William Ruane, noted businessman and philanthropist and recipient of the 2004 TC dodge medal, passed away in early October. Ruane built and chaired a successful investment management firm, Ruane Cunniff & Co., and from that also formed the Sequoia Fund, a highly successful mutual fund.
William Ruane, noted businessman and philanthropist and recipient of the 2004 TC dodge medal, passed away in early October. Ruane built and chaired a successful investment management firm, Ruane Cunniff & Co., and from that also formed the Sequoia Fund, a highly successful mutual fund.
Numerous nonprofit Organizations benefited from Ruane's generosity, including memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the metropolitan museum of Art, the National Alliance for research on Schizophrenia and depression, the New School for Social research, Save the Children and Columbia University. "He was an incredible man with a quick sense of humor, a sharp mind and a heart as big as the world," said vice President for Academic Affairs and dean Darlyne bailey. Ruane served on the boards of many companies and organizations, including the Washington Post Company, GeICo Corporation, New York Theatre Workshop, the YWCA of the City of New York, and The Girls Club of New York. In recent years, Ruane devoted himself full-time to entrepreneurial philanthropic efforts. With the Children's Aid Society, he and his wife, Joy, established the Carmel Hill Fund, a foundation that supports research and initiatives that benefit children.
Through the fund, he adopted the entire block of West 118th Street in Harlem, offering 80 children and their families support to improve their educational opportunities.
The children, who had been attending 26 different schools around the city, were relocated into a nearby Catholic School. The Carmel Hill Fund then provided the school with new computers and training for teachers, a new library and thousands of books to fill it. Ruane also founded TeenScreen, an organization that tests teenagers for symptoms of depression and other suicide risk factors. And at Columbia Presbyterian medical Center, Ruane and his wife established the Ruane Professorship for the Implementation of Science for Child and Adolescent mental Health, as well as the William and Joy Ruane Professorship of Pediatric Psychopharmacology.
Published Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005
