Bay Area investment specialist Kenneth E. Nitzberg and Sacramento physician Dr. Julita Fong have been chosen co-chairs of "Students First," the newly launched fund-raising campaign intended to raise $15 million for student financial aid at the University of California, Davis. The Students First campaign is a two-year campuswide effort to mitigate the impact of rising fees and diminishing state aid for UC Davis students by funding new scholarships, fellowships, student-related academic programs and other financial aid for undergraduates and graduate students. Fong, like Nitzberg, has a long-term relationship with UC Davis. The owner of Fong Diagnostic Laboratories in Sacramento and the Bay Area, she serves as an associate clinical professor of pathology at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Her late husband, Sacramento attorney Henry Fong, was a member of the first graduating class of the UC Davis School of Law. Fong is presently a member of the board of trustees of the UC Davis Foundation, the campus's major volunteer fund-raising and support organization. "Julita approaches all of her many volunteer activities with complete commitment," said Donna Blakemore, UC Davis director of major campaigns. "She is highly regarded throughout the Sacramento region for the strength of her volunteer support to the causes in which she believes." In the last year, Fong received both the regional Soroptimist of the Year and the National Society for Fund Raising Executives' Philanthropist of the Year awards. Fong made the first gift to the campaign, establishing a scholarship program for women medical students in need of financial assistance at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Nitzberg, who received his degree in agricultural business management from UC Davis in 1968, went on to co-found Equitec Financial Group Inc. and oversaw a period of tremendous growth in that company before selling it to Pacificorp in 1987. Today he is the president and chief executive officer of Devon Capital Management, an Oakland-based real estate investment management and advisory company that he established in 1988. Nitzberg has served as vice chair of the UC Davis Foundation board of trustees as well as the chair of its finance and investment committee. He also served on the major gifts committee for the campaign that succeeded in raising funds to build the $4.8 million Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center at UC Davis, completed in 1992. "The knowledge and expertise that Ken Nitzberg brings to this key position are exceptional," said Blakemore. "Ken is an innovator and a leader in the financial services industry, a valued member of the UC Davis Foundation board, and an alumnus with an outstanding record of support for the campus." At UC Davis, mandatory student fees have more than doubled in three years, now costing undergraduates $3,712 per year and graduate students $3,986 per year. -