Moving Metal

A LASTING IMPACT ON SCIENCE

B ill Gimbel had long been a champion of scientific research at Caltech. Mel Simon, former Chair of Caltech’s Division of Biology, called him “a great friend of the Institute for many years.” By 1997 those years were drawing to a close; Gimbel had just retired as Chairman of Reliance and was struggling with the last stages of Parkinson’s disease. Bob Henigson made a proposal to the Reliance Board. “You know,” he suggested, “we really ought to put a little gift together, a research fund that could maybe investigate what was wrong with Bill.” The Board liked the idea and so Henigson con- tacted Caltech’s provost to find out how to make it happen. The Provost informed Henigson that the $6 or $7 hundred thousand that Reliance was ready to contribute was not enough money to start up a new fund. Henigson was undeterred. “Well listen,” he said, “you put it together and I can almost guarantee you that

you’re going to get a lot of other gifts.” The Provost relented and in late 1997 Caltech established the William T. Gimbel Dis- covery Fund in the Biological Sciences. As Henigson promised, Gimbel’s friends and family members and Reliance Board members all donated to the new fund and the company made its own contribution. In a very short time, the fund grew to $4 or $5 million. Gimbel eventually got word of the effort and donated an additional $5 million, making it the largest discovery fund ever established at Caltech. Shortly after her husband’s death in late 1998, Georgina Gimbel remarked, “It seems as if Caltech has the best chance to make real breakthroughs in the study of neurological diseases.” Professor Simon was emphatic that Gimbel’s “gift to the Gimbel Discovery Fund, as well as the contributions of his many friends, will make an important and a lasting impact on science for years to come.”

The Caltech campus in Pasadena, California.

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