s political economy and political economy is really- you know, the basis of government and it’s the basis of the economy.  So- you know, and I didn’t have any courses in this.  I always loved History.  I loved Social Studies.  I just-  You know.  I grew up in a time when everybody was still talking about World War II.  You know, and my parents were older and so-  You know.  We had a lot of family members in the war.  You know.  Like, one of my dad’s cousins actually died on D-Day on Omaha Beach.  So the war was a way that I got to know places and geographies and that and-  You know.  I was the type of kid when I was growing up, I always read the paper.  I read.  I was a sponge.  I just wanted to get as much information as I could about stuff.  You know.  So when I went to Cornell, so Politics and Economics combined.  I’m like, wow I can study both of these and it really opened my eyes.  It gave me the framework to really understand politics and business in a government and so, on the one hand I had that side.  On another hand, I had writing.  I was in creative writing courses and I don’t-  You know.  When somebody has a writing bend or a creative bend, it’s a blessing and it’s a curse.  It’s a curse in that you just have to keep writing.  You know.  Things come into your mind and you just have to write and so, I actually got into writing poetry.  You know.  And if anybody’s ever done a poem, it’s harder to write something short and to the point than it is for short stories. 

But I started writing poems and short stories and I was lucky because Cornell had a really good- you know, English department.  I got to meet some just great people but some whacky people and there was this red-haired Jewish-American poet called Phyllis Janowitz and she-  She rocked my boat.  She was- I mean-  You know.  She would encourage me to write and I remember the first day at Cornell, I had this one guy.  He was a former student for-  Was it an SDS, a leader in the 60s, a guy named Dave Burak?  You know.  He was a Ukrainian American kid but just loved to write and he and I could because I wrote about sort of Polish working class coalminer stuff and so-  You know.  He got it and he just encouraged me to write.  So when I was there, I was lucky.  There was a guy who actually wrote a book on Ironweed, which became a movie with Meryl Streep and he was a Pulitzer prize winning author and so, he gave me tips and the like.  So I had this political economy bend and I had this poetry and this creative writing bend and then I just took all the classes in Psychology.  Because I grew up with a stutter and part of my life was to-  You know.  How can I do all the stuff I want to do when I have a stutter?  So if I had my own way I probably would have gone into TV or acting but with a stutter, you just can’t do it.  You know.  I mean it was so unpredictable.  So I did a lot of Psych courses and then I was doing a lot of speech therapy as well to improve my speech.  So, yeah. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: That’s pretty much what I did on the sports side.  You know.  I didn’t play baseball but I-  You know.   I had this athletic bend and so I did really heavy duty powerlifting and I did Taekwondo Karate and so, I was a pretty serious powerlifter at that point and graduated in four and a half years.  You know. 

INT: And when did you-?  I’m curious.  When during your time at Cornell, or potentially before, did you start to think about the Rhodes Scholarship as a potential step after college? 

RES: Well, so I didn’t really start thinking about the Rhodes probably until my senior year.  So I think I was just researching scholarships and-  You know.  I had always known about Rhodes Scholars.  Like, I know there was Bill Bradley who used to play professional basketball for the New York Knicks and he was also a US Senator.  You know.  Yeah, I remember when there was I think a USC, or- a USC quarterback, Pat Haden, who was also a Rhodes Scholar.  You know.  And I’ll be honest with you.  At one point I thought, oh man this is-  You know.  How can I compete against these guys?  But the one thing that writing did for me, I knew how to write a story.  I knew how to tell a story and the one thing I think I’ve been good at is-  You know.  Hopefully, when I retire I can-  You know.  I’ve got books planned or poems planned, or a whole series of things planned.  But I think the one thing I can do is-  The one thing that writing has done for me, it’s given me an ability to communicate and improving my speech has given me the ability to also speak to the issues and I think a lot of the reasons I wrote was because I had these thoughts and I had a stutter.  You know.  I couldn’t say them.  You know. 

So I think I found out about the Rhodes Scholarship by actually applying in my senior year and I remember, I had an interview with the Professor who was like a Rhodes-  I think a lot of colleges like have a specific Professor dedicated to the Rhodes Scholarship but I think this person was a previous Rhodes Scholar.  So I get into the interview and I just start stuttering and I couldn’t really finish the interview and the Professor said to me-  He said, “It’s okay Randy.  This is probably not for you.”  And I just felt-  I just felt devastated at that point.  But there was another scholarship going to Oxford from Cornell.  It was a guy, he actually created-  He went to Oxford on his own and created a scholarship in honour of his grandmother called the Brettschneider Scholarship, to Pembroke College.  So I went there but-  You know.  Unlike- you know, I don’t quit. 

[00:30:00] 

RES: You know.  I’m from coalminers’ stock.  We don’t quit and I’m an athlete and like I say to people, you’re never a former athlete.  You’re always an athlete and I’m still an athlete and I still workout and I do that and I bike and I lift weights and I keep in shape and I eat well.  You know.  But when I was at Oxford I’m like, to hell with it.  I’m going to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship and we had a couple of Rhodes Scholars at my college, at Pembroke College and a couple of guys who applied for it and I said, “Okay.  I need some training sessions.  I’m going to go there and I’m going to do this.”  Then they sat down with me and I had like six of them.  You know.  It was like a simulated Rhodes Scholarship session and I sat down with them and they were pumping me with questions and I’m firing back and everything else and I applied for the Rhodes Scholarship.  Low and behold, I got to the state round and then I go back.  I go back.  We had the state round in Philadelphia and like-  You know. 

