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CREATED WITH LARGEST GIFT FOR AN ENDOWED CHAIR IN RAND'S HISTORY
Santa Monica, Calif., December 5 - RAND announced today that it has received two gifts totaling $2.5 million from the Alcoa Foundation and Alcoa's retiring Chairman Paul O'Neill to establish the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professorship in Policy Analysis. This professorship is a rotating five-year appointment to analyze such major public policy issues as education, health, and economics. The $2.5 million gift is the largest endowed chair that RAND has received in its 52-year history.
"The creation of the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professorship in Policy Analysis is a lasting tribute to a man whose service on the RAND Board of Trustees since 1988, and as the Board's chairman since 1997, has deepened our understanding of policy analysis immeasurably," said RAND President Jim Thomson. "These generous pledges from Alcoa Foundation and from Paul O'Neill will help RAND to attract and retain top-notch research talent and to continue to work on the cutting-edge of policy challenges. We are very grateful to Alcoa Foundation and to Paul for their foresight and generosity."
"We are very pleased to join in establishing the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professorship in Policy Analysis," said Kathleen W. Buechel, president and treasurer of the Alcoa Foundation. "RAND has an exceptional reputation in the field of nonpartisan public policy analysis and we know that those who hold this chair will extend Paul O'Neill's exemplary legacy of public service and analytical insight."
The five-year term of the chair was chosen to distinguish it from the university chair, which is usually a lifetime appointment. The five-year appointment allows RAND the flexibility to use the chair where and when it can be most effective. The revolving nature of the chair also reflects the breadth of Paul O' Neill's public policy interests.
About Alcoa
Alcoa is the world's leading producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina. The company has 140,000 employees in more than 300 operating locations in 36 countries. Alcoa is active in all major segments of the industry: mining, refining, smelting, fabricating and recycling. Related businesses include consumer products, packaging machinery, vinyl siding, plastic bottles and closures, and electrical distribution systems for cars and trucks.
About the Alcoa Foundation
Established in 1952, the Foundation is a non-profit corporation that issues grants from earnings on its assets. In 48 years, these grants have totaled over $300 million. Working in over 25 countries, Alcoa Foundation devotes its resources to improving educational opportunities, health and human services, cultural endeavors and the quality of life, primarily for people in the hundreds of communities which host Alcoa facilities.
During 1999, worldwide Foundation efforts involved 2,267 grants totaling over $17.9 million. Of this total, 42% or $7.5 million supported educational initiatives. Grants to support health and human service initiatives totaled 21% or $3.8 million. 18% of 1999 grants or $3.1 million supported organizations outside the United States, again with a concentration on education and health and human services. At the close of 1999, the Foundation held assets of over $495 million.
About Paul O'Neill
Paul O'Neill served as Alcoa's chairman and chief executive officer for 12 years, from June 1987 until May 1999, and continues as chairman of the board of Alcoa until he retires at the end of December 2000. Mr. O'Neill has been an Alcoa director since January 1986. Prior to joining Alcoa, Mr. O'Neill was president of International Paper Company. He joined IP in 1977 as vice president, planning, subsequently was named senior vice president, planning and finance, then senior vice president of IP's paperboard and packaging segment. In 1985 he was named president.
Mr. O'Neill began his career as an engineer for Morrison-Knudsen, Inc., in Anchorage, Alaska. He worked as a computer systems analyst with the U.S. Veterans Administration from 1961 to 1966 and served on the staff of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget from 1967 to 1977. He was deputy director of OMB from 1974 to 1977.
About RAND
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis. Since its founding in 1948, RAND has served the public interest by applying its collective expertise to illuminate the most challenging societal problems, identify effective courses of action, and devise innovative solutions.
No other organization has been so uniquely influential across such a wide swatch of the public policy terrain. Government leaders in the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East rely on RAND's advice. So do defense officials, business executives, academicians and policymakers in both the public and private sectors. They turn to RAND for objective, informed insight into issues ranging from health care to international security and from the inner city to outer space. They also look to RAND for the know-how needed to analyze a problem, place it in appropriate context and identify the options that make for better-informed decisions.
Increasingly, philanthropic support is instrumental to RAND's ability to recruit the very best staff; to train future generations of policy analysts; to address the most pressing research questions; and to do so with its trademark creativity, independence, and rigor. RAND is currently embarked on the most ambitious fund-raising drive in its history, with a goal of raising $100 million in private support.
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