Bruin Professionals: Who We Are and What We Can Do for You

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hat do you get when you take the best of business networking organizations and mix in some Bruin fun?

Bruin Professionals (BP), of course. Now in its 20^th year, what began as a network within the Alumni Association now has 12 chapters and three affinity groups across Southern California, with over 8,000 subscribers on their BP Exchange forum. It has become one of the top professional networking organizations among UCLA alumni, and even that other school across town doesn’t have anything like it. 

At its core, Bruin Professionals is about Bruins helping Bruins. They do this by following their three Cs: commerce, camaraderie and community. Whether it’s referrals or advice, professional references or friendships, meetings or mixers, the group operates with the mindset that everyone who joins BP has something to gain or profit from their involvement.

Rodnell Ponce ʼ06, the president of Bruin Professionals, first got involved nearly 10 years ago as a small business lender from First Republic Bank. He said, “I literally had never heard of it. I figured this is a good time to do some networking and business development, so I attended a couple of meetings and then made a lot of really good contacts up front. I thought, ‘OK, this can be a meaningful network.’ I started getting referrals right away within the first few months. I met a mortgage guy who was also a lender (Eddie Neiman ʼ80, another BP member) who introduced me to a ton of people and he also referred me a lot of business. It completely revolutionized my practice and I became not just a good banker but literally the top guy at the bank.”

"It completely revolutionized my practice and I became not just a good banker but literally the top guy at the bank."

Although Ponce makes it clear, BP is so much more than about making money or growing your business. “I started out looking to see if I can get business out of this, but now even more so, it’s turned into a source for places and resources that I can refer my friends and family to, or connecting my clients to well-known professionals that I know and trust,” he explained.  

Business referrals are a constant staple in Bruin Professional meetings and forums. Examples of these are mentioned in every correspondence.

• Bruce Berman '85 from The Berman Law Firm, referred a client to Eric Lawton '69 of Law Offices of Eric Lawton years ago that is now in litigation. 
• Carolyn Hori '92 from LuxxeLife helped Andrea Best '66 of Andrea Best Luxury Real Estate find a virtual assistant. 
• Christina Rath, MBA '17, from Vego helped Tiffany Chin '10 of The Tiffany Chin Group at Keller Williams Realty Larchmont build out her website and brand.

The selfless connections made each day are what gives this community its value. But its uniqueness is derived from the members’ shared Bruin experience.

Tiffany Chin, a residential realtor and president-elect of Bruin Professionals, started out by attending a BP holiday party. She said, “After about three years of dabbling in it, I realized that I really liked the people there. It made sense for me to be part of a UCLA-affiliated community. I attended an actual meeting for the first time and I just really enjoyed the energy of it. I could tell that people were very passionate about the organization and helping people build their businesses and referring clients to each other. So I was just drawn to the organization.”

"With BP, there was immediate camaraderie. In BP meetings you made instant friends and it wasn’t all about just getting the next lead."

Since her first dabble more than six years ago, Chin has participated in a breadth of BP events which are both chapter-wide and chapter-specific. The annual holiday party is their most well-attended event, along with the popular Sangria Mixer, which is held in someone’s backyard, allowing members to get to know each other better in a more casual setting. Chin explains, “When I was appointed as VP of programs and events, that was a big deal! I never had so many people with opinions as to how [the Sangria Mixer] should be run. Because clearly, it was their baby and they wanted to make sure that it continued on.”

Matt Winefield, MBA ʼ00, of Winefield & Associates, Inc. and Hyperion Fund, LP, quipped, “I don’t want you think this is just a drinking organization, but there are a lot of happy hours.” Winefield has been a part of other networking organizations before and found them to be a little stiff, taking a while to get to know one another. He said, “With BP, there was immediate camaraderie. In BP meetings you made instant friends and it wasn’t all about just getting the next lead.”

Loving what he saw, Winefield helped start the Long Beach chapter and later the Real Estate Affinity Group. He marveled at how their launch party for the Long Beach chapter brought out 90 people and many leads were generated that night.

