Kenneth C. Aldrich died on October 17, 2021. He was born on April 10, 1938, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ken prepared at Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A member of Winthrop House and the Harvard Class of 1960, Ken earned an A.B. cum laude in History and Literature from Harvard College in 1960 and, in 1964, he earned an LL.B. cum laude from Harvard Law School.
After several years practicing law, Ken determined that he would have more fun doing what his clients were doing and got into the real estate business … and became an investor in start-up companies and a serial entrepreneur. Prior to devoting full time to the investment business, Ken was President and on the Board of Directors of The Aldrich Company, a real estate development firm. He co-developed the first Wind Energy Park in the Palm Springs, California area and co-founded the company that designed and built the first major post-tensioned concrete high-rise building west of the Rocky Mountains, the first such building ever to meet California earthquake standards.
Ken was a first-round investor in Green Dot Corporation (NYSE:GDOT), the world’s largest provider of prepaid debit cards and related financial services that provided investors with a return of more than 100 times their invested capital. Ken was a founder, and for several years was Chairman and CEO, of International Stem Cell Corporation, a publicly traded regenerative medicine company developing therapeutic and research products through a proprietary stem cell technology. He was also a founder of WaveTec Vision Systems, a maker of optical measurement systems used in vision corrective surgery that was eventually sold for 70 times the initial invested capital.
Ken was a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Harvard Graduate School of Education and creator of DreamToolbox.com, which houses a series of audio blogs dedicated to helping young people realize their entrepreneurial potential.
Ken was predeceased in 2015 by his wife of 27 years, Yvonne Craig-Aldrich, an actress best known for her role as batgirl in the 1960s TV series “Batman”.
