Bernard Osher

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Bernard Osher
Born1927 (age 9596)
NationalityAmerican
EducationB.A. Bowdoin College
Occupation(s)Businessman
philanthropist
Spouse Barbro Sachs-Osher
Parent(s)Samuel and Leah Osher
Family Marion Sandler (sister)

Bernard Osher (born 1927) is an American businessman, best known for his work as a philanthropist.

Contents

Life and career

Osher was born to a Jewish family [1] and raised in Biddeford, Maine. [2] In 1948, he graduated with a B.A. from Bowdoin College. [3] He spent his early years in southern Maine, owning and running a large hardware store on Main Street in Biddeford as well as a big summer amusement park called Palace Playland in nearby Old Orchard Beach. After having worked at Oppenheimer & Company in New York, he moved to California, where he became a founding director of World Savings, which became the second largest savings institution in the United States. [2] World Savings ultimately merged with the Wachovia Corporation. An avid art collector, Osher also purchased the auction house, Butterfield & Butterfield, which became the fourth-largest auction house in the world. In 1999, he sold that company to eBay. [4]

In 2005, Forbes listed him as the 584th richest man in the world, [5] and in 2006, 746th. [6] Also, in the November 26, 2007 issue of Businessweek , he was listed as the 11th most generous philanthropist. The article cited the $805 million that he has given to arts, educational, and social services in his life.

Philanthropy

Osher has been a notable philanthropist since 1977 when he founded the Bernard Osher Foundation. The foundation is a major supporter of higher education and the arts, and Osher has consequently become known as "the quiet philanthropist." An initiative of the Foundation has funded over 120 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at universities and colleges in the United States since 2001.

His focus has been to advocate for good education, and he has funded projects in the state of Maine and his foster city, San Francisco, which involve education and the arts. [7]

Since founding the Bernard Osher Foundation, nearly 80 percent of its grants have gone to support educational programs, and seventeen percent support arts organizations. His donations have gone towards causes such as scholarships for higher education through the Osher Fellows Program, and Scholarships for University Reentry Students aged 25 to 50 under his Osher Reentry Scholarship Program. Other causes include supporting programs addressing the educational needs of seasoned adults at institutions of higher education under the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes, Selected integrative medicine programs, and Arts and educational programs in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and the State of Maine. $70 million in scholarships are given to California community college students, and $16 million worth of scholarships to the University of California at Berkeley's Incentive Awards Program, which helps poor students attend the university. [7] [8]

In 2006, the Bernard Osher Foundation donated $723.2 million in support of these and other programs, resulting in the creation of new programs at several institutions in the United States that promote lifelong learning. [7] This donation earned him the designation as The Chronicle of Philanthropy's third most generous donor in their annual survey of the largest donors in America. [8]

Osher plans to give away his entire fortune, as he has no heirs, but he enjoys the opportunity of helping members of several generations lead more fulfilling lives by his contributions. [8]

Personal life

He is married to Barbro Sachs-Osher. His sister was the late Marion Sandler. [9]

Awards

Osher was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Carnegie Mellon University in 2017. [10]

Osher was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2015. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie Mellon University</span> Private research university

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The institution was originally established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical School. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, it became the current-day Carnegie Mellon University through its merger with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, founded in 1913 by Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon and formerly a part of the University of Pittsburgh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bowdoin College</span> Private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine

Bowdoin College is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 35 majors and 40 minors, as well as several joint engineering programs with Columbia, Caltech, Dartmouth College, and the University of Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of New England (United States)</span> Private, coeducational university in Maine, USA

The University of New England (UNE) is a private research university in Maine with campuses in Portland and Biddeford, as well as a study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco. During the 2020 academic year, 7,208 students were enrolled in UNE's campus-based and online programs. It traces it historical origins to 1831 when Westbrook Seminary opened on what is now the UNE Portland Campus.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger of the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation. These foundations had been set up separately by Ailsa Mellon Bruce and Paul Mellon, the children of Andrew Mellon.

The Marianna Brown Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences is the liberal and professional studies college and the second-largest academic unit by enrollment at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The college emphasizes study through rigorous analysis and technology of the behaviors, institutions, and beliefs that constitute the human experience, describing itself as “not an ordinary liberal arts school.” The college was named for Marianna Brown Dietrich, the mother of philanthropist William S. Dietrich II, after his donation of $265 million to the university in 2011 – the largest single donation in Carnegie Mellon history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Mellon</span> American philanthropist and horse breeder

Paul Mellon was an American philanthropist and an owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. He is one of only five people ever designated an "Exemplar of Racing" by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He was co-heir to one of America's greatest business fortunes, derived from the Mellon Bank created by his grandfather Thomas Mellon, his father Andrew W. Mellon, and his father's brother Richard B. Mellon. In 1957, when Fortune prepared its first list of the wealthiest Americans, it estimated that Paul Mellon, his sister Ailsa Mellon-Bruce, and his cousins Sarah Mellon and Richard King Mellon, were all among the richest eight people in the United States, with fortunes of between 400 and 700 million dollars each.

