After an esteemed career as an ethics and compliance professional, including serving as founding general counsel and chief compliance and ethics officer at ON Semiconductor, Sonny Cave '85 is giving back to the next generation of lawyers and business leaders at Colorado Law.
In 2016 Cave established an ethics and compliance endowment fund at Colorado Law to support programs, scholarships, and faculty to provide more avenues for students to get a head start in this growing profession. His recent gift to the Dean鈥檚 Fund and the Sonny Cave Ethics and Compliance Fund Endowment will create even more opportunities for students to pursue meaningful and rewarding careers in both law and ethics.
鈥淭he concept of doing what is right for human health and the environment, even when that path requires going above and beyond legal rules and regulations, applies just as well to business practices and strategy,鈥� said Cave, who connected his background in planetary ethics with business while working in-house as Motorola鈥檚 first environmental, health, and safety legal expert.
As a law student, he was inspired by Professor Charles Wilkinson and credits Wilkinson鈥檚 guidance with teaching him how to dream big about ways to improve society.
鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 able to take one of his classes, but I was determined to get to know him and experience his wisdom in my special fields of legal interest. So, I introduced myself and would regularly stop by his office, often unannounced, just to test some of my far-fetched legal theories and ideas,鈥� Cave said.
One idea caught Wilkinson鈥檚 ear鈥攁 novel way to interpret the definition of 鈥渘avigable waters鈥� to expand state ownership of the land beneath Colorado鈥檚 streams and rivers.
鈥淧rofessor Wilkinson listened with interest, and then with his patented smirk proceeded to say that while that was certainly some creative thinking, it wouldn鈥檛 actually work,鈥� Cave recalled. 鈥淏ut rather than leave it there, he spent of lot extra time with me then and throughout the rest of my studies to provide encouragement to me to keep brainstorming no matter how crazy it might seem at first, because that type of thinking would not only carry me far in life but also would bring currently unforeseeable benefits to society. Those words rang true for me way back then, and still do to this day.鈥�
Like Wilkinson, Cave is committed to inspiring and teaching the next generation of lawyers and business leaders. He hopes his gift will inspire others to give back.
鈥淚 sincerely hope that this gift will go beyond its original intentions in a way that will unleash a spark of inspiration and kindle a new sense of altruism and philanthropy in others to be kind and generous in supporting worthy causes,鈥� he said.