$15 Million Gift to Caltech from James and Anne Rothenberg Funds Graduate Students and Research Innovation
PASADENA, Calif., March 30, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A $15 million pledge to Caltech from trustee James F. Rothenberg and his wife, Anne, will fuel two areas of intrinsic importance to the Institute: graduate student support and research innovation.
James Rothenberg is chairman of the Los Angeles–based Capital Group Companies, Inc., and he and his wife, Anne, serve on the boards of several Southern California organizations.
The Rothenbergs' gift will endow fellowships that are crucial for attracting top graduate students and supporting their research across scientific disciplines.
Another portion of their gift will bolster the Caltech Innovation Initiative (CI2), which funds high-risk, high-reward science. CI2 provides essential seed funding for early-stage research that addresses pressing problems and could lead to marketable technologies.
James Rothenberg sees the couple's gift to Caltech as an investment in the country's future. "I think that over time there are two drivers of the U.S. economy other than natural resources: education—an educated labor force, an educated populace—and innovation," he says. "As a country, we seem to do better at that than most places in the world. From my perspective, anything I can do to help spur that kind of activity at Caltech makes perfect sense." He adds, "The more you learn about Caltech, the more you see how much gets accomplished with a relatively small faculty and budget."
"The Rothenbergs' generosity helps the Institute to both create knowledge for the long term and offer solutions to the problems that confront society now," says President Thomas F. Rosenbaum. "We are enormously grateful for Jim and Anne's choice to give so strategically and enthusiastically."
A chartered financial analyst, James Rothenberg serves on several corporate boards, including those of Capital Research and Management Company and American Funds Distributors, Inc., and is a portfolio counselor and vice chairman for the Growth Fund of America.
In addition to serving on the Caltech Board of Trustees, he sits on the boards of Huntington Memorial Hospital, KCET, and the RAND Corporation. He received a BA and an MBA from Harvard University, where he currently chairs the board for the subsidiary that manages the university's endowment, the Harvard Management Company.
Anne Rothenberg has worked as a reporter/editor for Life, Fortune, and Architectural Digest magazines. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Media contact: Brian Bell, 1-626-395-5832, [email protected]
SOURCE California Institute of Technology
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