Biotech building gets $1 million boost
By Jeremy Simon
Having been a successful entrepreneur, the late Charlie Butcher could have spent his retirement on any number of pursuits. But in 1973, he chose to volunteer in the laboratory of a biology professor at the University of Colorado, doing the work a doctoral student would have done.
“Charlie just fell in love with biology,” notes his wife, Jane. During the next three decades, Charlie and Jane played a key role in supporting CU-Boulder’s rapidly expanding biotechnology research efforts, including a recent pledge of $1 million toward the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building being built on the university’s East Campus.
Jane Butcher’s gift will honor Charlie, who passed away in 2004 and was a successful businessman with a passion for science, social responsibility and innovation.
Charlie Butcher’s links to CU-Boulder affiliated scientific startup companies spanned more than 30 years, and he played lead roles as a funder and adviser to firms such as Clonetics and NeXagen.
Charlie and Jane Butcher also founded the university’s biennial Butcher Symposia of Genomics and Biotechnology.
This gift commitment is the latest in nearly $4 million in total gifts the Butchers have made on behalf of CU-Boulder biotechnology.
“I would love this to become an internationally recognized center for biotech. I think you have the perfect ingredients,” said Butcher, who received her bachelor’s degree in 1966 in international affairs from CU-Boulder. “Charlie was a big thinker, and he thought CU was the place this should all happen.”
In collaboration with Butcher’s gift, biotech industry pioneer Larry Gold—a biology professor at CU-Boulder since 1970 and current CEO of the biotech firm SomaLogic—is directing a previously undesignated gift toward the biotechnology building in honor of Charlie Butcher.
In recognition of the gifts, the building’s auditorium and adjacent foyer will be named in honor of Jane and Charlie Butcher.
Gold, who met the Butchers in the early 1970s and became a lifelong friend of the couple, said Charlie Butcher had considered pursuing a doctorate in biology. Although Butcher did not enroll formally in a degree program, his passion led to volunteer work in the 1970s in the labs of CU-Boulder’s Gold and David Hirsh—work that led to pioneering discoveries.
“He did the work of someone who would have had a Ph.D.—he just loved learning,” Gold said. “He was one of the world’s great listeners. He had no need to remind you of the things he had done, but he did a lot of things.”
Butcher became CEO of the family business, the Butcher Company, in the early 1950s. Butcher’s grandfather, Charles Butcher, founded a paste-wax company in 1880. The company sold Butcher’s Boston Polish and Butcher’s Bowling Alley Wax for floors.
By the time he retired, Charlie Butcher had helped the company grow to 100 times its original size. In 2000, the family sold the company to Johnson Wax Professional, another family-owned company.
The day after the sale, Charlie and Jane gave the company’s 325 employees a total of $18 million in bonus checks, a gesture that brought burly male workers to tears and made national headlines. The New York Times called the largesse “the perk of a lifetime.”
When he wasn’t engaging in philanthropy, Charlie Butcher helped advance the field of biotechnology and interdisciplinary research. Those desires spawned the first Butcher Symposium in 2002, which was designed to “break down the walls within the sciences and get everyone working together for the biggest benefit.”
Charlie had been pursuing that goal for decades.
In 1965, The New Yorker put it this way: “Charles Butcher .... is one of those simultaneously hardheaded and romantic people who like to speculate on what life will be like 25 or 50 years hence and who then go out and do something to help make their speculations come true.”
In 1968, Charlie’s fascination with cooperative ventures in science led him to found the Lazy Eight, a network of scientists interested in cross-disciplinary approaches to technical problem-solving, education and issues of poverty. As Jane notes, the “lazy”—or sideways—number eight is the symbol for infinity, which could signify the potential of collaborative work.
Jane and Charlie Butcher have also been core supporters of the Conference on World Affairs, the annual CU-Boulder forum that takes place in April.
The first phase of the 257,000-square-foot Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building is slated for completion in late 2011 and will house the university’s Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, or CIMB, as well as the chemical and biological engineering department and the biochemistry division of the chemistry and biochemistry department.
