RE Log - Fall 2020

22 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2020 C lad in metal and glass arranged to catch South Florida’s sunshine, Ransom Everglades’ Constance & Miguel Fernandez STEM Center resembles the future it promises: bright, rational, in harmony with the earth around it. Unlike an old-fashioned statue-laden rotunda, it won’t be encrusted with monuments telling the stories of the people who brought it here; it’s focused on the future, not the past. But those stories are worth telling – especially the story of its lead donors, trustee Constance Fernandez and her husband, Miguel “Mike” Fernandez. “They are truly one of the great, important philanthropic families in South Florida,” said Jeffrey Miller ’79 , who co- chaired the school’s REinventing Excellence campaign with Constance before she became sole chair in August. “When they agreed to this great gift, they did it because they saw this as a gift to the South Florida community and everything RE brings to it.” “It’s not just bricks and mortar,” said Constance. “We hope it’ll be the breeding ground for future scientists, epidemiologists. I think preparing kids for what we don’t know is a huge responsibility. You have to be ahead of things.” In the world of Miami healthcare, nearly everybody knows the story of Mike Fernandez. How he was born penniless on a farm in Manzanillo, Cuba. How, after the Revolution, he escaped with his family to Mexico and then New York, where he worked two jobs to support his family while pulling Cs at Xavier High School. How, through sheer entrepreneurial grit, he rose through the healthcare industry to become a bona-fide titan, founding or becoming the majority shareholder in some 25 companies before building his signature venture, the Coral Gables-based HMO Simply Healthcare. What people don’t know is that Constance is driven by a similar story of resilience and forward-thinking fortitude. Born in Sterling Heights, Mich., she didn’t grow up quite as penniless as Mike; her father was a union autoworker for the Ford Motor Company. But it was a complicated household. Her parents divorced early on, and for years she and her sister were left in the position of caretakers for her two younger brothers, packing them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in brown paper bags. Her sister then died of cancer, leaving her as the primary parent figure to her brothers for several years. She remembers wanting desperately to hang around her stepfather’s custom steel fabrication plant on Saturdays because learning the business felt like a way to plan for a better future. “I said, ‘I’ll sweep, I’ll answer the phone, I’ll make coffee, anything,’” she reminisced. “I didn’t want to get paid. I wanted to learn.” After she attended the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business as an undergraduate, where she excelled in math, she knew she had no choice but to enter the workforce and start earning a living. But she, like her future husband, rose RE families bring STEM center to fruition By Matt Margini, RE Humanities Department faculty