Throughout my life, there are two other sort of things.  One is poverty.  You know.  The reason I didn’t go to the pros when I was a senior in High School because I-  You know.  I was-  I had it all planned out and then I’m going to just focus on baseball and I’m going to go this camp in Florida, this baseball camp and I’m going to get noticed and then I’m going to be-  You know.  I’m going to be picked up by the Cincinnati Reds again, or by somebody else.  You know.  December comes around.  My mother was trying to sell her cemetary lots.  You know.  We had no money.  We couldn’t get the money and-  You know.  When you’re growing up poor, you become a bit of a hustler because you don’t have a choice but at that time, I sort of ran out of things I could do and my mum ran out of things and so, that option went off the table.  You know.  So even with the Rhodes, when I was applying in Pennsylvania there-  You know.  Our first interview was in Philadelphia and they had like two hotels you could stay at.  One was like the Hilton and the other one was the hotel, Divine Tracy.  We could stay there for like, $12 a night.  It was one of the weirdest-  It was like a former soup kitchen and everything else but I was in this-  You know, for the state interviews and when I got in there, there were 15 people and it’s probably one of the most daunting tasks you could have.  You’ve got 15 brilliant people in the room.  I think it was even more.  I think it was maybe in the 20s or something, like 20 brilliant people.  You’ve got these West Pointers and these Air Force Academy guys and you’ve got these Naval Academy guys and they’re in their dress uniforms and you’re coming in.  You know.  I think I had a clip-on tie at that point. [laughs] You know.  I’m coming in thinking, Holy cow, look at the quality of people here, but I said to myself, you know what?  You got this far.  You can do it. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: You know.  So I had the interviews and my experience has always-  Whenever I go into a room, I always try to make a connection with somebody and I made connections with people who were from working class backgrounds in Pennsylvania and low and behold, I found-  You know.  I mean Pennsylvania is a working class state and a lot of other Scholars come from middle class or poorer families and so, I made my connections.  So what they did was they brought us into this room and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these and everything else.  You know.  You’ve got 22 people and they’re all bright and then they say, boom, boom, boom.  It’s going on.  You know.  Two people out of that and I’m like, wait, did they say my name?  And so we did that but- and then we go to the regionals and the regionals are in Johns Hopkins, you know, down in Baltimore and I borrowed my parents’ car.  It’s like a rusted old car.  You know.  It’s probably worth like 500 bucks or something and I go down to Baltimore.  I did these interviews and in those days it was-  We had Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, DC all in one, which was a hard region.  Oh my god.  It was a tough region but they had 12 of us.  You know.  It was like two people from each of the regions, or each of the six states or so.  And so, I’d go into that.  You know.  Then I’m a little bit cocky.  I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve got this.  I’ve got this,” and then so, on the first day I’m thinking, Yeah, I’ve got this.  I’ve got it all planned out and then the second day, it’s like it comes down to like me and another guy. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And this guy played baseball in college and I’m like, Oh I’ve blown it here. [laughs] And they do like two rounds with just me and him and they put us in a room and we’re looking at each other and so, then they get us all and they announce us and it’s like, did they just mention my name?  So anyway, I’m sorry to go on about that. 

INT: No. 

RES: But- you know.  It was interesting but the long and short of it was I wasn’t encouraged and for anybody who ever listens to this, encourage people.  You know.  But for me, when somebody says I can’t do something, that’s when I want to do it even more. 

INT: And do you recall, Randy, the moment of learning that you had been selected?  And then I know you mentioned the- perhaps questioning whether you’d heard your name or not.  I was wondering if you’d mind sharing what that experience was like and maybe what sharing that you’d been selected with your family was like? 

RES: Oh, yeah.  Oh, it was a fantastic day because I would imagine this.  So I’d just finished my first semester at Oxford.  Coming back, I did both the Rhodes and the Marshall Scholarship interviews and I think as I mentioned, I would have been awarded the Marshall because one of the guys had got-  One of the guys who won the Marshall won the Rhodes.  So I would have got that too, which would have been great but oh, my god.  You know.  When they picked the four of us and so, what they did was they picked two people from Pennsylvania, myself and a guy named Ron Tempest from Erie and then we had Barbara Harmon-Schamberger who was from West Virginia and then we had a guy named-  Oh, that was like, Steve.  I forget Steve’s last name all of a sudden, but it turns out that Steve’s mother was from my little town in Pennsylvania. 

INT: Oh, wow. 

RES: So we had-  So in the paper from my little town it said, Shamokin gets one and a half for its scholars, which is so funny.  What was Steve’s last name?  Oh, I’ve forgotten.  But anyway, but-  So when it happened the four of us are sitting there.  We’re just bursting.  We’re like-  You know.  We’re just like, just bursting because-  You know.  So they had this like bank of phones I think close by.  I’m just sort of like calling my mum.  You know.  I had a girlfriend back in Oxford who’s actually now my wife and so I was calling her.  I’m calling ex-girlfriends.  You know.  I’m calling friends and what was great about that was they did it around like, December 12th or 14th and what they did in America then was they put it in the New York Times but they described me as-  They should have said like, an amateur professional baseball player but they said, amateur professional basketball player and I went, ooh!  But my name was in the New York Times and some of my relatives in New Jersey-  Someone in our family in New Jersey goes, “That’s Randy!” but it was amazing how- you know, word got around to various people.  You know.  My former Professor at Cornell heard and there was like- and then we had like articles in the newspaper and everything else and-  You know.  It was weird how family members came out of the woodwork and everything else and then it was interesting because it was a way-  You know.  Our town was going through an awful lot with the industrialisation effort but it was a way that-  You know.  It was like a way we won.  You know? 

INT: Mhmm hm.  That’s really beautiful. 

RES: So it was good.  Yeah.  It was good. 

INT: That’s really beautiful and I’m conscious that your experience may have been a little unique in that you had this experience with Oxford previously.  So I imagine that you had a little bit of an idea of what to expect with regards to the experience that the Rhodes Scholarship would bring in Oxford because you’d been living there, but curious about your decision.  You mentioned being at Pembroke and I’m curious about your decision to enter your Rhodes experience at Nuffield. 

RES: Well, so just to be clear.  So I did stay on at Pembroke then. 

INT: Oh, okay. 

RES: So I stayed on at Pembroke for a couple of years but I went back.  So mine’s a little bit weird.  So it actually should say, Berholtz in Pembroke. 

[00:40:01] 

RES: It should say- you know, that time in Pembroke.  But I went back and then I did-  I went back after I finished law school and I quit for a year.  So I went back then because I was-  I wanted to finish up a Doctorate. 

INT: Oh, okay. 

RES: And the Rhodes programme allowed me to come back for another year but then when I went back, I went to Nuffield because my Professor who I worked for, for my Masters that I got in 1987, he was based at Nuffield.  So if you can maybe correct the records though.  It should actually say, Pembroke but-  You know.  Sometimes they say Nuffield instead but it was more-  You know.  I was definitely at Pembroke. 

INT: Okay.  So that makes sense.  So I’m curious if you travelled over to Oxford with your class, with your Rhodes class? 

