The industrial giant GE provided the initial inspiration for LDI's Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) program. In the late 90s it was one of a number of large corporations supporting experimental pipeline curriculum designed to recruit more non-white students into university-level business degree studies. Working with Mark Pauly, PhD, then Vice Dean of the Wharton School Doctoral Programs, the GE Foundation funded the creation of a summer-long program for minority students potentially interested in pursuring a doctoral degree at Wharton. GE support for that effort only lasted two years, but Pauly, the former Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute and Wharton Health Care Management professor, thought the same model might work for drawing more minority students into Wharton's health services research-related PhD degree programs. He was the principal investigator on the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) grant that funded the startup of SUMR within LDI. Pauly has been a continuous supporter, mentor and lecturer in the program ever since. "I think one of the most rewarding aspects of it all has been the many students who come back years later from academic, management and policy positions and tell us that the SUMR program opened a door into a field they didn't even know was there," said Pauly.