Stanford Lands $25 Million for Library and Silicon Valley Archive: Gifts Roundup

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Stanford Libraries

Marilyn Hohbach gave $25 million through her Harold C. and Marilyn A. Hohbach Foundation to establish a research center focused on the university’s archive of more than 300 collections related to the history and development of Silicon Valley.

The money will also be used to endow the Silicon Valley Archive program and create new classrooms and spaces for group study, seminars, events, and exhibitions.

Hohbach is the widow of Harold Hohbach, a patent attorney and prominent real-estate developer in Palo Alto, who died in 2017.

Piedmont Healthcare

Brett and Louise Samsky donated $11 million to create the Samsky Invasive Cardiovascular Services Center.

Brett Samsky is chief executive of Credigy, a financial firm in Atlanta. He has been a Piedmont Atlanta Hospital patient over the years and underwent heart surgery there several years ago.

The couple gave the organization $6 million in 2015 to establish the Samsky Advanced Heart Failure Center at Piedmont Heart Institute.

University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Phillip and Patricia Frost pledged $10 million to endow the dermatology department that will be named the Dr. Phillip Frost Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery.

Phillip Frost leads OPKO Health, a biopharmaceutical and diagnostics company. He previously founded IVAX Pharmaceuticals, a generic-drug manufacturer that he sold to TEVA Pharmaceuticals in 2006 for $7.4 billion. A physician by training, he completed his residency at the university’s Jackson Memorial Hospital and later served as a professor of dermatology at the Miller School from 1966 to 1972.

The Frosts have been giving to the university since 1989. In 2016 they gave $100 million for applied sciences and engineering, and they have appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of big donors several times since 2003.

Case Western Reserve University

Charles Phipps committed $5 million to endow the Charles H. Phipps Dean at the Case School of Engineering.

Phipps is partner emeritus at Sevin Rosen Funds, a venture-capital firm in Dallas. He earned a degree in electrical engineering from the Case Institute of Technology in 1949 and worked at Texas Instruments for 30 years, eventually becoming the director of strategy.

He has been a longtime donor to the university and in 2011 gave $2 million to establish the Phipps Endowment Fund, which supports the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

El Camino Hospital Foundation

John and Susan Sobrato donated $5 million to help pay for the construction of a new medical office building, to be called the Sobrato Pavilion, which is expected to open in the fall.

The Sobratos founded Sobrato Development Company, a commercial real estate and development firm in Palo Alto, Calif. They have given extensively to nonprofits in the Silicon Valley region with a focus on helping low-income families and providing rent-free office space to local charities. They appeared on the Philanthropy 50 in 2106.

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Joel and Gail Morrison Morganroth gave $5 million for the Sky Garden, a vertical garden and visitor-services building that will house a stormwater-management system and generate energy to power the organization’s renovation efforts.

Joel Morganroth is a cardiologist who founded the company that became eResearchTechnology, or ERT, a medical data and technology corporation. Gail Morganroth is a nephrologist who serves as vice dean for education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.