Taunton, Massachusetts-born Benjamin Swig was the son of banker and politician
Simon Swig and the father of
Melvin Swig. After Simon died, Benjamin became treasurer of the Tremont Trust Company in Boston. From 1925 to 1945, Benjamin Swig was a real estate operator. He was a partner of the real estate firm Swig,
Weiler and Arnow that was founded in 1936, which became the Swig company. In the 1940s, he moved to San Francisco, which he loved. He bought the
Fairmont Hotel in 1945, and later the
St. Francis Hotel. In 1956, he purchased the
Mission Inn in
Riverside. He sold 1,000 artworks and artifacts from the hotel to revitalize its finances to no avail. In the early 1970s, the troubled elections at the
Santa Clara University led the students to picket the Fairmont Hotel to protest against Benjamin Swig, who also served as SCU's Chairman of the board of trustees. After Swig repeatedly petitioned in his favor, the City of San Francisco granted the
Key of the City to
Sun Myung Moon in 1973. In 1977, his son Melvin created the Mae and Benjamin Swig Chair in Judaic Studies at the
University of San Francisco, the first ever Jewish Studies chair and program at a Catholic university worldwide. == Other tenures ==