UTMB Public Affairs

Kempner Fund makes $1 million commitment to UTMB campaign

This is the largest single commitment to the university in the foundation’s 58-year history

GALVESTON, Texas—The Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, a Galveston-based family foundation, has pledged $1 million to help kick off the University of Texas Medical Branch’s $250 million comprehensive campaign. This is the largest single commitment to UTMB in the foundation’s 58-year history.

“We’ve made this commitment because we value UTMB’s research and its place in our community,” said Kempner Fund President Barbara Sasser, who received her doctorate in biochemistry from UTMB’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1983. “We hope that this leadership gift will also encourage others who care about Galveston to become involved.”

“UTMB is a better institution thanks to the vision and enduring support of the Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund,” said UTMB President John D. Stobo. “For more than five decades, the board has contributed to a wide range of academic, research and clinical programs, thereby enriching the lives of Galveston residents and advancing health care throughout the state and the nation.

“We’re at the beginning of the campaign,” Stobo said, “and it’s important for those closest to the institution to make pace-setting gifts and set an example for others in the communities we serve. I’m deeply gratified that the board responded to our request for support with the largest gift in the Kempner Fund’s history.”

Founded in 1946 by descendants of Harris and Eliza Kempner, the Kempner Fund focuses its giving on health and human services, community development, education, and arts and historic preservation. More than 80 percent of its grants go to Galveston nonprofit organizations.

“Historically, the fund has always been focused on Galveston, and the connection of UTMB to Galveston is always there,” said Houston obstetrician/gynecologist Peter Kempner Thompson, M.D. A graduate of UTMB’s School of Medicine, Thompson is also the grandson of its first chairman of surgery, J.E. Thompson, and was a member of the Kempner Fund board at the time the record-setting commitment was made. “There are people in the community who need help, and one way to give them help is through better health care. UTMB is the perfect vehicle for that.”

Not counting this most recent gift, the Kempner Fund has contributed more than $5 million to UTMB, including endowments for scholarships and five named professorships and distinguished professorships in genetics, medical humanities, child psychiatry, cognitive rehabilitation and radiation oncology.

The fund has enriched educational programs both for UTMB students and for secondary school students and undergraduates considering careers in the health sciences. Among other educational programs, the fund’s commitment has been demonstrated time and again through grants to UTMB’s schools of medicine, nursing, allied health sciences and graduate biomedical sciences; the establishment of numerous lectureships; significant support for a summer undergraduate research program and summer science camps geared for Galveston-area students and teachers; and much more. The fund has also contributed to clinical programs that range from fighting breast cancer to making hospitalization less stressful for UTMB’s youngest patients.

“Theirs is a rich legacy,” said Stobo, who noted that members of the board are remarkable for the amount of time, energy and talent they personally contribute to the local community.

Of the nine voting board members, seven are Kempner family members. When the commitment to UTMB was made in December 2003, the board consisted of Sasser, Jack Currie, Peaches Kempner, I.H. “Denny” Kempner III, Rabbi Jimmy Kessler, Robert Lynch, Lyda Ann Thomas, Peter Thompson, M.D., and Daniel Thorne. Three emeritus members, including community leader and former fund chair Leonora “Nonie” Thompson, are also active. Elaine Perachio has been the fund’s executive director for the past 15 years.

“It’s hard to imagine what Galveston would be like without the Kempner Fund,” said Currie, a retired investment securities executive. “They’re in every walk of life here.” In addition to UTMB, the fund has provided leadership support to the Galveston Historical Foundation, the Grand 1894 Opera House, the Texas Seaport Museum and numerous social service charities.

But the relationship to the university has been especially close. Nonie Thompson is the daughter-in-law of UTMB’s first chair of surgery. Harris L. “Shrub” Kempner, Jr., contributed his time and effort as chair of the university’s capital campaign during the 1990s and is co-chair of the present campaign. He and his mother, Ruth Kempner, both serve on UTMB’s Development Board, which he has chaired twice.

In fact, Kempner family members have personally contributed more than $2 million to the university. Most recently, Randall T. Kempner and Harris L. “Branch” Kempner III, grandsons of Ruth Kempner, established a professorship in her honor in UTMB’s Department of Radiation Oncology.

“I’m proud to be part of a family that’s supporting UTMB,” said Kempner Fund board member Lyda Ann Thomas, a Galveston civic leader now serving her sixth year on the city council. She explained that she has been aware of the Kempner connection with the university since her childhood, when her grandparents, I.H. and Eliza Kempner, invited everyone from the university’s president to medical and nursing students to the family’s traditional Christmas party. She added: “The Sealy family and the Moody family have also given the university terrific support. We hope that other people in Galveston will step up and support UTMB as well.”

The five-year comprehensive campaign, which officially began September 1, 2003, focuses on four broad-based areas that are critical to public health: improving access to care; teaching the art and science of health care; infectious diseases, biodefense and vaccine development; and longevity, chronic conditions and neurological recovery. Campaign initiatives will benefit programs of excellence in all four UTMB schools; scholarships to support promising students; endowments to help attract and retain the best faculty; university-wide research; clinical care programs; and capital improvements to further the university’s mission.

—UTMB—