The friends and colleagues of recently deceased businessman, entrepreneur and Tech Coast Angels founder, Luis Villalobos, are establishing an endowed fellowship fund to be awarded to a graduate MBA student at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California, Irvine. The fellowship, entitled the Luis Villalobos Endowed Fellowship in Entrepreneurship, is designed to honor the business leader in perpetuity.

The Villalobos Fellowship will attract outstanding students to the full-time MBA program at the Paul Merage School of Business. Candidates for the endowment must meet all of the requirements for admission to the school as well as display an interest in entrepreneurship and/or starting or being part of a new business.

According to UCI spokesperson Donna Mumford, the school does not have a specialization in entrepreneurship. Good candidates for the fellowship will take their primary course work in the typical graduate business school areas, such as marketing or finance, but will be interested in applying that learning to a new or start up business.

John Kensey, a long time friend and Harvard business school classmate of Villalobos, indicated the money for the fellowship is being donated by Villalobos’s friends and associates. “The money will come from individual contributions that each of his friends will make.” The fellowships will begin with the Fall quarter 2010. The applications will be reviewed by a committee of donors.

Kensey said “Luis had so many friends and he was influential in so many lives, this seemed like a really good way to give people the opportunity to remember and recognize his contribution to all of us.”

Luis Villalobos passed away on October 1, 2009 and his memory will be honored at a celebration of life gathering on November 11, 2009, 5:00-8:00 p.m. at the Orange County Wine & Food Center, 1570 Scenic Avenue Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Those wishing to celebrate the life of Luis Villalobos may RSVP to Bonnie Welt At bonnie@techcoastangels.com.

Villalobos is remembered as the founder of Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel investment network in the U.S., and as a tireless entrepreneur and investor who founded several successful high technology firms, invested in over 50 early-stage startups and personally mentored at least a dozen company CEOs. He is survived by his wife Ora-Zoe.

Donations for the Luis Villalobos Endowed Fellowship in Entrepreneurship can be mailed to Assistant Dean Donna Mumford, The Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine, SB 350B, Irvine, CA, 92697. Donations can also be made online via credit card. For further information, contact Donna Mumford at (949) 824-6418 or at dmumford@uci.edu.