Peter Buck was an American physicist, restaurateur, and philanthropist. He co-founded the Subway fast-food restaurant chain.

Barbro Sachs-Osher is the Swedish Consul General in San Francisco and a well-known philanthropist, chair of the Bernard Osher Foundation and of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Anne Cargill</span> American philanthropist

Margaret Anne Cargill was an American philanthropist and heiress to part of the Cargill fortune.

Marion Osher Sandler was the co-CEO of Golden West Financial Corporation and World Savings Bank. In 2004, after 43 years running Golden West Financial Corporation, she was described by the Columbia School of Journalism as "the first and longest-serving woman chief executive officer in the United States."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning</span>

The Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco (USF) offers noncredit courses with no assignments or grades for adults age 50 and over with no other objective than the love of learning. Organized in 1976 with support from Hanna and Alfred Fromm, the Institute’s program served as a model for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes that have been established at over 120 universities and colleges in the United States.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) offer noncredit courses with no assignments or grades to adults over age 50. Since 2001, philanthropist Bernard Osher has made grants from the Bernard Osher Foundation to launch OLLI programs at 120 universities and colleges throughout the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philanthropy in the United States</span> Overview article

Philanthropy in the United States is the practice of voluntary, charitable giving by individuals, corporations and foundations to benefit important social needs. Its long history dates back to the early colonial period, when Puritans founded Harvard College and other institutions. Philanthropy has been a major source of funding for various sectors, such as religion, higher education, health care, and the arts. Philanthropy has also been influenced by different social movements, such as abolitionism, women’s rights, civil rights, and environmentalism. Some of the most prominent philanthropists in American history include George Peabody, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover, and Bill Gates.

William Pannapacker is a professor emeritus of English and a higher education journalist, consultant, administrator, and fundraiser. He is the author of Revised Lives: Walt Whitman and Nineteenth-Century Authorship, and numerous articles on literature, higher education, and the Digital Humanities published by Cambridge University Press, Duke, Harvard, Princeton, and Routledge. He was a regular columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education from 1998 to 2014, and he has been a contributor to The New York Times, The North American Review and Slate Magazine. Pannapacker has received $2.3 million in grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He was the founding director of the Mellon Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, from 2009 to 2016; the director of the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative of the Great Lakes Colleges Association, from 2013 to 2015; the DuMez Professor of English, from 2015 to 2019; senior director of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grand Challenges Presidential Initiative, from 2016 to 2019, and Professor and Senior Director of Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Programs and Initiatives at Hope College, from 2019-2022.

Alexander Knaster is a British businessman. A billionaire, he is founder of Pamplona Capital Management. He is documented to giving large donations to the Conservative Party in The United Kingdom.

A lifelong learning institute is an organized group of people over 50 years of age who meet frequently for college-level study just for its intellectual challenge and social enjoyment.. Unlike continuing education, career development is not an objective of a lifelong learning institute; no credit is earned from any sponsoring college or university. Hundreds of thousands of people over 50 now participate in this intellectual endeavor which did not exist before 1962.

Mary G. F. Bitterman is an American historian and former media executive. She currently serves as president of The Bernard Osher Foundation, a philanthropic organization headquartered in San Francisco that supports higher education and arts. She is a former director of the Voice of America and was the youngest person and the first female to hold that position.

Leonard Tow is an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the chairman and CEO of Citizens Communications and chairman of Electric Lightwave. He also co-founded Century Communications, which was sold to Adelphia Communications Corporation for $5.2 billion in 1999 and became part of Cablevision.

References

  1. "Local wealthy Jews pledge to give away half their fortunes". J. The Jewish News of Northern California . August 13, 2010.
  2. 1 2 MacKay, Kathleen (October 2011). "The Osher Family". Maine. The Magazine. Maine. The Magazine. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  3. "Osher Hall: Construction of Osher Hall was complete in 2005 and it was dedicated in May 2007. Osher Hall was made possible by the generosity of Bernard Osher, Class of 1948". Bowdoin College . Bowdoin College. 2019. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  4. "Butterfield reborn with buy by eBay". SFGate. USA. April 27, 1999. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  5. "World's Richest People". Forbes . 2005. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  6. "Forbes Lists: Billionaires". Forbes . 2006. Archived from the original on May 19, 2006. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 Bernard Osher's Philanthropy Page. Faces of Philanthropy, accessed December 23, 2010.
  8. 1 2 3 Profile of a ‘Quiet Philanthropist’: Bernard Osher. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, accessed December 23, 2010.
  9. Seth Lubove (March 1, 2004). "Stick to Your Knitting". Forbes.com. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  10. University, Carnegie Mellon (April 13, 2017). "Meg Whitman Named Commencement Speaker - News - Carnegie Mellon University" . Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  11. University, Massachusetts Boston (April 8, 2015). "EPA Chief Gina McCarthy to Speak at 2015 UMass Boston Commencement" . Retrieved February 7, 2022.