In the early 1990s, Valerie Garcia Houts was striving to join her family’s first generation of college graduates – studying economics at UC Irvine and waiting tables on nights and weekends. When she worried about paying for her next quarter’s fees, a social sciences professor asked her if she knew about the grant funding available for research. She had no idea.

“He took it upon himself, as an incredible supporter and mentor, to help me navigate getting involved in undergraduate research,” Houts says. “I learned that I could earn course credit and get funding for my college education at the same time.”

Now Houts, who is a managing director of private equity & venture services for Merrill Lynch, wants to ensure the next generation of UC Irvine students embrace similar opportunities. She and her husband Tim Houts are providing a significant gift to support the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program to encourage students in economics, political science, and other social sciences to engage in meaningful research alongside faculty mentors.

“My hope is that UC Irvine will continue to be a place that brings awareness to students who were like me, and ‘don’t know what they don’t know,’” Houts says. “I want students to be informed about all the opportunities available to them, and to envision themselves doing things like undergraduate research.”

Fun and community

Houts chose UC Irvine, less than an hour’s drive south of her hometown, for its strong sense of community and ideal location. Then, as now, “The students at UCI were bright, and knew how to have a lot of fun,” she says.

She had fun, too. She joined a sorority and participated in drama department classes. But her main goal was purely pragmatic: “I needed to get a job after college.” Planning to pursue business, she majored in economics with a healthy dose of political science classes.

Undergraduate research tied together so many elements that she was seeking from her education: earning class credit, getting funding, learning from distinguished faculty, and building skills she could use in the future. She embarked on a research project exploring banking services – or lack thereof – in economically depressed communities, and continued the project while interning at a congressional office in Washington, D.C. The project became a seminal part of her educational experience, and one she hopes other students like her will pursue without being discouraged by financial or other challenges.

“From political science to arts to economics, UC Irvine professors care about students. I want to encourage students to spend time with your professors, explore their research, and what you can learn from their experience,” she advises. “Take the time to do that, as hard as that might be.”

Building on the foundation

After graduating, Houts moved to San Francisco. She nearly turned down the job opportunity that would change her life because its workday started at 6:30 a.m., when the markets opened in New York. Fortunately, a mentor talked her into trying to become an early bird, and that set her on a lifelong career path.

Houts earned an MBA from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 1999 while working full time at securities and investment firms throughout the dot-com boom. Then, in 2002, she and six colleagues joined Merrill Lynch to build a line of business focused on private equity and venture capital. While helping their clients as they develop and grow companies in the thriving life sciences and technology sectors, her team has expanded to six offices with clients all around the world. “The venture capital community is inspiring and always evolving,” she says.

Today, Houts is a recognized leader in her field, repeatedly named to Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisors and Forbes’ Top 100 Women Wealth Advisors.

“The education I received was a tremendous building block,” she says. “I find economics so interesting, especially as I spend time now focused on public markets for my clients. And political science makes a fascinating layer on top of that — whether policy making or international relations and geopolitical dynamics,” Houts says. “So my UC Irvine education and the great professors I had provided the framework and a foundation that I use on a daily basis.”

Investing in the future

Giving back remains important to Houts and her family. She serves on the boards of Project Glimmer, a national nonprofit that supports disadvantaged young women and girls, and Compass Family Services, a nonprofit that helps homeless and at-risk families in San Francisco. In addition, she is active in her church parish and the National Charity League with her three daughters. But higher education is a priority for Valerie and Tim.

Houts stays connected to the Anteater community, inspired in part by Tim’s sister, Kathy Houts Miller, who was among the first class of undergraduates at UC Irvine in 1965 and then taught in the extension program for more than 30 years.

“I have plenty of friends from UC Irvine who have stayed involved. My advice to students is to find ways to remain connected to the university because even though – or maybe because – it’s a public university, it needs alumni support,” she says. “It’s easy to lose sight of that, but there’s a lot that we as alumni can be doing to support the university and the students as years go by.”

-Christine Byrd for the UCI School of Social Sciences