February 21, 2008 | Read Time: 3 minutes
James LeVoy Sorenson, an inventor and investor who died last month, has bequeathed most of his fortune — about $4.5-billion, according to Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the wealthiest Americans — to his family foundation. That means the foundation, whose largest grants have gone primarily to medical causes, is likely to become one of the 20 wealthiest grant makers in the United States.
Mr. Sorenson, who was 86 when he died of cancer, was chairman of Sorenson Development, a holding company and the investment arm of Sorenson Companies, in Salt Lake City. He said in his will that he intended to give the majority of his estate to the Sorenson Legacy Foundation, also in Salt Lake City.
Mr. Sorenson is best known in medical circles for helping to develop the first real-time computerized heart-monitoring system. He also invented blood-recycling and infusion systems, disposable surgical masks, noninvasive intravenous catheters, and many other medical devices, work that grew out of his early career in the pharmaceutical industry.
Gift Size Unknown
His family announced the bequest this month, but family members declined to say exactly how much money the foundation has received, or which organizations might benefit from the money.
Mr. Sorenson established the foundation in 2001 to manage his family’s charitable giving. The fund supports arts groups, colleges and universities, charities that help abused children, medical-research programs, religious organizations (especially those with a Mormon emphasis), and youth organizations, according to its Web site.
The foundation held $10-million in assets in 2006, according to the organization’s most recent informational tax filing with the Internal Revenue Service.
In 2006, the foundation awarded $15.3-million in grants to 43 nonprofit groups, primarily in Utah, tax records show.
Among the largest was a $6-million grant to the Deseret Foundation, the Salt Lake City fund-raising arm of Intermountain Healthcare, a nonprofit system that operates hospitals and medical clinics throughout Utah and Idaho. The money helped build an additional patient facility at the Intermountain Medical Center, in Murray, Utah.
In addition, the Sorenson Legacy Foundation that year gave slightly more than $2-million to Southern Utah University, in Cedar City, for general support; $2-million to Gallaudet University, in Washington, also for general support; and $1.5-million to the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, for the Utah Museum of Natural History.
Through his foundation, Mr. Sorenson also gave the Deseret Foundation $14-million in 2003 to help build the J.L. Sorenson Heart & Lung Center, a hospital at the Intermountain Medical Center that focuses on treatment for cardiac and respiratory patients.
Medical Inventor
As a young man, Mr. Sorenson wanted to be a physician, but World War II intervened and he ended up becoming a pharmaceuticals salesman for the Upjohn Company; he also became a real-estate investor. The sales work exposed him to medical doctors and researchers who inspired many of Mr. Sorenson’s early inventions. In 1957, he co-founded Deseret Pharmaceuticals, which he sold to Abbott Laboratories in 1980.
By the time he died, Mr. Sorenson had accumulated at least 40 patents on his inventions.
“Jim was a very dynamic person. He had an idea a minute, and I think it surprised him that he developed these things and made as much money as he did,” said H. Gary Pehrson, retired regional vice president of Intermountain Healthcare, and retired chief executive of Salt Lake Valley Hospitals.
Mr. Pehrson, who worked closely with Mr. Sorenson over the years, described him as a “hands off,” generous philanthropist who did not attach strings to his donations: “He really did what he did because he thought he was helping people.”
