Remembering Our Brothers Edward Wedbush Enters Chapter Eternal A Loss for Triangle and the Business Community JAC K HO C HA DE L cin 5 2 & R A N DA L L DR E W ros e 6 7 EDWARD W. WEDBUSH cin50, born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 14, 1932, graduated in 1955 from the University of Cincinnati in Mechanical Engineering entered Chapter Eternal on January 5, 2020, at the age of 87 in his home in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Ed received a Wagner Electric Company scholarship to attend Cincinnati where he was involved in campus politics becoming the first engineering student to be elected University Senior Class President. Ed also played tennis there and Tony Trabert (former #1 tennis champion and longtime tennis author, TV commentator, instructor & motivational speaker) used him for workouts. Upon graduating in 1955 Wedbush received a scholarship position at Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, California which included attending graduate school at UCLA to earn his MBA. The following year in 1956 he assisted Hughes in recruiting Cincinnati Triangle brothers Michael Kausch cin52 and Jack Hochadel cin52 for positions at the company. The three of them then purchased a beach home just a five-minute drive from the Hughes facility. The three men were then involved in starting the Triangle chapter at UCLA and made loans to assist in the purchase of the chapter house. During these early years, Ed met his soon-to-be wife Jean, a young nurse, when she was brought to a party at the house by a mutual friend. The early days of his Wedbush & Company stock and brockerage (now Wedbush Securities) operated
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on the dining room table of the beach home. Their first real office was opened in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles in 1957, and he subsequently accrued several other area brokerage businesses. In 1971 they bought a membership in the New York Stock Exchange. After over 60 years of growing the business, it is the leading independent West Coast stock brokerage company with over 800 employees and 99 offices in several states. Wedbush & Company is now owned and run by Ed’s sons Gary and Eric. Among the many accolades he has received were in 2000 an Honorary Doctors Degree and in 2004 a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Cincinnati. He was also named one of the top 100 executives by the Los Angeles Times. Wedbush was an early member of the Triangle Wall of Fame in the fourth class to be inducted in 1998. In 2011, Wedbush received the Fraternity’s highest honor, the Triangle Service Key. Wedbush served two decades on the Triangle Education Foundation Board of Directors from 1996 to 2016 also serving as the Board’s Investment Chair where he oversaw significant growth of the Foundation’s endowment. Ed was also a member of the University of Cincinnati Foundation Board. When Ed attended Board meetings on campus, he always enjoyed stopping by the Cincinnati Chapter house and chatting with the actives. Always when asked when he was going to retire Ed would answer “I am now only working half-days, from 5:30AM to 5:30PM”. Both the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal ran extensive stories and pictures about his passing, his life, family and companies. It is said that the founding and growth of Wedbush Securities is a true American success story. s
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