Raymond "Ray" L. Watson (October 4, 1926 – October 20, 2012) was the former president of the

Irvine Company The Irvine Company LLC is an American private company focused on real estate development. It is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with a large portion of its operations centered in and around Irvine, California, a planned city of more ...

, and served as chief planner during the 1960s and 1970s. He was also chairman of

Walt Disney Productions The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October 1 ...

from 1983 to 1984, and served on the Disney board from 1972 until March 2004.

Early life and education

Raymond L. Watson was born in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. After moving in 1934 to

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...

, Watson was raised by his grandmother, spending his summers at the state beaches and parks where his father worked as a carpenter. After a short stint in the

U.S. Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...

Cadet Training Program toward the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he enrolled at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

, receiving his B.A. in 1951 and a master's degree in 1953, both in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

Business career

Watson was hired in 1960 as chief planner of the

. During his time at the

, Watson oversaw development of the City of Irvine; the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

; Newport Center; and

Fashion Island Fashion Island is an outdoor regional shopping mall in Newport Beach, California. Opened in 1967 by The Irvine Company as the anchor to their master-planned Newport Center district, Fashion Island is anchored by Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman M ...

as well as numerous residential villages throughout Orange County. In a 1996 essay in the

Orange County Register ''The Orange County Register'' is a paid daily newspaper published in California. The ''Register'', published in Orange County, California, is owned by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital via its Digital Fiest/Media News subsidiaries. ...

, Watson wrote of his development and planning work in Irvine: “Irvine the community, the town, the city, is what you, the citizens of Irvine, have built. You've built an outstanding education system within the walls of the school buildings. You've created and run an outstanding recreation program that used the open space, parks and lakes (William) Pereira visualized and we built. You bring life and therefore community to the shopping and entertainment centers we've built. The Irvine villages we conceived are now your communities, home to your homes."

Awards and honors

A pedestrian bridge was named in Watson’s honor in 2005 (Watson Bridge). An inscription at the site credits Watson as a “Modern Renaissance Man.” This bridge is owned by the City of Irvine, and connects the

to the

's University Center. In 2006, Raymond Watson was awarded The Medal by the University of California, Irvine. Watson is a former trustee of the University of California, Irvine Foundation and a former member of The Paul Merage School of Business Dean's Advisory Board. Watson was chair of the Daniel G. Aldrich Society and in 1997, was honored with the Center for Real Estate Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also elected a Fellow of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to s ...

in 1971; served as University of California Regent’s Professor in the Graduate School of Management at UCI; received the California Council’s 1986 Award for Excellence in Architects in Industry, and was elected to the California Building Industry’s Hall of Fame in 1988.

Personal life

Watson and his wife, Elsa, lived in the same

Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island draws ...

home for 48 years, in the East Bluff development that he helped plan. They were lifetime members of the University of California, Irvine Chancellor's Club.

References

External links

Archival collections

Guide to Raymond L. Watson Papers.
Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other

Raymond L. Watson Archive PapersUniversity of California, Berkeley Oral BiographyUCIspace @ the Libraries digital collection: Raymond L. Watson born digital files and digitized slides, 1992-2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Raymond 1926 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople University of California, Irvine people Disney people American management consultants Chairmen of The Walt Disney Company Directors of The Walt Disney Company