BP has a robust events calendar comprised of monthly chapter and affinity group meetings, social mixers and all-chapter events. There are also sports outings like golf tournaments and Dodger games, and collaborations with other alumni networks such as the Spring Social Mixer with Asian Pacific Alumni of UCLA and the Latino Alumni Association on June 25. Most BP meetings include an educational component or high profile speakers by industry. “We’ve definitely had some heavy hitters. We’ve had a state senator, the L.A. controller and a couple of real estate billionaires,” said Winefield, but the main purpose of meetings is to allow the attendees to network, exchanging Bruin warmth and information.        

Non-members are welcome to attend up to three BP meetings for free. To continue participating, BP follows a dues-based tiered membership model that ranges from $125 annually for young alumni to $500 per year as its regular membership price. The dues cover a member’s attendance for unlimited events, provides member discounts to certain paid events and finances the paid administrative full-time staff who keeps the organization operating smoothly.

During the pandemic, meetings shifted to a virtual format like most businesses, and at first, attendance skyrocketed. Chin recalled, “It took a lot of scrambling and problem solving, but we can thank Kate Pletcher ʼ07 (BP vice president of special projects) for figuring this all out for us. It really worked well for a good amount of time and it made it a lot easier to attend those early morning meetings that start at 7:30 a.m. We adopted a format where we could still have breakout sessions and network within smaller groups. But now people are ready to be in person again.”

President Ponce agreed. “I’m particularly proud of how fast we mobilized and pivoted towards Zoom. We didn’t skip a month of meetings and it was pretty seamless. But yeah, attendance started pretty good at first and slowly dwindled with Zoom fatigue.”     

“One of my biggest regrets is not joining an organization like this when I was younger.”

Out of the pandemic was born the West Coast Chapter of Bruin Professionals. They used the virtual opportunity to link up more cities up and down the West Coast to broaden the reach of BP. “The goal was to take over the nation and the world, but when we realized different time zones meant even earlier meetings, we settled on just the West Coast,” Ponce joked. The chapter continues to meet monthly on Zoom and may spearhead new chapters in the Midwest, New York and D.C. in the future.

Across Southern California, three affinity groups were formed to address some of BP’s niche factions: the Lawyers Affinity Group, Real Estate Affinity Group and the Young Bruin Professionals. Their events vary from monthly to quarterly meetings, and almost always include a speaker meant to broaden their members’ professional development.

There are some assumptions that the type of fields who stand to benefit from joining a networking organization like Bruin Professionals are mainly those in sales, real estate, lending, finance, attorneys, etc. And while it’s true that client referrals are the bread and butter of the group, Winefield suggested people think of it a little differently. “If they’re social scientists or doctors or a researchers, there’s something to be gained from these meetings. Those alumni connections and friendships all contribute to learning about other organizations and enhances your networking circle, which is always good in just about any profession. Plus, they’re seeing great speakers,” he said.

Winefield’s suggestion to those who don’t typically think they need to network was to give BP a try, as it might open up their eyes to the power of the Bruin brand. He lamented, “I find that one of my biggest regrets is not joining an organization like this when I was younger, rather than doing it in my 40s. I think had I joined in my 20s, I would have invested in real estate a lot sooner, so ideas like that can always help anyone.”

Beyond the benefits to its members in generating business referrals and Bruin camaraderie, BP has also given back to the UCLA community through their BP Endowed Student Scholarship. Thanks to the generosity of their donors, especially their BP 200 Club members, they were able to award their first Bruin Professionals Scholarship in 2021 to freshman Liana Posselt for four years. Now, they’re aiming to endow a second scholarship student and are close to reaching their goal.

At its core, Bruin Professionals has always been about Bruins helping Bruins. It may begin as a venture to acquire more business through networking, which then turns into meaningful relationships and an expanded network of Bruins willing to help you and your contacts, and eventually the community, of which you’re now a part, seeks to give back to the next generation of Bruin professionals. 

Matt Winefield summed it up best when he said, “Networking is a long term outreach program that everyone should have. Things don’t happen overnight and the old adage, ‘the more you give the more you get’ is very true for Bruin Professionals.”

To learn more about joining Bruin Professionals, visit BruinProfesionals.com.

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