Mel Kennedy and Susan Matsumoto
Donor Story
Susan Matsumoto and Mel Kennedy
A Legacy of Invention
Do the names “Skip It,” “Quick Braid,” and “Baby Brezza” mean anything to you? All three products are the brainchildren of husband-and-wife team Susan Matsumoto and Mel Kennedy. The creative couple has spent decades creating and designing numerous toys and helpful household items.
Susan, who earned a degree in Fashion Design from Cal Arts, and Mel, who majored in Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, were both employed by Mattel in El Segundo soon after graduation. Housed in different departments (Susan designed doll dresses and Mel worked on the Hot Wheels designs), the
two did not officially meet until they were both working in the toy industry in New York. They married in 1983, and eight years later merged their talents to form Kennedy-Matsumoto Design. Susan brainstorms the ideas for the inventions, packaging, and marketing while Mel makes the designs a reality with his
engineering expertise. They experienced great success with many of their products both in the U.S. and abroad.
Susan and Mel chose to settle down in Santa Barbara in 2012. Although they continue to work, they have also devoted much of their time to attending the various programs produced by UCSB’s Arts & Lectures. Mel shares that the A&L experiences “greatly exceeded their initial expectations,” and that they believe the cultural programming is “even more wide-ranging than what we found in New York.” The couple feels so passionately about Arts & Lectures that they have named the program as a beneficiary of their retirement plan.
“Our attorneys both recommended the IRA as the best way to make a charitable gift and we chose to leave a percentage to A&L,” says Susan. “We not only appreciate the programming, but love the fact that Arts & Lectures introduces the arts to schools in the local community.” With their legacy gifts as well as their legacy of invention, Susan and Mel have definitely left their mark on the future.