RES: Well, I did.  I did and as I said-  You know.  Part of my life has been working class and part of it has been the stutter and-  You know.  Part of it is the son of an alcoholic and being poor.  You know, and what was very interesting was- and again, this is-  The history is what the history is.  When I went over, I found that a lot of the Rhodes Scholars were from upper class backgrounds.  I found not a lot of people talked to me to be honest with you and some of my best-  I swear, some of my best friends that I met are my friends today, right?  And there were a couple of guys.  One was-  You know.  What they did with us was, other Canadians went over with us too and so, one of my dearest friends today is [s/l Paul Stanborough from Canada and Paul was actually a graduate of the Canadian British Military Academy and so-  You know.  Paul and I just talked about military stuff.  Another guy was Lance Bultena and so, Lance was from a small town in South Dakota.  So, I gravitated towards the people who were athletes and the people from small towns but over time, that’s just what I did.  You know.  And to be honest with you, back then there weren’t a lot of Rhodes Scholars from poor families or working class families.  You know.  So I actually-   You know.  I found a lot of friends from like Australia, South Africa and those places and it was interesting because I had been in Oxford already, I really got to know those people a little bit better.  So, yeah and I think it’s just natural at times.  But, no and so, when we went over, I was sort of an official tour guide too and what we did was we took-  You know.  We got on-  We went to JFK.  No, no I’m sorry.  The person’s name was Steve Dunn.  So when we were coming over, we actually flew out of JFK in New York and so, Ron Tempest and Steven Dunn and I, Steve had spent time in New York City previously and he showed us around and it was-  You know.  I’d never been to New York City before and so, he showed us around and then we went to JFK Airport and then we got on a bus in London and we went up to Oxford.  So as we were coming in through Oxford, I was pointing out places to everybody and I was a little bit of an unofficial tour guide at that place at that time because I’d been there before. 

INT: And what did you read for your Rhodes experience, for your Degree? 

RES: Yeah.  So when I was originally in Oxford I was doing sort of labour relations but then for the Rhodes, I was-  I did a Master’s Degree in Politics and so, I was- and I was just looking at-  I was looking at a topic regarding the US Commission on Civil Rights.  I was going to turn that into a DPhil.  You know.  When I was at Oxford the first time, I got accepted to a DPhil programme but I had this deferred acceptance I had to take in Law School.  So I had to finish that first and then I came back.  You know.  I almost got it finished.  So I was there at Oxford from ’84 to ’87 but part of the Rhodes from ’85 to ’87 and then I went back in ’90 to ’91.  So I went back from ’91 to ’92 and I tried to finish my Doctorate but we had a baby instead and I think I specialised in British wife and British baby at that point.  But- you know, it was interesting too because I got-  So I had a British girlfriend.  So it’s like, when I got to Rhodes and went back, I don’t know how the hell it happened but all of a sudden we were engaged.  It was like, 1986 I got engaged and it’s weird because we got engaged but the Rhodes had a prohibition on you getting married during your-  I think it was the first two years of your scholarship.  So we couldn’t get married, thanks to the Rhodes Trust for a couple of years but we’ve married ever since, 39 years, same woman.  So- 

INT: Oh, that’s wonderful and did-?  You know.  You mentioned a little bit when we spoke last time about the importance of some certain extra curricula activities in your time at Oxford and I think you mentioned the Oxford American Society and the Oxford Union and I was wondering if you would mind sharing a bit about those experiences? 

RES: Oh, sure.  Sure.  So when I was at Oxford, so I was in the Oxford Union Debating Society and here is a kid who-  Here is a kid who stutters.  He’s in the Oxford Union Debating Society but I’m just-  I just love Politics and-  You know.  I’d stand up in front of anybody and if I stuttered, I stuttered.  You know.  Because it turns out the British upper class stutter.  So it probably wasn’t that big of a deal but when I was there, I was running for an office.  You know.  I was running for the Secretary’s Committee of the Oxford Union.  So I lost the first time to Michael Gove, who-  Michael Gove is now like a Senior Minister.  Well, he used to be a Senior Minister in the Conservative Government. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And then the second time I won and-  You know.  When we were- when I was running, I running with another guy name Frank Luntz, and Frank Luntz has become a very famous Republican Pollster in the United States now and so Frank and I decided to form-  You know.  All these other groups had societies and so, we decided to form the Oxford American Society and we got help from some people because some people said, “Well, you only hang around Americans,” and I’m like, “I have a British wife.  Come on.  Give me a break.”  Right?  So- but we formed this group and we had meetings and like, it was more of a social club in that but-  You know.  It was a good organisation.  You know.  It was a nice way to meet people and it was a nice way to promote our culture too. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: Yeah, so-  But, no.  Yeah, Oxford Union Debating Society speaks for itself.  It’s one of the oldest debating societies in the world.  I still would like to somehow get that concept over here in the US.  You know.  About ten years ago we had a debating society in San Diego and we were basing it off the Oxford model and with Republicans and Democrats and Independents together but-  You know.  The Oxford Union Debating Society.  I mean what can you say about it?  It was-  For me, it was great because I always like organising and bringing statesmen and people from throughout the world and I spoke a couple of times and I was on the dais with a couple of famous speakers and that and yeah, I got to meet Boris Johnson.  You know.  I knew Boris Johnson when he was going there.  You know, going there I knew George Stephanopoulos.  You know, and I got to- and I met David Cameron and everything else.  So- you know, it’s weird when you think of some of these people because like, Boris Johnson.  Boris Johnson would always tell us, “I’m going to be Prime Minister one day,” and you’re like, “Come on, Boris.”  You know?  It turns out he did it.  It’s like Michael Gove.  I mean Michael Gove is this little short dude with glasses in a kilt and I’m like, come on Michael.  Really?  But he wound up almost being Prime Minister.  So- 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: It was just-  You know.  It was a great experience and it was a great experience for the time.  You know- talking about a lot of worldwide issues and that.  You know, and it was really nice to meet people from around the world but the one thing I’ve always enjoyed at the Rhodes Scholarship is meeting the people from the other countries.  You know.  To me, that was as important as anything else and the good thing about Oxford too is it’s great from an athlete’s standpoint.  It’s- you know.  I don’t say that Oxford doesn’t take its academics seriously because it does but it-  Oxford and the Rhodes-  Just the Rhodes’ mind-set is very similar.  You know.  Because in Oxford you play sports.  You know.  You socialise.  It’s like everything is all part of something that matters. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: You know.   Sometimes they matter more than- you know, than just the specific academics themselves.  You know.  It’s part of the-  You have-  Some of the best conversations you have are over drinks some place, or walking in the quarter, or just- you know, riding a bike and that. 

[00:50:00] 

RES: I mean- you know, when I was at Oxford I did-  I rowed on a college team.  I was asked to play Rugby for the university.  I didn’t and I should have probably but I didn’t.  I played it at the college level.  You know.  I actually was on the Boxing team at one point.  You know.  So I boxed until the Rhodes Warden said to me, he said, “What are you doing?  You know.  You’re getting hit in the head every day.”  Okay, yeah.  It was Sir Robin Fletcher at that time and he was a great Rhodes Warden but-  You know.  It was- Oxforders aren’t compensator.  You know.  I met my wife who was from-  You know.  She’s Welsh and also English and she’s from like a working class background in Wales and she was my next door neighbour and we just clicked.  You know. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And so it’s like Oxford is our go to place and it’s like London is our go to place too.  So right now we spend a lot of time, as much time as we can in London.  You know.  We like to get back to Oxford every now and then. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: I’m sorry.  That’s a long way of- that’s a long answer to your question. 

