San Diego Children’s Hospital and Health Center has been renamed Rady Children’s after Ernest Rady, La Jolla businessman and long-time supporter of Children’s Hospital, donated gifts of $60 million in support of planned expansions in facilities and programs.
The $60 million gift is the largest donation ever made to the San Diego hospital and the second largest naming gift to any children’s hospital in the United States; David and Lucile Packard donated $70 million to the building of Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford in 1986.
The decision to rename the children’s hospital Rady Children’s was made by the hospital’s board of trustees along with members of its senior staff.
“We were ecstatic,” said David Gillig, senior vice president of the hospital, of receiving this donation. “It’s hard to put into words. I think for some of us who have known and worked with, and felt like a part of the Rady family for such a long time, it was pretty emotional. In a sense, what Ernest and Evelyn were saying is that we trust you and respect you, and want to help you in an incredibly profound way.”
This donation makes an extraordinary start in raising the $350 million needed to complete an expansion of the hospital, approved by the board of trustees in June of 2005. The expansion includes the building of a major acute-care pavilion, which will be the largest building on campus. This building will include 16 surgical suites, a neonatal intensive care center, a cancer care center, a conference center and 84 new medical/surgical beds.
“All of these are desperately needed,” Gillig said. “We do approximately 200 surgeries a day, and we have to be absolutely sure that every child that needs us has a place. We don’t want to turn children away.”
Ernest Rady, 69, has had an incredible relationship with the hospital over the years. He served as chair of the Children’s Hospital and Health Center Board from 1990 to ’93, during which time he oversaw construction of the hospital’s Rose Pavilion. Rady and his wife Evelyn have made several major donations to the hospital; the main entrance lobby and second floor Medical/Surgical Center of the Rose Pavilion are named for his parents, Max and Rose Rady.
Rady was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He moved to San Diego with his family in 1966 and founded American Assets Inc., a privately held conglomerate. Through American Assets, Rady controls and manages a group of companies primarily involved in financial services, investment management and real estate.
Throughout its 38-year history, American Assets has been successful as both a developer and acquirer of commercial real estate assets ” retail, office and industrial ” and for-rent apartment communities. The company has primarily focused its real estate investments in San Diego.
Rady has also donated $30 million to the University of California San Diego; the second largest donation made to the University, to support their School of Management, established in 2004. The school was named the Rady School of Management.
“Business is a passion of his; he’s a brilliant businessman,” Gillig said of Rady. “But he is connected to the mission of the hospital and the work that it does.”For more information, visit www.chsd.org.