University of Iowa Children’s Hospital namesake: Help ‘great people do great things’

IOWA CITY — About 60 years ago, living in a 10-by-40-foot trailer in Iowa City, the recently wed Jerre and Mary Joy Stead “didn’t know what we couldn’t do.”

They kept one eye on the present, maintaining a $2,900-a-year budget, and another eye on the big picture — sharing a Methodist-motivated dream to help others and give back.

“I can still remember we talked about it a lot,” Jerre Stead, 80, told a crowd of hundreds Thursday on the University of Iowa campus, where in earned his bachelor’s degree in 1965.

“Mary Joy said, ‘Someday, if we ever are fortunate enough, having had multiple children born here, we want to give something back for that. We want to make a difference at the university.’ ”

Nearly six decades later, they have and are — in the form of nearly $100 million to Stead’s alma mater, including a $25 million “naming gift” to further pediatric medicine in 2015, with the university attaching the “Stead” name to its new 14-story children’s hospital.

“We were so blessed,” Stead said during his afternoon talk kicking off the university’s new $3 billion “Together Hawkeyes” fundraising campaign announced earlier this week.

But Stead wasn’t talking just about the blessing of wealth enough to give generously today. He was talking, too, about the philanthropic-minded models he and his wife had growing up.

“Mary Joy, her great-grandfather was a missionary in India for 42 years,” he said. “Her grandfather was born in India, and he grew up with a belief in giving. I was blessed to have three pastors as uncles, one great uncle who was a missionary in China, was actually captured by the Japanese during the Second World War and freed by the Chinese. And so we grew up that way.”

The couple started their giving with a $250 annual tithe to the United Methodist Church — a habit that grew as Stead began to have business success.

Over the course of his career, Stead has led 10 companies and more than 400,000 employees. He’s served on 37 corporate boards — including the Alzheimer’s Research Institute, the Garrett-Evangelical Seminary at Northwestern University and the UI Foundation.

The Steads over time have given or committed nearly $100 million to the university, including a new $37.5 million commitment to establish the “Stead Family Scholars Program” in the UI Carver College of Medicine — aimed at allowing the college to invest in promising early-career faculty.

And the giving started small and with intention, Stead told the crowd Thursday. In deciding where to put their money, Stead said, he and his wife set priorities: business, religion, research and education.

And then they homed in on specifics across those areas — finding “great people doing great things” to invest in.

“I've helped start over 40 companies over the years … by helping great people do great things,” Stead said of the intention he still starts every day with. “Every morning, when I get up, that's the first thing I say. And you'll feel great if you do that yourself. Help great people do great things. How can I do that today?”

Stead, in closing, encouraged everyone to think bigger for themselves and for others. To work together and to trust each other. And to take steps toward turning their dreams into visions into realities.

“I believe so much in all of you,” he said.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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