INT: No, that’s so lovely that you have- that there’s that family connection as well to the city.  I’m curious about when you started thinking about Law School as a potential next step after Oxford? 

RES: Yeah.  It’s interesting because the truth of it is I only really liked Law because that’s what Politicians did.  You know.  And when I grew up, in my town there were very few business people.  It was mostly workers and some entities but the people to admire were always the Politicians, you know- the Congress people or the local assembly people and people like that.  So the people I always looked up to were those people and at first, it was the Labour Union people and then it was the Government people.  So for me, I just look to the backgrounds of most of the people who were in politics and they were Lawyers.  You know.  It’s like 60, 70 per cent of them.  The truth is, I don’t think I had a good understanding or a good appreciation as to what a Lawyer actually did.  You know.  I remember going to Law School and being there and like thinking, Wow this is actually really interesting.  I didn’t know that this is what a Lawyer really did.  You know.  So if you go to some Law Schools-  I want to Yale and Yale Law School is almost like-  That’s almost like a politics-  You know.  It’s almost like a public policy school rather than a Law School but-  You know.  So my goal was to go to Law School and my goal, my plan A was to go to Oxford, come back, go to Law School, do a clerkship with a judge and then go in, work for a Law firm for a couple of years and then become the next Congressman from Pennsylvania.  But as we said, sometimes plan A doesn’t always work out and you’ve got to do other stuff. 

INT: And so I’m curious about what those first few years of your career looked like.  I know you shared-  So after- was it after returning from Oxford in ’92? 

RES: Yes. 

INT: That you started your career in Law? 

RES: That’s right.  That’s right.  So I started working with a big Law Firm in New York City called Cravath, Swaine & Moore.  At that time, why did I go there?  I went there because it was known as the best Law Firm in the world and again, I’m trying to prove myself.  I went there.  I worked like a dog.  I just-  You know.  I had a baby then with my wife and we lived up in Greenwich, Connecticut and I used to commute every day and it was a grind.  I did it for like, two and a half years and it was just a real grind.  At that time, I had worked for the-  I had also worked on the side for the Clinton Campaign in New York State and so, my goal was to do the Law Firm stuff to get me into politics.  You know.  I went to the-  You know.  Once Bill Clinton went to the-  My wife and I went to one of the presidential balls in DC and I was in line to potentially get a job in the Administration.  It never happened.  So at that point I’m like thinking, well do I want to stay in New York?  Do I really like being a Lawyer, do I?  And I was working all crazy types of hours.  You know.  New York then was-  You know.  You literally worked until 2 O’clock in the morning.  Sometimes you’d get on a- you’d take a limo home and you’d get a shower and you’d go right back.  You know.  It was terrible and I think as I mentioned to you before, I think I blew out my immune system.  I thought I was Superman.  You know?  It’s like I was an athlete who could just do it all and I could do it all and I could not get enough sleep and I didn’t follow probably some of the lessons that I should have followed.  So we’re sitting in New York.  It’s two and half years.  I’m not in the Clinton Administration.  So that plan A didn’t work and then I said, well what should I do? 

So my goal then was to go back to Pennsylvania and to work for a Law Firm and then run for Public Office, run for Congress.  So my choices were Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, and Phily I never liked.  I always had this love-hate relationship with Philadelphia.  It was always too big and too urban for me and so, I had some experience.  I worked in Pittsburgh before at a firm called Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, which former Governor, Dick Thornburg was a partner there and a couple of Rhodes Scholars were there too.  You know.  So I went to work at K&L.  When I got there, we were trying to have a second baby and just out of the blue, I found out I had testicular cancer and I’m like, whoa!  You know.  And so it’s 1990, probably 1995 and I find this out.  I’m there with a little baby and a wife in a new place and life comes before your dreams and so, I had to focus.  I had Radiation, I had Chemo, I had Surgery.  You know.  I just had to focus on that.  You know.  I switched political parties.  I became Republican.  I was going to run for Congress there and I was the main breadwinner there and you just-  Politics didn’t seem to matter as much at the time.  It was surviving. 

So I was there probably two years, two and a half years and then I said-  You know.  I always promised my wife I would get her back to the- for the sea and I had come through San Diego and Southern California previously and I don’t know.  You know.  It’s not natural for a 30-year-old to be thinking about mortality and stuff and my chances were very good of surviving but it just threw me.  It just threw me through a loop.  So I said to my wife, “I can’t stay.”  It’s weird.  I’ve had this love-hate relationship with Pennsylvania too.  You know.  It’s like I always felt an obligation.  I always felt my duty, like this was my duty.  You know?  My duty was to become the Congressman and become Governor and try to become President at some point and this just threw me.  It just threw me and I said to my wife, “I just can’t be in Pennsylvania anymore.”  You know.  “I can’t.”  You know.  I don’t know.  So I think I mentioned it to you previously.  So when I grew up, a senior in High School, the Three Mile Island happened.  You know.  When the Nuclear Plant went and I was a senior in High School and we were 52 miles downwind from Harrisburg and then a couple of summers later, I worked in Harrisburg and who knows what caused what?  You know, whether this was caused by that or cause by something else?  You know.  We just don’t know. 

So at the age of like 34, I talked to my wife and like I said, “I’ve got to get out of here and I’ve got to have a fresh start someplace else,” and-  You know.  We liked places.  We love San Diego and so I said, “Look.  There’s an industry out there that I’d like to be a part of.  It’s the Life Science industry and maybe I can out there and work for a while for them, a couple of years and move over into the industry.”  So we came out to San Diego in 1996.  You know.  We’ve been here ever since.  I started working with a Law Firm, Cooley Godward, which was one of the big ones out here.  I then over time went to- in-house with a public life science company called Nanogen.  I went in as Corporate Council, Senior Corporate Council and wound up as the General Council.  I also did some time as a [unclear 00:59:35].  The last couple of months in Pittsburgh, we had another baby.  So we brought the other baby back out with us too.  So I’ve been in San Diego, worked my way up from the General Council position. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: I left there after a couple of years.  You know.  I did a part time role at a Life Sciences Venture Capital Fund, which was one of my clients. 

[01:01:04] 

RES: And then I started working for a group of Chinese Life Science companies and this was like, 2004 to 2010 and what was very cool about that experience was, it reminded me of a Rhodes Scholarship.  It was like putting you in a place where you wouldn’t traditionally be there, but it was a great experience and I got to spend a lot of time in China.  You know, in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong and I really got out of my skin and I started teaching on the side at a Law School and at the Business School in San Diego.  I would teach every summer in Hangzhou where my company would have factories and that.  So it was just a good, a great experience. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: I’m sorry.  I’m taking you more on a timeline now. 

