Dr. Fardad Fateri built Irvine-based International Education Corp. into one of the largest systems of postsecondary career education in North America.

"When I first started teaching at a university in the late 1980s, I loved it! I knew then that I had discovered my purpose.

"Then, when I became an administrator, I realized that higher education has a problem: it has a one-track focus in preparing students. Students in traditional academia do well by reading, writing and learning theories, but many people don’t learn that way—they learn visually or by hands-on training. Traditional American education was missing this key aspect. There was a complete void of training in vocational education using a structured and disciplined methodology.

"I went to our dean and asked, “Why don’t we offer full-term vocational training to prepare students for entry-level jobs in high-demand verticals like healthcare?” He said, “No, that’s not what we do, and the faculty senate would never allow it.”

"To this day, higher education is still operating in a bubble because they ignore the needs of the marketplace. Currently, companies like Oracle, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon all have their own training verticals that are as large as many university programs. This trend will continue to put traditional colleges out of business.

"My father was a self-made man who started working at 13. He got into the cotton business in the northern part of Iran and became the largest exporter of cotton to Europe. He later became a developer, building high-rises in Iran.

"I was born in Tehran, where I lived until I was 12 years old. Then my parents sent me to a boarding school in Switzerland called Institut Le Rosey, where I developed many lifelong friendships.

"After the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s, my parents decided Iran wouldn’t be a place they wanted to stay and raise their family. The United States was the ultimate destination for Iranians with the necessary resources.

"When I was 18, I started at UCI. At that time, UCI was a small school and not as prestigious as it is today. I probably wouldn’t have been accepted today! I received a great education with a degree in social sciences with a specialty in psychology.

"I couldn’t secure suitable professional employment, so I pursued my master’s degree, followed by a PhD in psychology. I always held full-time jobs while attending school full-time. I originally wanted to become a clinical psychologist. But I realized that I didn’t have the attributes to be a good clinician, so I chose organizational psychology, specializing in leadership. In this then-emerging field, I learned from the best.

"The City of Irvine has always attracted Iranians because of its safety and the quality of education. To this day, the largest share of Iranian Americans in Orange County lives in Irvine.

"In the 1980s, Iranians held the end of the Persian New Year celebration at Irvine’s Mason Park called Sizdeh-Bedar. The event was a total disaster because it was unplanned. Larry Agran, who was then the mayor, was quoted in the local newspaper saying that participants at the event were barbarians. I met Mayor Agran to tell him about the rich history of the 3,000-year-old Persian culture. He listened and soon after, he put me, a 25-year-old, in charge of organizing the Persian New Year celebration. This Sizdeh-Bedar event became the largest gathering of Iranians outside Iran, usually attracting about 35,000 people. I organized the event for ten years and as a result, I became friends with Larry, who has returned to become mayor."