Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Land $100 Million for New Pediatric Medical Center

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Children’s Health and University of Texas at Southwestern Medical Center

Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones gave $100 million through their Rees-Jones Foundation to help pay for the construction on a new pediatric healthcare campus that will replace the existing Children’s Medical Center Dallas. The campus’s central hospital tower will be named for the donors.

Along with the new hospital, the campus will be home to a center for complex maternal and fetal healthcare. The campus will also include: more than 20 acres of green space with a park, walking trails, and a central courtyard; rehabilitation and therapy gyms for patients and their families; playrooms; and two retail pharmacies, a food hall, and other amenities.

Trevor Rees-Jones founded Chief Oil & Gas, a natural gas producer in Dallas, in 1994. He sold the company in 2022 to Chesapeake Energy Corporation, an oil exploration company in Oklahoma City, for roughly $2.6 billion.

Rees-Jones, whose net worth is estimated at $4.5 billion by Forbes, and his wife have given previous donations, although much smaller ones, to both nonprofits over the years. They gave gifts totaling $35 million to Children’s Health, and more than $10 million to University of Texas at Southwestern.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Hedge fund co-founders and college buddies Clifford Asness and John Liew gave a combined $60 million to support the business school’s Master in Finance program, which will be renamed for them. The 15-month program is intended for recent college graduates who want to build up their analytical skills and give them a competitive advantage over other recent undergraduates seeking jobs in finance.

Asness and Liew are among the four founders of AQR Capital Management, a Greenwich, Conn., investment firm launched in 1998. Asness earned an MBA and PhD from the university in 1991 and 1994, respectively. He started his career at the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, where he led Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s then new quantitative research desk. While there, he helped develop computerized trading models to invest in the stock market and established a hedge fund.

Liew earned a Bachelor’s degree, MBA, and Ph.D. from the university in 1989, 1994, and 1995, respectively, and started his career at an investment firm called Trout Trading, where he worked on developing quantitative market-neutral stock-selection strategies. He later joined Asness at Goldman Sachs, where he served as a portfolio manager and developed and managed quantitative trading strategies.

Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital—Needham

Valerie Trotman gave $20 million to establish the Trotman Family Campus Transformation Fund, which will help the hospital kick off a $40 million fundraising campaign. Trotman is the widow of Alex Trotman, who served as chairman, president, and CEO of the Ford Motor Company from 1993 to 1998. He died in 2005 at 71.

She and her family have given the hospital several gifts over the years, mostly to support the expansion of the Intensive Care Unit, behavioral health services, and the construction of the Lank Cancer Center and a surgery center.

Houston Christian University

Jim and Sherry Smith gave $20 million to construct what will be called the Smith Engineering, Science and Nursing Building. Jim Smith has close family ties to the university: His late father, Orrien Smith, was among the 25 founders of the university, all of whom made a personal donation to buy the land for what was then called Houston Baptist College in 1958.

Jim Smith founded Jim R. Smith & Company, a commercial real estate development business, in 1964. It later became Smithco Development when it expanded in 2007. He served as a member of the university’s Board of Trustees from 1990 to 1999 and has served since then in a board advisory role helping to develop university projects.

University of California at Irvine

Adeline Yen Mah and Robert Mah gave $20 million through their Falling Leaves Foundation to support the construction of the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building, a medical research and education building that was named for the couple’s foundation in 2021 when they donated $30 million to the construction of the building.

Robert Mah is a professor emeritus at UCLA, where he taught environmental microbiology. Adeline Yen Mah is a retired physician who practiced internal medicine and anesthesiology. During their careers, they had hoped to one day conduct medical research together. Instead, they started their foundation in 2007 to promote research and understanding of recent advances in medical science.

Kansas State University Foundation

Donald and Susie Wilson left approximately $13 million to what has been renamed the Wilson College of Architecture, Planning and Design. The bequest will support tuition, fees, book, and a housing stipend for students enrolled in the architecture program.

Donald Wilson was a widely respected and influential Kansas City architect who founded the architecture firm Wilson Johnson Associates, which is now Pulse Design Group. He grew up on a farm raising sheep and participating in the Future Farmers of America program as a teen, and later earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the university in 1959. He died in 2016.

Susie Wilson worked for Trans World Airlines and later, after earning a master’s degree in communications, took over the business management of her husband’s firm. She died last year.

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