The child of immigrant parents, Bassim Hamadeh, 32, grew up knowing the importance of education. His father’s dream of moving from Palestine to the United States to study engineering became a reality, giving Hamadeh the motivation to pursue his own dream.

Hamadeh sought a degree in structural engineering (his father’s area of expertise) from UCSD, one of the few universities to offer the specialty. When he finished college in 1996, he got a job at the San Diego-based structural engineering firm, The Stichler Group, and at 23 was building the big structures that fascinated him as a child.
However, a business he founded as a student ultimately changed the course of Hamadeh’s plan.

While working toward his engineering degree, Hamadeh, then 18, noticed many UCSD professors would put together required course reading packets that bookstores would then copy and sell. Frustrated by the long lines, high costs and poor quality of the reading material, Hamadeh created University Readers.

His local campus operation, which started as a custom publishing service for basic course packets, grew to a multimillion dollar national company. In 1999, Hamadeh left the engineering firm to wade in full-time (with help from his wife, Seidy) to grow University Readers. Since then, his wife had a baby, Sara Elizabeth, he received an MBA from Stanford, and in September another Hamadeh is due.