A Legacy Gift With Vision: Rich Edwards ’69 Thanks Princeton by Supporting Future Tigers

It was orientation week in the fall of 1965, and Rich Edwards ’69 was excited, but also nervous, about the challenges that lay ahead for him at Princeton. As President Robert Goheen ’40 *48 welcomed the Great Class of 1969 to their first-ever, all-member gathering, Edwards, newly arrived from Jacksonville, Florida, surveyed the 823 other young men gathered in Alexander Hall and wondered if he was in the right place.

His path to Princeton had started unexpectedly when alumni near his hometown contacted him, suggesting he might be a good candidate for admission. As Edwards had been considering colleges he’d like to apply to, he’d been focusing on only engineering schools, and he wasn’t sure he would fit in at a liberal arts school.

Edwards didn’t just fit in at Princeton; he flourished. He now credits Princeton for providing opportunities that were pivotal to his successful career in tech and finance and a happy, productive life following his passions.

Including Princeton in his philanthropic legacy plan was a must for him, as it aligns with Edwards’ long-held belief of what life’s journey should be: “Work hard and be successful, if you can, and then give back.”

Princeton: The lure of a computer and the foundation for success

Growing up, Edwards was inspired by his grandfather, Albert Edwards, whose degree in mechanical engineering led to becoming a businessman and philanthropist. He hoped to follow in Albert’s footsteps by majoring in industrial engineering.

But a room-sized IBM 7094 computer in the EQuad pulled him toward electrical engineering instead. As a freshman, Edwards landed a job as an operator on Princeton’s state-of-the-art machine. Fifty years later, as he describes the first computer to use transistors, not tubes, his excitement is still palpable.

Princeton also allowed Edwards to pursue his interests in the arts and history, as well as his passion for photography. Until the budding entrepreneur came along, the Princeton Student Agencies’ photo service had a singular offering, providing color images of the school’s athletic teams. Edwards successfully pitched the idea to add additional services, creating a photo squad that specialized in black-and-white photographs and covered campus life. He also served as photography editor of the 1968 “Bric-a-Brac” and got a job as the on-campus photographer for the Town Topics newspaper, which meant a press pass and access to performances by artists such as Judy Collins and Igor Stravinsky.

Edwards was a member of the “Hamilton Horde,” a group of 12 who lived in Hamilton Hall their sophomore year and then chose to stay together there for junior year — a decision that led to lifelong friendships, and more. At the first football weekend in October 1968, one of the Horde, who was dating a woman from Mount Holyoke, set Edwards up on a blind date with one of her suitemates, Robin Morse. Robin and Rich have now been married for 55 years.

After Princeton, Edwards attended Navy Officer Candidate School followed by five years on active duty teaching at the Nuclear Power School in Vallejo, California. After earning an MBA at Stanford, he worked at Hewlett-Packard for 10 years, then made a career switch to a boutique investment bank known for underwriting initial public offerings for tech companies during the internet boom. There, Edwards worked on deals for companies such as Sun Microsystems and Dell Computer and was active in the venture capital investment program.

In 1997, Edwards retired at the age of 49 and began a series of new adventures.

Retirement: A photography business, travel and philanthropy

In the 1969 “Nassau Herald,” Edwards wrote that he hoped “to enter into business for himself.” That dream came true when he was able to retire early. He built a professional photography darkroom and gallery at his home in Oakland, California, for his new environmental portrait photography business, Rich Edwards Imagery, and soon became an award-winning professional photographer.

When Robin retired from her career as an attorney, the couple focused on their shared passions for travel and philanthropy.

In 2015, Edwards started a travel blog that documents the couple’s adventures aboard The World, a private residential yacht with 165 apartments where they live about six months of each year. As they explore the planet, Edwards enjoys using his well-honed analytic skills for a new purpose: storytelling through his travel/photography blog. Family, including sons Michael ’01 and Jonathan and five grandchildren, sometimes join the voyages. (The images shown here are from Edwards’ collection of 1,200 blog posts made over the past 10 years.)

Community service and philanthropy have been a major focus of Edwards’ retirement years. He’s served on numerous boards for nonprofit service and arts organizations, including chairing the first-ever capital campaign for the Oakland Museum of California and helping set up its investment committee.

Edwards said he and Robin set an important goal decades ago, while still active in their careers: to leave half of their estate to charity. They established a charitable remainder trust (CRT) that included Princeton as a beneficiary. Later, they documented this legacy with the University.

Edwards is grateful to Princeton for providing him with a strong academic foundation and promoting a service ethos. “When you graduate, it’s clear that it’s then your mission to serve the nation,” he said.

Including Princeton in their estate plan also aligns with his family’s values, passed down through generations. “We’re Jewish, so we believe in this concept of tikkun olam, which technically means saving or helping the world.”

Edwards also prioritizes support for Annual Giving and Class of 1969 projects. He proudly notes his class’s role in creating, in 1996, the Princeton Internships in Civic Service (PICS) program, which in 2019 officially joined the University as part of the Pace Center for Civic Engagement.

“Our class was in the crossroads of a lot of things — the war in Vietnam, the beginning of coeducation — and we all felt pretty strongly that we owed Princeton a lot in terms of our life experience and setting us on a path to move forward with success in whatever we chose to do,” he said. “We’ve got classmates who have done just about everything you can think of. My original decision not to go to a strictly engineering school but to go to Princeton, a liberal arts school with a great engineering school, has been a real blessing in terms of all the friends I made.”

He urges fellow alumni to begin considering legacy giving earlier in life, noting that the decision is as much about vision as it is about timing. “Even if you can’t do a lot in mid-career, you can start to shape a plan for how your estate might serve the world beyond your family,” he said.

For Edwards, that vision is inseparable from his Princeton experience. “Princeton has always done a great job instilling in its alumni its culture and spirit, including a deep sense of responsibility. As alumni, we’re a family, and Princeton is a living institution that we all care about. Supporting it means carrying the banner forward for the next generations.”

—Catherine Mallette ’84

To start a conversation with Princeton’s gift planning team about legacy giving, no matter your age, please submit a Generations response form or contact us at 609.258.6318 or GiftPlanning@princeton.edu. If you were born before June 30, 1955, and are interested in establishing a documented bequest intention (DBI), please let us know.