INT: No, no.  That’s perfect and I’m curious about-  You mentioned a little bit that- you know, sharing with your wife, that the opportunities in Life Sciences that existed in San Diego and I think you might have mentioned in our previous conversation that some of that interest was sparked during the first years of your Law career.  I was wondering if you would mind just sharing what it is that drew you to that industry specifically? 

RES: Sure.  Sure.  So when I was in Pittsburgh, I had a couple of clients in the Life Sciences and you know, what drew me to it was the fact that people were looking at sort of life conditions that could be improved by technology or by drugs.  You know.  Having cancer at an early part of your life- you know, it just makes you appreciate stuff more.  But also having a stutter I think made me appreciate sort of behavioural modification therapies and the like.  So for me, I thought to myself, if I have any industry that I want to focus on, what do I want to do?  You know.  What’s the biggest way I can make a difference?  And- you know-  Look, growing up in my hometown, I’ve always felt bad about being one of the ones that left because people talk about survivor’s guilt sometimes and it’s real.  You know.  But it’s just, it’s sometimes hard to go back into a place where there’s just no opportunity, especially when you marry somebody who’s from someplace else.  So I’ve been very fortunate with the Life Science industry.  I’ve worked for Genomics companies, I’ve worked for Diagnostics companies, I’ve worked for Therapeutic companies and-  You know.  I’ve always had this in me and wanted to make a difference and so, I think working with some of these companies, really studying them, studying what they do, I just felt it was a noble calling- you know, in both the private company and the public company and-  You know.  Look, in life you make choices and the truth about in any industry, you can’t focus on everything.  You can’t.  You know.  But I thought, if I was going to focus on something, I really want to get to know it and so, what I did then was- 

So I’d have my day job in the Life Sciences as a General Councillor of Bus Dev or Corp Dev and then at night I would teach, and I would teach all aspects of it because I found that through the teaching of it, I’d have to learn more and then I really wanted to be an expert in it and when I was first doing it, there weren’t a lot of people who were into Life Science Law or Biotech Law or Biotech Business and so, I remember there was this group called the Practicing Law Institute out in New York in the Silicon Valley and I said to them, “Hey.  Do you have any courses on Biotech Law?” and they said, “No.  Why don’t you create it?”  And so, I think at the age of 38 or 39, I was able to create this.  I was able to bring together the groups of people that I wanted to bring together- you know, to have seminars and I just enjoyed it.  You know. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And I think one thing I’ve learned over time is, I’ve learned more about myself and that I like to be entrepreneurial.  I like to create things out of-  You know.  I like to create things where things don’t exist.  You know.  Sometimes it may be growing up or being working class and then going up to middle class and maybe up to upper class or something and I’m able to see some of those connections a little bit easier I think.  You know.  I mean the truth is, I’m comfortable in a lot of different types of settings but-  You know.  So that’s what I’ve done over time.  You know.  I’ve become an expert in Biotech Law and Biotech Business as in intellectual property and in the FDA and that.  You know.  So I worked my way up through various companies.  I made some money along the way, which has helped.  They’ve done some good things, gotten some good drugs on the market and at one point, I said to myself, I can do it better.  You know.  I can do it better than besides me being a service provider.  I can do this better.  I just- I have the skillset and I decided about seven years ago to go out and take a shot myself.  You know.  I wanted- I licenced a drug from a French Pharmaceutical company and also from Mayo Clinic and when I got funding for it, I was developing the drug into phase three and then last year in June 2024, somebody came along and bought it and a very nice homerun.  You know, which is- which if it works, then I don’t have to worry anyway, which is really good.  You know.  But I really liked that experience.  I liked the experience and being able to do that and so, I’m doing it again.  You know.  I have a company now that is a cell therapy company.  We licenced some technology from Case Western and from Emory University and we’re creating- trying to create a functional cure for HIV. 

INT: Wow. 

RES: And it’s real and- you know, and we’re raising our first round and hopefully, by October that will be raised and it’s interesting because in the last number of-  what is it, 15 years, I’ve said to myself, you know what?  That Rhodes network we have here is a real good thing.  You know, besides just giving money every now and then.  That network is a good network that I want to be involved with because what I love about the Rhodes network is- you know, we’re all-  We go through this, what do you call it?  You know, this evaluation system, that we all go through it and we’re very sim-  A lot of our scholars are very similar people.  We have just-  We’re not just academics.  We’re not just entrepreneurs.  We’re not just sports people, or political people.  We’re very focused on the community and I discovered a number of years back-  I was approached to go on a Rhodes Committee once about-  You know.  We were creating a website.  It’s like, oh we’re creating a Rhodes website.  Wow!  What should that be?  And I started thinking and I started talking to people and I said like, “Where do we see the Rhodes Scholarships?” and I said- you know, I see this as being a [s/l McKinsey 01:07:49] plus.  I see it as being a group of people who can really help to solve some issues, you know, to bring some of these analytical skills together to solve some issues.  So then I got involved with the Rhodes Life Sciences Group and then with the Rhodes Entrepreneurial Group and- you know, I start seeing connections, and now if-  Like we said, you only have so much time in your day but if I can focus the rest of my life in about being with these brilliant Rhodes Scholars, you know.  Look, as you get older, part of life is-  You know.  Your timespan is different than someone who’s younger and some of this is giving back and having a continuum.  You know, just continuing where we can teach people to be community minded but to take over where we’re going.  So I think that’s where I am right now. 

INT: Mhmm hm.  That’s lovely.  Would you mind sharing, Randy, a little bit?  You shared earlier in our conversation a little about your political service in the earlier part of your career. 

RES: Yeah. 

INT: But I know that you’ve stayed very, very politically active. 

RES: Oh, yeah. 

INT: So I was wondering if you would mind speaking to- and starting with like more recently? 

RES: Sure.  Oh, sure.  You know.  Look, I’ve been in- I think since Sixth Grade, I won Vice President in my Sixth Grade.  Then in High School I was Student Council and then I was President of my Student Council and in my senior year, I was President of my High School class.  You know.  I just loved to run for office I think at that point.  I don’t know if it was my ego or something else.  At college I formed a group called the Cornell Appalachian Students Alliance and I was involved in sort of democratic working class politics at that point.  When I went to Oxford, I was part of-  When I went to Oxford the second time, I was part of a group called- it was called Democrats Abroad. 

[01:10:04] 

RES: And I was Chair of the Clinton Campaign, Democrats Abroad Campaign.  And so what we did at Oxford was we had an official democratic primary for Democrats Abroad and we actually had it out at the Oxford Union and so, we voted for presidential candidates. 

