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About William H. Donner
ALTHOUGH it is almost five decades since
the passing of William H. Donner, the breadth of vision and the willingness
to take risks that characterized his business and philanthropic careers are
fittingly memorialized in The William H. Donner Foundation.
Born in Columbus, Indiana,
in 1864, Mr. Donner took over the family-owned grain mill while still in his
twenties. In relatively short order, he restored to profitability what had
previously been a failing enterprise. The acumen and energy he displayed were
harbingers of the success that thereafter attended him in virtually every
undertaking.
Before he was 30, Mr. Donner foresaw that
the then recent discovery of natural gas deposits in Indiana would inevitably attract new
industries to the area. He invested promptly--and with conspicuous
success--in real estate. His foresight was rewarded, and the resulting
profits largely financed his next major venture. Realizing that the demand
for tin plate was increasing rapidly, Mr. Donner became interested in
developing innovative technologies that could effect substantial savings in
the manufacture of tin plate. By the time he was 30, he had launched the
National Tin Plate Company of North Anderson, Indiana; three years later, having patented an
ingenious rolling process for tin plate manufacture, he constructed another
plant in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Eventually, he sold all his
tin plate interest to the American Tin Plate Company.
Mr. Donner's next venture was in steel
products. With the Mellon brothers and Henry Clay Frick, he founded a rod,
wire, and nail enterprise, known as the Union Steel Company, of which he was
President. Union Steel was based in Donora,
Pennsylvania, a town whose name
derives from those of Mr. Donner and Nora Mellon. The company was merged with
the Sharon Steel Company in 1902, and was purchased in 1903 by the United
States Steel Corporation. Mr. Donner later became President of Cambria Steel
Company and then Chairman of the Board of the Pennsylvania Steel Company. His
final business undertaking involved the purchase of assets which formed the
Donner Steel Company of Buffalo,
New York, an enterprise he
operated successfully until selling his interest in 1929. In that year a
merger of Donner Steel, Republic Iron and Steel, and two other independent
steel companies was arranged by Cyrus Eaton.
After losing his son, Joseph, to cancer in
1929, Mr. Donner turned his formidable energies to the then infant field of
cancer research. He established the International Cancer Research Foundation
in 1932 to honor his son's memory. This pioneering Foundation made grants to
a wide range of institutions, including one grant that established the Donner
Radiation Laboratory at the University
of California at Berkeley to support the innovative work of
Dr. John E. Lawrence. The work of this laboratory provided the impetus for
what later became the remarkable new field of nuclear medicine. In 1961, The
William H. Donner Foundation was incorporated with the endowment originally
established by Mr. Donner for the International Cancer Research Foundation.
Following his retirement from business, Mr.
Donner spent much of his time in Montreal,
where he supported the pioneering work of Dr. Wilder Penfield, then Director
of the Montreal Neurological Institute. In 1950, Mr. Donner established the
Donner Canadian Foundation, which today is one of the largest national
foundations in Canada.
William H. Donner died in Montreal
in 1953.
The
Trustees and Officers of The William H. Donner Foundation have held steadfast
to two key philanthropic principles of the founder--acceptance of clearly
defined risks and the judicious use of incentive grants to advance
thoughtful, creative projects.
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