Stanford's biggest gift to date.

I do like the way this guy thinks, when we are given much, we have responsibilities that extend beyond our comfort.

Business Wire founder seeds Stanford stem cell lab: "I don't want airplanes and boats and country club memberships. I believe that if you fall into a lot of money like I did, you put it into the soil -- you replenish the soil for next year's crop." That's the philosophy of Lorry I. Lokey, who started the Business Wire news release service in 1961 with $2,000 and sold it to Berkshire Hathaway in 2006, when it was valued at $500 million. And his mouth and money are in perfect sync. Stanford University announced today that Lokey, class of '49, would contribute $75 million to the medical school to help build the nation's largest center for stem cell research. Groundbreaking is scheduled for Oct. 27, and when it is complete in 2010, the 200,000-square-foot building will house 350 scientists working on research that could bring breakthroughs in the treatment of a whole range of devastating ailments.

"Stem cells are going to be as significant as the silicon chip that created Silicon Valley," said Lokey. "Stem cells are going to introduce an entirely new field of medicine for extending lives and improving the quality of life. ... At 81 -- I expect to go well past 90 -- I might see the benefits. There's a chance. But the real application will be for the 38-year-old person who survives a heart attack and has heart damage. Stem cells may be able to repair the damage. To me, that's worth the money I put in." Lokey has committed about half a billion dollars of his fortune to philanthropic efforts, mostly in education and science, including $20 million for the Stanford building that houses research labs for the departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences. But he targeted stem cell research in particular after the Bush administration set severe restrictions on federal funding in the field in 2001. "I'm terribly disappointed in the current administration's outlook. It's very narrow-minded," he said. "This is about lives being saved." Lokey's gift is the largest to the medical school from a private individual and one of the largest capital gifts to Stanford.
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From an article appearing in the Silicon Valley News.