History
 
George Pepperdine (1886 - 1962)
    George Pepperdine was the founder and president of the Western Auto Supply Company which the newlywed alumnus of Parsons Business College in Kansas, at the age of 23, started with an initial investment of five dollars in 1909. In the following decades Mr. Pepperdine rode the wave to phenomenal business success providing quality automotive products and services via a network of hundreds of retail stores to an American nation just beginning its love affair with the automobile. He married Lena Rose Baker and in 1916 moved the family and business to Los Angeles for health reasons. Lena died in 1930 and Mr. Pepperdine remarried in 1934 to Helen Louise Davis.

    It is nothing unusual that the economic expansion of the early 20th century made many American entrepreneurs wealthy, but when wealth and success came to George Pepperdine, it came to man of deep Christian faith and a lifelong member of Churches of Christ. He had always exercised a spirit of generosity and charity, and was a man who understood himself as a steward and caretaker of the assets that God had entrusted to him. That sense of stewardship matured into a call of destiny when Mr. Pepperdine observed the alarming rate at which Christian young men and women lost interest in their faith after going on to higher education. He determined that he would dedicate his fortune to creating and endowing a college that would provide the best education possible, managed by administrators and taught by professors who would support students in their Christian belief.
On September 21, 1937 (commemorated annually as Founder’s Day) George Pepperdine College was opened and dedicated, a mere seven months after Mr. Pepperdine had decided to go ahead with construction in February. In November of that same year, Mr. Pepperdine addressed the students and first set out what continues to guide Pepperdine University’s educational philosophy and policy to this day [see also Mr. Pepperdine’s dedicatory address]:

    There are many good colleges and universities which can give you standard academic training, but if our school does not give you more than that, it really has no reason to exist. The great difference between this college and other colleges is that we are endeavoring to place adequate emphasis and greater stress upon religious teaching and Christian character. We want to present to you, in teaching and example, the Christian way of life. We do not compel you to accept it. You are free to make your own choice, but we want you to know what it is.

    Mr. Pepperdine remained thoroughly involved with the college for the rest of his life, frequently being seen on campus with Mrs. Pepperdine, attending chapel, board meetings, school functions, and sporting events. He narrated his life story and his purposes for the college in his biography Faith is My Fortune (1959). Ge