First, my father made it difficult to run the business he had assigned to me; then he balked at selling it so I could run it properly. He was a tough taskmaster on his workers and his family, but as I said, he kept the family together. My mother took a different course.
All families have rifts and in time they can heal. But not easily, or not at all when alliances are formed with people in a position outside the family to influence family relationships. Nonfamily enabling on one side or another can result in disruption and irreparable damage to a family unit. Somehow, my mother had been persuaded that siding with two people on one side of the family and sending the other three on their way would bring the whole family back together again. It didn’t, and I worry about my mother.
People who meet her like her. She has a sharp wit and a keen sense of humor. But she has many people pulling at her. She is generous to a fault, and a generous person with a big heart needs to take a chapter from her husband’s book. He never gave anything away, and nothing was ever handed to him. You earned what you got, like he did.
Pops said in an interview with Marilyn Green of the Ithaca Journal published January 25, 1980, “You have to give to get. So many people want to talk about ‘what am I going to get.’ In my business life, in the 10 years I worked for other people, I never asked for a raise. If they asked me to take on additional duties, I did it and did it well. I didn’t ask ‘Will you pay me?’ I just did it.
And in every case they treated me fairly. I figured if I did a good job I would be rewarded, and if I wasn’t rewarded I would learn something from that, too.”
As I said before, everyone should make a list of the people who spend time with you that haven’t asked you for anything. The ones on the short list are those you can trust to be with you down the line when the giving is done. Those who asked nothing from you are the ones you can count on to be by your side.
At any rate, it was decided that a joint press release would be issued announcing the split in the family foundation. On February 3, 2003, a joint press release was prepared, datelined Ithaca, and released. It said: The trustees of Park Foundation, Inc. announced today the formation of a second Park family foundation, Triad Foundation, Inc. The new structure will permit the two foundations to pursue the philanthropic objectives that best reflect the diverse interests of their respective boards.
In the area of higher education, the Park Foundation will continue to support the undergraduate Park Scholar programs at Ithaca College and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The Triad Foundation will assume responsibility for the Park Fellowship programs at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Other Triad grant making will concentrate on early childhood education, marine ecology, plant research and human services in the home communities of its directors.
Dorothy D. Park will continue to serve as President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Park Foundation, which includes her daughter and granddaughter and two nonfamily trustees. Roy H. Park, Jr. is the President and Chairman of the Triad Foundation, with his son and daughter serving as directors.
On February 6, 2003, Dan Higgins reported in the Ithaca Journal, The Park Foundation, Ithaca’s philanthropic powerhouse with assets of about $600 million, announced Wednesday the creation of a spinoff organization....
Called the Triad Foundation, it will manage Park Fellowship programs at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Roy H. Park, Jr. will be president and chairman of the board of the new organization.
Higgins’ article went on to report “Other journalism schools would do virtually anything to have (a Park Fellowship program),” said Richard Cole, dean of the Journalism and Mass Communication at the UNC-Chapel Hill.
Cole said the Park Foundation provides nearly $2 million per year and benefits 60 students. A Park Fellowship pays tuition and fees, and gives cash stipends of $10,000 annually for master’s students, and $18,500 per year for PhD students.
“At the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell, Park Fellowships also support 60 students,” said Clint Sidle, the director of the Park program.
The Park Foundation gave out about $30 million to 433 organizations in 1999, according to its 2000 IRS tax return. Some gifts were relatively modest, others are considerably larger and ongoing, including a $3 million donation to the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research’s Biodiversity Program.56 The following day, Higgins confirmed in his article in the Ithaca Journal, headlined triAd FoCuses pArk Mission that The Triad Foundation, the new organization recently split off from the Park Foundation, won’t make any changes to the way it manages fellowship programs it will take over in Ithaca and Chapel Hill, NC, according to its director.
Roy H. Park, Jr., the president and chairman of the Triad Foundation, said the new foundation, “was established to allow it to pursue the philanthropic objectives that reflect the interests of its board of directors.”
Higgins went on to report The Triad Foundation was formed with a grant from the Park Foundation. [Joanne] Florino (Park’s Executive Director) said that the final grant amount hasn’t been yet confirmed by the group’s auditors. But according to Park, Jr., it was enough for Triad to continue administering the grant programs at the two Universities.57 On July 10, 2003, the Cornell Chronicle reported, in part, A program at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management that builds commitment to community service among MBA students has a new name and the support of a new foundation…The Park Leadership Fellows Program…supports 60 exemplary MBA students yearly at the Johnson School, in return for their involvement in significant service projects that are of lasting value to the community and their participation in leading training. It is the only MBA program in the world offering such full support for service and leadership training.
Now the Triad Foundation, Inc., a foundation launched this February…has assumed full responsibility for the program.
Triad also will continue the Park Foundation’s support for the Cornell-based Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, specifically for plant research with strong promise for improvements in human health and medicine. Park, Sr., served on the board of directors of the private research laboratory from 1984 until his death, and Park, Jr. currently serves on the Boyce Thompson Institute board as a vice chairman.