Eugene Sit, born in China in 1938, came to the United States to pursue his education and career, and became one of Minnesota's most successful investment managers, and a philanthropist known for his many charitable commitments. He died on Tuesday at the age of 69 of pancreatic cancer.

Sit made the journey to the United States in 1948 with his father and brother and no money. He didn't speak English when he got here, but his determination, a theme woven throughout his life, helped him to finish 12 years of school in only eight. He won a scholarship to DePaul University and graduated in 1960 with an accounting degree.

His career began at Commonwealth Edison in Chicago, where he made earnings forecasts, which helped to establish the company as a leading money management firm.

Sit married his wife of 50 years, Gail, while still in Chicago, where four of their six children were born. But in 1968, IDS (Investors Diversified Services) recruited him to shake up its investment business, and he and his family headed north, settling in Edina.

After managing portfolios at IDS for several years, Sit was named president and chief equity investment officer of IDS Advisory Group in 1976. He was an early investor in Asian Pacific stocks and built the institutional money-management division from $500 million to $3 billion by 1981. It was then that he decided to start Sit Investment Associates with $1 million of his own money. He wanted "to go out and find the next Intel or Wal-Mart," he said in February 2007.

His instincts served him well. During the next 20 years, Sit added the Sit Fixed-Income division (1984), an international investments division (1989), a small-capitalization domestic-equity product (1994), and a dividend growth product to the two original mutual funds that his firm started out with.

Now, Sit Investment Associates has 75 employees, five of which are his children, and more than $7 billion under management.

Sit was inducted into the 2008 Minnesota Business Hall of Fame.

While Sit's career is remarkable, so too is his commitment to giving back. He served on the boards of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The University of Minnesota Carlson School's International Visitors, and the Minnesota Historical Society Honorary Council. He was a director of Corning, Inc., and Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation.

Besides serving many other nonprofits and community organizations, Sit co-founded the Minnesotans' Military Appreciation Fund (MMAF) in 2005 to give cash grants to all Minnesotans who have served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since September 11, 2001, and to the families of those killed in action.

"In a nonpartisan, nonpolitical way, he wanted to say thanks to the Minnesota military personnel and their families who are making enormous sacrifices in the current wars," said Burt Cohen, founding publisher of MSP Communications and a member of the MMAF board, in April 2008. The fund has made grants to more than 6,000 Minnesotans so far.

Sit is survived by his wife, six children, and 11 grandchildren.

Funeral service is Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 11:00 a.m. at Christ Presbyterian Church in Edina. Visitation is Monday, June 30, 2008, 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Washburn-McReavy Edina Chapel.

The family asks that donations be made to MMAF at thankmntroops.org.