Stanley Dashew leaves 96-year-legacy of creating inventions and bonds

Stanley Dashew, the businessman who founded the Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars at UCLA, died last week of natural causes. He was 96.

Dashew was known as a lively man who wore many titles over the years: entrepreneur, inventor, philanthropist, sailor. He reinvented himself throughout his life, said his daughter Leslie Dashew.

But at UCLA, Stanley Dashew was known as a proponent for international students. He was a firm believer that welcoming international students and making them part of the community was not only beneficial for the students and the university, but also for global relations, said Albert Carnesale, a former UCLA chancellor and a friend of Dashew’s.

His interest in international affairs spanned both his personal and business life.

Dashew’s parents were immigrants from Russia and Lithuania, who settled in New York City – “the melting pot of the world,” Leslie Dashew said. His mother, who believed it was important for people to immigrate to America, taught English to foreign students.

Her work had an early impact on Stanley Dashew, his daughter said.

While he began his long and successful business career as a salesman in Michigan, he decided in 1949 to move to the West Coast. An avid sailor, Dashew realized he could sail all year-round in California – in Michigan, he was limited to sailing in the summers.

So he sold the company he started, bought a 76-foot schooner, and sailed to Los Angeles with his wife, 7-year-old son and infant daughter Leslie. The 18-month trip went from Lake Michigan, through the Panama Canal and up to Los Angeles.

“My dad’s whole philosophy in life was that you can do it,” Leslie Dashew said.

Once in Los Angeles, he began Dashew Business Machines, where he invented credit card embossing and imprinting machines. He worked with Bank of America to create the first plastic bank credit card system, and he also worked with Chase Manhattan Bank, American Express and later Visa.

“He was basically the father of the credit card,” said Carnesale, laughing.

It was here in Los Angeles that Dashew started his work with international students. He and his late wife Rita began volunteering and mentoring students in the 1950s at the International Student Center at UCLA, which was located off-campus at the time.

“My dad was part of the center from the earliest days,” Leslie Dashew said. “His commitment was because he believed that the way to achieve peace in the world is by people from different countries interacting with each other.”

He did not know him at the time, but Dr. Ka-Kit Hui, the founder and director of the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, benefited from Dashew’s early work at the International Student Center.

Hui, an international student from Hong Kong who attended UCLA for his undergraduate degree and medical school in the 1960s and 1970s, said he learned about American culture and got to see a bit of the country through programs at the international center.

It was not until 1994 that Hui actually met Dashew, when he came to get treatment at the Center for East-West Medicine. They soon became close friends, advising each other throughout the years. Dashew helped the Center for East-West Medicine develop in the last two decades, Hui said.

“In a sense, it’s a circle,” Hui said. “I was helped by his benevolence, and later on helped him.”

Despite its benefits, Dashew had something in mind for UCLA beyond the International Student Center. He felt it was important to have a physical space in the center of campus for students from America to meet and form relationships with international students, Leslie Dashew said.

The Rita and Stanley Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars was dedicated in 1998. For his 95th birthday, which he celebrated with an event at UCLA, the center established an endowment fund in his honor to continue its programming in the future.

“Mr. Dashew was a visionary and knew how valuable international students are for the success and livelihood of the UCLA campus,” said Shideh Hanassab, director of the Dashew Center, in a statement. “He was passionate about international students’ experiences here in the United States, and he touched many international students’ lives through his generous and unwavering commitment.”

Jennie Weingarten, the assistant director of programming at the Dashew Center, said Dashew’s largest influence at the center was through programming. These programs range from the global-siblings program, which pairs domestic and global students one-on-one, to language-based programs.

It was important to Dashew that programs were catered to both international and domestic students. He wanted students from America to get to experience the world locally and engage with global students through the center, Weingarten said.

“He had a lot of love for what we do and our students,” she said. “It was evident when he attended programs, which he actually did quite regularly (in recent years) … if he felt strong enough to come.”

Dashew fostered and maintained relationships with international students from the center over the years, inviting them to his house for dinner or onto his yacht to go sailing, Weingarten said.

“He was an adopted grandfather to many students,” Leslie Dashew said.

Daniel Gu, an international alumnus from China, said he remembers receiving a dinner invitation from Dashew, who he had never met while he was a UCLA student. Gu was working toward his doctorate in computer science in the mid-1990s, and at the time was the president of the Chinese Student Scholar Association.

He continued his friendship with Dashew after he graduated with his doctorate in 1999. Shortly after, in 2001, Gu became a board member of the Dashew Center – which he considered his “home on campus.”

“It’s hard to imagine without this center how life would be,” said Gu, who is a board member to this day. “Mr. Dashew made my experience.”

For his contributions to the university through the Dashew Center, he was awarded the UCLA Medal – UCLA’s highest honor and the equivalent of an honorary doctorate degree – in 2000, said Carnesale, who was the chancellor at the time.

Dashew, who was 15 credit hours short of finishing his college degree, felt receiving the award was in effect like completing his college education, Leslie Dashew said.

While the Dashew Center was his main volunteering activity, Dashew continued to work in business and invent throughout his life. After suffering a hip injury in his late 80s, he invented a mobility device – aptly named the “Dashaway” – to relieve his pain.

From time to time, he could be seen dancing at UCLA events in his Dashaway.

In 2010, he wrote an autobiography titled “You Can Do It: Inspiration and Lessons From an Inventor, Entrepreneur and Sailor.” He continued to write for the Huffington Post and the Christian Science Monitor late into his life.

“I have never met anyone who had more of a zest for life,” Carnesale said. “It was contagious.”

And even though it was difficult, Dashew made it to his boat to sail one last time about a month back.

Dashew was born on September 16, 1916 in New York City. He is survived by his daughter, son, stepson, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Private services were held in his honor. A celebration of Mr. Dashew’s life will be announced at a later date.