So then when I went back to the US, I campaigned for Bill Clinton for President.  You know.  Then like I said, I tried to get into his campaign.  I was already part of a group that was called the Democratic Leadership Alliance.  No, it was the Democratic Leadership Council.  We were really conservative democrats that really wanted to bring the party back to the- to really market principles, to include capitalism, to have programmes that were fiscally sound, that were- was promoting responsibility.  So when I got along a couple of years into the Clinton Administration I just- I was turned off by that.  I thought it was-  You know.  To me, I thought they were focusing more on sort of democratic identity politics rather than on getting things done.  So I became a Republican at that point.  For probably- you know, when I had my kids, I couldn’t say to my kids, “Hey, daddy’s going to a political event tonight,” and when I had my kids I really focused on them.  You know.  I focused on being dad the coach.  You know, and coaching them in sports and my eldest daughter was a singer and so, I went to an American adult trials and we did tapes and took her to Nashville and took her to Hollywood and everything else and did all that. 

But at one point during the Obama Administration when he first came in, I just- I didn’t agree with some principles.  I just didn’t and so, at that point I started to-  I started to get involved in my County Party, my [unclear 01:12:03] County Party.  I was on the Central Committee for a number of years and I’ve been in Central Committee probably for 16 years, or an alternate-  About seven years ago I ran-  Well, so during that time I was a lot of stuff.  I was [unclear 01:12:23] workers.  I was-  You know.  I was Precinct Captain.  I ran for a School Board.  You know.  So I was supporting candidates and then what I did, it was about seven years ago, I ran for Secretary of the State Party and I won.  So I served three two-year terms for that.  During that time, I actually formed-  I formed the Election Integrity Programme for the State of California for the Republican Party, which has been copied by the Republican National Committee.  I was a delegate.  I was an alternate delegate.  I started going to political conventions back in the time of-  God, what was his name?  He was a Senator.  Who was the Senator from Arizona?  I forget his name.  Paul Ryan was his Vice President and he passed away.  He was in fact-  I forgotten his name anymore.  So I was like an alternate delegate to the National Convention and I was a delegate for President.  I was an alternate delegate for President Trump.  Then I was a delegate.  Then I was an alternate delegate for President Trump and so, right now I’m-  You know.  We’ve actually, we’ve been debating this issue.  Where does the working class lie?  Does the working class lie in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?  We think it lies in the Republican Party and so, I just formed a group called GOP Union Caucus, which is really promoting-  You know.  It’s very-  Our view is that at least half the Union members are Republican.  So we’re trying to have-  We’re trying to focus on policy issues there that are good for the American working class. 

So my big thing in politics is, I try to be true to myself and true to-  You know.  When you age, your politics change a little bit sometimes but-  So my whole thing is to influence and I think one of the things in my life I’ve tried to do is to have an influence and I debated in my life whether I needed to be that person or I need to be the person behind the person- you know, as I’m getting older.  I just love business.  I love business.  I love the freedom that business gives me.  I never want to be broke again in my life.  I’ll be honest with you and I want to serve and I was going to serve in the Trump Administration and I decided that-  You know.  My wife and I decided that we didn’t want to go to DC.  But now I think part of it is just figuring out how I can stay relevant, how I can serve and I pride myself on getting things done.  I don’t like to be somebody who’s just, Oh I’m going up there for my name or that.  So having made a decision, I don’t need to be the guy who’s the number one all the time.  You know.  For me, it’s just getting stuff done.  If we say we’re going to help, if we say we’re going to be in government or be in politics, you want to make your country better.  You want to make your community better and so, that’s what I always focused on.  I’m always a ‘get it done’ type of guy, just working with people who want to get stuff done.  You know, and as I get older I realise that our country’s problems are not just our country’s problems.  We’re part of the bigger world and everything else and so, I’m doing more stuff internationally right now. 

I mentioned our company, RORA Bio, the HIV company.  It’s very interesting.  I’m using the Rhodes connection there.  One of my friends is a former South African Rhodes Scholar, Errol Norwitz and so, Errol just connected me with some people handling HIV in South Africa.  So one of our goals now is to perhaps- you know, introduce our technology to the African population.  So that’s- I guess that’s me in a nutshell.  I’m not sure that’s a nutshell. 

INT: And Randy, throughout our conversation you’ve shared a little bit about your family, your wife and children but I was wondering if you would like to expand at all on your family? 

RES: Oh, sure.  Sure.  So I married a woman part Welsh, part English.  There’s a little town in Wales called Tenby.  She was my next door neighbour at Oxford.  She was a French and German Major.  She was a High School teacher, speaks a lot of languages and we got married in 1986.  We’ve been married 39 years.  She came over with me to go to Law School and we’ve been together ever since.  You know.  She’s that part of me that is the British part of me and since we’ve been together, I’ve hopefully learned to-  You know.  I’ve learned a lot about the empire and learned a lot about our commonalities in everything else and- you know, I think with a combination of looking through her lens through the world, you know.  She’s had family go to Australia and Canada, South Africa, India and places like that.  But she’s- one of the big things we share is a love of history.  We both love European history.  She’s an avid reader.  She’s a fantastic mother and it’s interesting.  I tell her-  You know.  When I first met her she was a teacher and she has this unique ability to go into a room and to just brighten up the room but she has this unique ability to make students want to learn and to not disappoint her.  You know.  I say to her, I wish I was a quarter as good at my job as she is and what she does but unfortunately, after I got sick-  My youngest daughter has this gene mutation, which has caused epilepsy and some other stuff and so- and my wife has had-  You know.  She’s tried to go back to work but she’s really had to deal with a lot of plan B’s as we talked about, a lot of life issues.  So I’ve been very lucky and I say to people, I had a great mother and I have a great wife who’s a great mother. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: So I mentioned my kids.  I have two daughters, one who is Harriett.  You know.  British name, Harriett, 33, who was the singer, dancer, actress and she’s now very focused on social media and she works for a big advertising agency and my daughter, Emma, like my wife, is a school teacher right now and she’s getting- going to be 30 pretty soon.  But, yeah and it’s tough for my wife.  She left Britain.  You know.  It was tough for me leaving Pennsylvania but what’s good is that we were able to come to San Diego when we didn’t know anybody and make a life for ourselves. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

[01:20:04] 

RES: You know. 

INT: That’s beautiful.  I would love to ask Randy, as we reach kind of the final chapter of our conversation, I would love to ask you- 

RES: Well, I hope the final chapter doesn’t mean, Ba-Ba Dum-Dum! 

INT: No, no, no.  I was asking- 

RES: No, please! [laughs] 

INT: The closing chapter. 

RES: I still have things I want to do! 

INT: In this conversation. [laughs] I would love to ask you a few questions about the scholarship.  So the first being, what impact would you say that the Rhodes Scholarship had on your life? 

