Molly and Mike Landi recently announced a $1 million bequest for RAND to endow a special fund for national security research.It was,Mike Landi said,”just a natural thing for us to do.”

摘要

Their history with RAND dates back more than 40 years.They met when she was a librarian in the Washington office,and he was an up-and-coming researcher and new program director.Now retired and living a quiet life in northern Michigan,they saw their bequest as a way to give back.”We like what RAND does and what it stands for,”Mike Landi said.”We were looking for a place that would make good use of the funds.That's how we settled on RAND.”The Landis’pledge places them in a small but growing circle of donors who have included RAND in their estate plans,the Legacy Society.It's an often-overlooked option for people who want to support RAND,and an important one.Recent legacy gifts have helped fund research on topics ranging from sustainability to criminal justice,as well as the Pardee RAND Graduate School.Mike Landi worked as a logistics researcher at RAND in the late 1960s and early 1970s.He was part of a team that helped New York City's airports plan for the future.His work so impressed city officials that they brought him on as an assistant budget director during a funding crisis in the early 1970s;and then as an assistant police commissioner during the corruption scandal exposed by then-Det.Frank Serpico.”It's been very interesting,”Landi said,and left it at that.