Ludwing H. Mai: A Personal Memoir‪.‬

Ludwig H. Mai (March 27, 1898-April 1, 1982) was, like most of us, an amalgam of intellectual influences. Most certainly he was partly an Austrian "fellow traveler"--one who had deep respect for Carl Menger and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk as well as for his professor and anti-statist Franz Oppenheimer (who was also an indirect influence on Murray Rothbard). That Mai "added on" ideas learned from such individuals as Wilhelm Ropke, and former Chancellor of West Germany Ludwig Erhard, his great friend and classmate, did not detract from a basic "Austro-German" orientation in his thought. But I get ahead of myself. A number of universities were under consideration before I decided (fairly capriciously on the basis of friends' choices) in the summer of 1958 to attend St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas. I knew no one at the University, but my father did. Many Swedes have ties to the shipping industry and my father was no exception. He was the CEO of an ocean freight forwarding business with offices in Texas and throughout the Gulf Coast. He also happened to be President of the Texas Ocean Freight Forwarders Association in the mid-1950s. At a meeting of that group he met and became friends with the main speaker, Dr. Ludwig Mai, then at St. Mary's. Despite my father's offer of a "letter of introduction" to Mai, I ill-advisedly pursued a pre-medical curriculum. When finally worn down by organic chemistry and sobered up (slightly) from fraternity high-jinks, I took my dad's offer seriously, met Dr. Mai, took his sage advice to become an economist, earning a bachelor's and masters' degree in the subject in 1962 and 1963. No mentor ever took his job more seriously. I love and practice economics to this day thanks to the launch I received from him.