It’s difficult to know where to begin the American Academy of Achievement/EduCap story. It gets enormously involved because there are highly intense Washingtonians in major roles, a family fight among members who underwent a name change, the refusal of a $38 million gift made by the Smithsonian Institution, and a murky entwinement of the Academy with a not-for-profit student loan company lends complexity to the tale. There is, indeed, a lot of money involved and questions are being raised as never before largely because D.C. is looking at itself as never before. At least for now.
It all began with Hyman Peskin, a great sports photojournalist, born in Brooklyn, who helped make the Dodgers famous. The feeling was mutual since, as Peskin put it, ‘they helped make me.”
Following World War II and the Marine Corps., Peskin shot for Look Magazine before becoming the first staff photographer hired by Sports Illustrated. Forty of his photographs appeared on the cover of that magazine. Peskin also shot for Life and his photo feature of Senator John F. Kennedy and fiancé Jacqueline Bouvier brought national attention to the future President and moved the photo journalist into the area of celebrity photo journalism. Hy Peskin snapped them all and came up with a fascinating idea. How about a dinner party to which no one but the celebrities photographed by him would be invited?
That was in 1961, a year in which Peskin not only threw his first bash but changed his name to Brian Blain Reynolds so that, as the story goes, the American Academy of Achievement would not be perceived as being run by a Jewish photographer. The American Academy of Achievement, after mediocre success, was eventually moved to Dallas where it flourished. Super celebrities loved the event--particularly since little media attention was given the annual soirees. Unfortunately, a dust up developed between the former Hy Peskin and son Wayne Reynolds who took over responsibilities in 1885. Neither the name Hy Peskin nor Brian Reynolds appears on the Academy of Achievement’s web site.
Peskin/Reynolds died in Israel in June, 2005 from errors occurring during kidney dialysis.
I got much of this information from author Ruth Beebe Hill, a fellow Clevelander whom I met shortly after moving to Friday Harbor, WA in 1990. Hill, whose membership in the American Academy came after she authored the mega-hit, Hanta Yo, invited wife, Jan, and me to experience the American Academy in 1997. Having been exposed to celebrities during careers in journalism and public relations, I had seen much of them while working for such firms as TV Guide, Playboy, Public TV and a number of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune.
Held that year in Baltimore, the four-day annual event was crowded with an impressive number and variety of strictly A List celebs including 24 Nobel laureates, Colin Powell, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Martha Stewart, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, Ron Howard, Tom Clancy, four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher, Naomi Judd (then more famous than daughter Ashley) baseball’s Cal Ripkin and religion’s Dr. Robert B. Schuller. Clancy, a Baltimorean, was co-host along with Peter Angelos, fellow Charm City resident and Baltimore Orioles owner. There must have been 20 celebrities for every guest and each event of the four days was positively choked with the famous. I met Wayne Reynolds and found him distant when asked questions about his organization. The event is now called The International Achievement Summit whose recent inductees include Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Peskin/Reynolds may have set in motion a well-intentioned and well-paying adjunct to his gathering of celebrities when he began inviting 250 of the brightest of the nation’s graduating high school seniors to rub elbows with the highly successful. Enter Catherine D. Reynolds, a high-profile figure in the $17 billion private student loan industry, major philanthropist, controversial D.C. socialite, and wife of Wayne Reynolds. She had gone to work as an accountant for non-profit EduCap in 1988 when student loans came largely from the government. She wound up in control of one of the few firms that over the years has competed with federal loans now capped at 6.8 percent interest.
About every two years or so, student loan industry watchdogs take another look at EduCap whose status is fiercely protected by the Reynolds. Such possessions as a $30 million Gulfstream IV jet, used for seven years to fly family and the highly-connected to exotic places, now has their full attention along with nagging subjects of the past. They include her annual salary, now up to $1.2 million and student loans of as much as $50,000 with interest rates as high as 18 percent, nearly three times the federal rate. Because of a recently initiated investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and Congress, the Gulfstream has been sold but not before it was used for free trips taken by such heavyweights as Senators Tom Daschle and Ted Stevens, the later before he was found guilty of fraud. Along for 58 trips, including flights to Turkey, Sweden and Asia, was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.
Catherine Reynolds, now prominent in D.C. social and political circles, is so controversial (critics say she has long been driven by a severe case of social climbing) that the Smithsonian Institution once refused a $38 million contribution from her Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation. That was in 2002 and there were strings attached to the offer. The Smithsonian refused on the basis of the Foundation’s demand that it have a “hands on role” in the creation of a Hall of Achievers. By the time the offer was rejected, the Foundation had already transferred an un-retrievable $1.5 million to the venerable Institution. The Foundation has donated more than $100 million to noble causes.
Hy Peskin’s daughter-in-law has come a long way in achieving her unregulated slice of the $85 billion student loan industry made possible by soaring college tuition costs. According to the Reynolds, EduCap, which now lends under the Loan to Learn name, has helped more than 350,000 students pay for college. Catherine Reynolds says the student loan interest rate of 15 percent is for those of high risk.
CBS News carried stories on consecutive days early in March about the government’s interest in EduCap, its relationship with the American Academy which has received at least $9 million from the fellow non-profit out of which was paid, according to tax filings, at least $1.7 million to ASC Management Co., a firm with one shareholder: Wayne Reynolds.
What appears to be inescapable in the government’s increasing curiosity about EduCap is an entwinement with and ability to function under three different yet connected names: EduCap, the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation and the Loan to Learn brand.
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