RES: Huge.  I mean you took a kid from Pennsylvania.  You know.  You took a kid from Pennsylvania who hadn’t even been to New York.  You know.  Hadn’t been out of the country.  The first time I was out of the country was actually when I went to England with the Rhodes.  Well- you know, before that time but-  You know.  So it was huge.  It gave me this international network and the one thing I- like I said, the one thing I like to do-  I went to a big school, Cornell and I like to have resources and the Rhodes Scholarship was giving me resources.  It was giving me this international body of people who were going through the same programme who had similar training and similar goals in life and that’s been great.  You know.  It’s a circle of friends with similar backgrounds and I couldn’t have asked for more. 

INT: Wonderful and we’re at a really important moment in the life of the scholarships where we are approaching the 125th anniversary in just a few years, which a great opportunity. 

RES: I can remember the 100th. 

INT: Oh, goodness. Yeah. 

RES: God, that’s 25 years already.  Oh, my god. 

INT: Almost, almost. 

RES: God. 

INT: You know.  It’s a great opportunity to reflect on the history of the scholarships, which is one of our hopes through this project but also, a great opportunity to look ahead to the next chapter and so, I would be curious to know what your hopes for the future of the Rhodes Scholarship would be. 

RES: You know- a couple for-  One thing is, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  There was this whole attitude a couple of years ago that, oh everything that happened in the past was bad.  No, it wasn’t.  I think on the one hand I think you have to honour the wisdom of Cecil Rhodes.  I mean he died a relatively young man.  He didn’t have to take his fortune, part of his fortune and give it to this Scholarship Programme, which if you think about it at the time, when he did this- you know, the European powers were fighting over Africa.  They were fighting over the spoils and they hated each other.  I mean if you look at South Africa.  You know.  The English hated the Boers and vice versa and all the other groups didn’t get along but what he was able to do was have the vision- you know, have the vision to bring different people together to move forward and if you think-  I mean, I would say to anybody, go to Rhodes House.  Look at the number of Germans.  Look at the number of English.  Look at the number of French.  Look at the number of Americans who are- who were former scholars who had died, you know- who actually died in battle and their names I think are on one of their rotunda’s.  I mean what Rhodes was trying to do, he was so far ahead of his time.  You know.  People say, well it’s black and white.  You know.  The Europeans were our colonizers, but nobody else did what he did. 

So part of it I think is-  Let’s- instead of digging his body up and tearing down monuments to him, let’s really take a good look at who Cecil Rhodes was.  Was he vain?  Yeah, he had a country named after him.  Yeah, but he had a vision.  He had a vision to unite Africa, which- you know, would Africa be better if maybe we could have figured something out to where the developed world plus the developing world would be more together?  You know, maybe.  But- so part of it I think is to honour that wisdom and to ask the questions that he asked at the time and to really understand the wisdom of what he did and just how far out there he was.  You know, but secondly though I think is to-  Look, if we’re going to have a good look or a clean look with clear eyes and say part of it then is that- you know.  Look, how do we improve life?  How do we make the scholarship better?  To me, a democracy is about debate and it’s about being uncomfortable sometimes and like a company, the reason I like entrepreneurial ventures, especially Life Sciences, you’re bringing along people with different skillsets, with different experiences to create and solve a problem.  You know, and with the Life Sciences, now one person can’t do the whole thing.  A tech company maybe but with Life Sciences you can’t because everybody’s from a different speciality.  You know.  It does take a lot of people moving towards a goal.  So to me, it’s like the future has to be, 1) sustainable, 2) there has to be a shared vision, and I think we’ve done a really good job on the Rhodes.  You know.  It’s tough and I complained about it.  Oh, why do they have all these interviews?  But what you get in the end is not a bad product.  You know?  You go through-  You know.  What’s the Rhodes Scholarship about?  Is it about the vision?  Yes, but the process.  We have to understand and honour the process.  We have a pretty good process and we pick people and what’s good about it is, Rhodes Scholars are pretty self-sustaining.  You could put a couple of Rhodes Scholars- you know, we could go in like, the biggest survivor- I don’t know, in one of those contests and survive.  I mean because people pretty much-  You go into the Rhodes Programme sort of having this thought of what you want.  Rhodes helps you get some connections.  It helps you test some ideas and that and it’s almost like this training ground and then it also says, hey look, here are some people in the field that you’re going to go into who have some experience that may help you in the long run, and that’s what’s so great.  I mean what’s great about-  You know.  If I’m going to like, create a non-profit to help people with HIV in Africa, I’ll call some people and I’ll say, “Hey.  Okay, can you give me some background?  What do we have to do?”  And that’s what’s so great.  It’s like, giving people the tools to make a difference in the world.  You know.  Look, like we say, we may not be able to make a difference in our lifetime but we can start the process.  Are we going to cure cancer?  Well, we’re curing some of them.  I mean my type of cancer- you know, 20 years before I had it, I would have died.  20 years before, I would have died. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: You know.  So we’re making progress but a part of it is, the Rhodes Scholarship I think is the selection process and the thing we didn’t focus on before, which was always thought of being- you know, maybe number three.  The thing that we didn’t focus on before was we said, okay Rhodes Scholars, just go out and do it now.  Make some connections.  Go out and call somebody and that.  But I think we need to be a little bit more formal in that too because some of the scholars would do that and some won’t.  But I think the Scholarship Programme is just the start and I think we’re realising that more as a group of scholars.  You imagine, the scholarship, you get like two years or three years if you’re lucky.  What we need to do is capture this post-25-year-old Rhodes Scholar because that to me-  You know.  That entity that we’ve trained, like we should put through school.  They need more, they do some more training.  You know.  They’re more early development, early career, mid-career and late career development.  You know.  We’ve created this group I think now and let’s be happy for the internet.  We can communicate now.  In the old days it was like, oh if you land in Jackson, Mississippi, call this guy.  You know.  We would get the thing and you would try to get a hold of somebody but the truth is now, is a Rhodes Scholar is for life.  We’ve created these beings who, we’re not going to go away.  You know. 

There was a guy named John Funari.  He was a Rhodes Scholar.  John was former CIA.  He didn’t tell people he was CIA but he was CIA.  You know.  But John, he got sick and he was one of the higher ups at the University of Pittsburgh.  John took us under his-  When any Rhodes Scholar came to Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania, John was there.  He was calling it, he was bringing it together and John became-  I think John was the Editor of the American Oxonian in a magazine when John died, I wrote a poem about him and I put it into the American Oxonian.  But I guess what I’m trying to say is if you’re a Rhodes Scholar, you’re a Rhodes Scholar for life.  We don’t retire.  You know.  We may not- we may just shift what we do but we don’t retire. 

