A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Northeastern University
Alan McKim gave $25 million to establish eight new endowed chairs across the university, all of which will be named for Joseph Aoun, the university’s current president. McKim is a co-chairman of the university’s current fundraising campaign, and he serves as vice chairman of the Northeastern Board of Trustees.
McKim founded and leads Clean Harbors, a waste-management company in Norwell, Mass. He attended Northeastern in the 1970s but dropped out to start his business. He later wanted to grow his company and take it public but knew he needed more education to reach those goals. Despite his lack of an undergraduate degree, a network of Northeastern business leaders helped McKim enroll in the master’s-level business program, and he earned an MBA there in the 1980s.
University of California at Merced
Fred and Mitzie Ruiz gave $15 million to endow the Fred and Mitzie Ruiz Scholarship, which will provide financial aid to UC Merced undergraduates from the state’s Central Valley and will span the entirety of their time at the university, and to name the Fred and Mitzie Ruiz Administration Center, the university’s main administration building and enrollment center.
Fred Ruiz is chairman emeritus and a retired co-founder of Ruiz Foods, the manufacturer of the El Monterey brand of frozen Mexican food. He and his late father, Louis, started the company in Tulare, Calif., in 1964. Fred Ruiz is a founding member of the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees and served as regent on the University of California’s governing board from 2004 to 2016.
The couple have given extensively to the university over the years endowing professorships, graduate fellowships, and scholarships for undocumented and first-generation college students. Mitzie Ruiz said in a news release that she hopes the couple’s latest gift helps “students from the Valley to receive their education and stay here to add their knowledge to our community. If we can get more kids in college and help them succeed, we have a better chance of them staying here and doing great things.”
News Literacy Project
Melanie and Richard Lundquist pledged $10 million to support the nonprofit’s work helping educators, students, and the public better navigate today’s fraught information landscape and push back against misinformation and disinformation.
The money will be used to expand a program that seeks to educate students on how to check and verify the information they encounter daily online and in the media. Some of the money will also be used to match donations from other donors.
Melanie Lundquist, a former speech pathologist, is vice chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, an organization she and her husband established in 2007 and to which the couple have given at least $85 million. A critic of donors who park money in foundations and other giving vehicles, she has pushed for changes to federal tax policies as a way to encourage donors to give out more of the money sitting in their foundations and donor-advised funds to working charities.
Richard Lundquist leads Continental Development Corporation, a commercial real-estate and management company in El Segundo, Calif. The couple have given significant sums to public-school efforts in Los Angeles, as well as to health care organizations and other nonprofits. They have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors four times. Melanie Lundquist recently joined News Literacy Project’s Board of Directors.
Iona University
Alfred and Peggy Kelly gave $5 million to support the renovations of the newly named NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, the main building on the university’s new campus in Bronxville, N.Y. The building is scheduled to open in January.
Alfred Kelly is CEO and chairman of Visa, the credit-card company. He previously led Intersection, a technology and digital-media company in New York, and spent more than two decades in various senior roles at American Express, serving as president from 2007 to 2010.
The couple have deep ties to both Iona University and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The Kellys met at Iona in December 1977 at an Iona basketball game. Both were commuting to Iona and worked part-time to help pay for expenses. Peggy Kelly earned an accounting degree and an MBA there in 1981 and 1984, respectively, and Alfred Kelly earned a computer and information sciences degree and an MBA there in 1980 and 1981, respectively. One of their five children battled two bouts of cancer at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and Alfred Kelly has served on the hospital’s Board of Trustees since 2005.
James Madison University
Paul Holland and Linda Yates gave $5 million to support scholarships and entrepreneurship and study abroad programs. University officials have renamed the university’s admissions-center building for the couple.
Holland earned a bachelor’s degree from the university in 1982 and went on to a career in Silicon Valley companies. Today he is managing director of corporate venture practice and VC in residence at Mach49, a venture-capital firm in Redwood City, Calif., that Yates founded and lead. Holland served as general partner of Foundation Capital, a Palo Alto venture-capital firm, from 2001 to 2020. In 2011, he produced Something Ventured, a documentary about the early days of Silicon Valley.
Before founding Mach49, Yates was CEO of Strategos, a San Francisco consulting firm, and led the San Francisco office of another consultancy, Mac Group/Gemini; she also was a leader of the firm’s high-technology practice on the West Coast and in Europe. She worked in finance earlier in her career.
University of Notre Dame
Pat and Jana Eilers gave $5 million to endow the associate athletics director for sports performance position. The associate director will help to further the athletics department’s strength and conditioning, nutrition, athletic training, and sports-psychology programs.
Pat Eilers founded and leads Transition Equity Partners, a private-equity firm in Chicago. He is also CEO of Power & Digital Infrastructure Acquisition Corporation, a special-purpose acquisition company in Chicago. He has held executive-level positions at BlackRock Infrastructure Platform and at Madison Dearborn Partners.
Eilers played six years in the National Football League. He played on Notre Dame’s football team while a student there and earned a bachelor’s degrees in biology and mechanical engineering from the university in 1989 and 1990, respectively. All four of the Eilerses’ children attended Notre Dame.
New Jersey Institute of Technology
John Martinson gave $3 million to support academic and other programs at the institute’s Albert Dorman Honors College and elsewhere throughout the university. The money will be used to add two new educational tracks, triple the number of students enrolled in the Honors Summer Research Institute, and more than double the number of students who study abroad. It will also back internships, course offerings, and other programs.
Martinson is chairman of Martinson Ventures, a venture-capital firm in Newtown, Pa., that invests primarily in software and other technology companies. Earlier in his career, he founded Edison Partners, another venture firm, and he is a co-founder of both the New Jersey Technology Council and New Jersey Venture Fair.
Martinson is not an NJIT alumnus. He got involved with the institute and became a donor after the university recognized him for his business accomplishments with an Entrepreneurial Leadership Award in 2000.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