[01:29:59] 

RES: But I think the Rhodes Scholarship is really about capturing that and that’s both for career development but also for doing good.  The Rhodes Scholarship-  You know.  In the old days we’d say, here’s your training.  Go off and do it.  Right? 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: Rhodes Scholars are pretty resilient.  We would do it but now we have the ability to create- and almost like mid-stage career groups of Rhodes Scholars, to focus them on certain issues.  Where I see their scholarship as going is, let’s identify the top ten issues in certain industries or certain areas or certain countries every year.  Let’s put a team of Rhodes Scholars on them.  We’ll get them done.  You know.  So I mean that’s what I see and that to me is-  That is invaluable.  I hope the powers that be realise just what they have here.  I mean this is not [s/l McKinsey 01:30:51].  This is [s/l McKinsey 01:30:53] plus.  This is like having this trained group of individuals throughout the world and do you know what?  Thanks to Cecil Rhodes.  Thanks to 125 years of this because he’s got these people together who- and the truth-  You know.  I believe we can truly do anything.  I mean with the stuff that’s coming out and you were at that event in Silicon Valley, right?  And- you know, it’s like you see just the level of people and just the curiosity and it’s like, I mean you put the Rhodes people together every year.  You’re putting around ideas.  Well, get those ideas- you know.  We’ll get those problems solves pretty quickly.  That’s my spiel and I’ll stick to it. 

INT: And then finally, we’d love to ask if you have any advice or words of wisdom that you would offer to today’s Rhodes Scholars? 

RES: Yeah.  So my advice is, 1) be a sponge and take it all in.  You know.  Bring your culture but be open to other cultures.  When I was at Oxford there wasn’t this concept of interdepartmental stuff.  I would say focus on problems and find ways to solve them.  I would say don’t think of yourself as a league.  Think of yourself as- how do I say this, with-?  Think of yourself as not winning but think of yourself as just going to another level where your responsibilities are more.  So I would say, think of the Scholarship as service, as these are people who are saying, we’re going to help you develop the skills and they’re going to give you the connections to solve some of the things we need to be solved. 

INT: Mhmm. 

RES: You know.  So again, it comes down to service.  The truth is, in your life you can only have so much money.  My wife and I see all these billionaires and we’re like, whoa, I wonder what it would it would be like to have a billion and I’m like, how much can you spend every year?  You know.  What do want?  You’ve got a nice house.  We’ve got this.  We’ve got nice cars.  What do you need that for?  You know- and for me, it’s just this intellectual-  This is like there’s stuff I want to get done.  I want to solve some problems.  You know.  I want to lead this, or I want people to say- you know- it’s the whole thing.  You know, he left it better than it was before.  So that’s what it’s about.  So we’re sitting on a goldmine.  I mean we’re sitting on an intellectual and just an experiential goldmine I think here and it’s up to you guys.  It’s up to us.  You know, I mean it’s up to us to figure out how to use it effectively but there are things that need to get done.  You know.  But we can do it. 

INT: Great.  Well, I think that’s a wonderful note to end on. 

RES: Yeah. 

INT: And I would love to thank you, Randy for your openness to participating in this project. 

RES: Oh, thank you. 

INT: And I’ll ask if there’s anything else that you’d like to share before we close? 

RES: I’ll tell you what.  You know.  Just have as many parties as you can.  Bring as many Rhodes Scholars together.  Sometimes we don’t need to organise them.  Just bring them together and just-  You know.  Sometimes we have to get out of the way with them.  But give them the resources they need and I think one of the biggest issues I think is going to be with Rhodes Scholars is, how do you keep them in the places that they grew up?  Do you know what I mean?  It’s like-  You know.  Because once you become part of a certain group it’s easy to go away but the truth is when you’re from areas, you want to solve problems.  So I guess my point is, help them even solve things remotely or the like.  You know.  Have them identify what they’re really interested in.  You know.  It’s almost like, do you remember when you were in Fifth Grade and they asked you, what do you want to be when you grow up? 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: Right?  And I don’t know about you guys.  I used to take all these tests, right?  These occupational tests and the tests would always come back, Park Ranger and I was like, what-?  But it was always, Park Ranger.  You know, but I guess part of it is, ask Rhodes Scholars when they first come in, what do you want to do?  Right? 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And maybe a project for them is to say- you know, have them set their goals, their life goals when they first come in and have them do something like this every ten years or so and say, hey, are you achieving it?  What are you doing?  Do you know what I mean? 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: I think something like that.  You know.  We’re so lucky today because with the technologies we have there are so many things we can do.  We can keep people- you know, what’s the word?  We can keep people connected. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: And for me, it’s all about the connectivity.  But no, the Rhodes Scholar-  I just want it to continue.  I don’t want to be deluded.  You know.  I think the brand is great.  I think the process is great.  I think there are some movements sometimes to- I mean to take out the elite part but to me, it’s just processing.  You know.  But Rhodes Scholars are different.  We’re just made differently and our chemistry is different.  You know, it just- it is and thank god to the original Trust people because they found something.  They found a winning formula and I truly think it’s a winning formula.  You know.  Maybe the last thing here is, I think the thing we’re going to have to do with the Rhodes Scholarship to measure its sustainability and measure its effectiveness is to just do that, measure its effectiveness, to keep up with the skillsets that people are doing, to-  You know.  It’s almost like what they say in politics.  It’s like, doing things and being seen as doing things are two different things but sometimes, I think what the Rhodes Trust can do is to quantify and to-  I don’t want to say, brag.  That’s not the right word.  But it’s to measure.  You know.  It’s to measure the success.  Have we been successful?  How do you measure-?  You know.  It’s like any institution.  How do you know when you’re doing a good job?  You know.  But it’s how do you measure success?  And then when you have it- you know.  We’ve always-  Sometimes when you’re a Rhodes Scholar, you’re sort of embarrassed by it.  Like, people will say, Oh a Rhodes Scholar, which is okay.  That’s fine but- you know, like the book that you’re going to read about the American elite.  He did that based on a couple of-  There were a couple of articles that were done before that time saying, hey, the Rhodes Scholars haven’t done crap.  They’re a bunch of academics or a bunch of people that don’t-  They haven’t done anything.  You know.  They keep saying they do but maybe you measure it.  You know.  Maybe you say, this is the number of companies that have been formed.  These are the number of jobs, or these were some of the major problems in the world that have been taken care of.  I don’t know.  But I think that’s very important.  You know.  So- 

INT: Great. 

RES: That’s what I would tell them.  I would tell them that the not for profit Board that I go on, that you’ve got to have an understanding as to measuring success. 

INT: Mhmm hm. 

RES: Okay? 

INT: Well, thank you so much, Randy.  I will end our recording there. 

[Audio ends: 01:38:50]