The building has been instrumental in helping CU-Boulder recruit a “dream team” of scientists and engineers led by CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Thomas Cech, a 1989 Nobel laureate in chemistry and former president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as chief scientific officer and CU-Boulder Professor Leslie Leinwand, also a founding scientist of several successful biotech companies.
With the new gift, more than $30 million in private support has been raised for the building, including an initial naming gift from CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Marvin Caruthers of chemistry and biochemisty. The balance of the funding for Phase I, budgeted at $146 million, is expected from additional private funding, as well as grants and sponsored research support.
To support the biotech building or for more information, please contact Jessica Wright, assistant vice president and principal gifts officer for the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biology at the CU Foundation, at 303-735-0973 or jessica.wright@cufund.org. You may also contact Mary McGee, CU Foundation director of development for the College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School, at 303-541-1470 or Mary.McGee@cufund.org.
Having been a successful entrepreneur, the late Charlie Butcher could have spent his retirement on any number of pursuits. But in 1973, he chose to volunteer in the laboratory of a biology professor at the University of Colorado, doing the work a doctoral student would have done.
The late Charlie Butcher was a successful businessman with a passion for science, social responsibility and innovation.
“Charlie just fell in love with biology,” notes his wife, Jane. During the next three decades, Charlie and Jane played a key role in supporting CU-Boulder’s rapidly expanding biotechnology research efforts, including a recent pledge of $1 million toward the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building being built on the university’s East Campus.
Jane Butcher’s gift will honor Charlie, who passed away in 2004 and was a successful businessman with a passion for science, social responsibility and innovation.
Charlie Butcher’s links to CU-Boulder affiliated scientific startup companies spanned more than 30 years, and he played lead roles as a funder and adviser to firms such as Clonetics and NeXagen.
Charlie and Jane Butcher also founded the university’s biennial Butcher Symposia of Genomics and Biotechnology.
This gift commitment is the latest in nearly $4 million in total gifts the Butchers have made on behalf of CU-Boulder biotechnology.
“I would love this to become an internationally recognized center for biotech. I think you have the perfect ingredients,” said Butcher, who received her bachelor’s degree in 1966 in international affairs from CU-Boulder. “Charlie was a big thinker, and he thought CU was the place this should all happen.”
Larry Gold, a biology professor at CU-Boulder since 1970 and current CEO of the biotech firm SomaLogic
In collaboration with Butcher’s gift, biotech industry pioneer Larry Gold—a biology professor at CU-Boulder since 1970 and current CEO of the biotech firm SomaLogic—is directing a previously undesignated gift toward the biotechnology building in honor of Charlie Butcher.
In recognition of the gifts, the building’s auditorium and adjacent foyer will be named in honor of Jane and Charlie Butcher.
Gold, who met the Butchers in the early 1970s and became a lifelong friend of the couple, said Charlie Butcher had considered pursuing a doctorate in biology. Although Butcher did not enroll formally in a degree program, his passion led to volunteer work in the 1970s in the labs of CU-Boulder’s Gold and David Hirsh—work that led to pioneering discoveries.
“He did the work of someone who would have had a Ph.D.—he just loved learning,” Gold said. “He was one of the world’s great listeners. He had no need to remind you of the things he had done, but he did a lot of things.”
Butcher became CEO of the family business, the Butcher Company, in the early 1950s. Butcher’s grandfather, Charles Butcher, founded a paste-wax company in 1880. The company sold Butcher’s Boston Polish and Butcher’s Bowling Alley Wax for floors.
By the time he retired, Charlie Butcher had helped the company grow to 100 times its original size. In 2000, the family sold the company to Johnson Wax Professional, another family-owned company.
The day after the sale, Charlie and Jane gave the company’s 325 employees a total of $18 million in bonus checks, a gesture that brought burly male workers to tears and made national headlines. The New York Times called the largesse “the perk of a lifetime.”
When he wasn’t engaging in philanthropy, Charlie Butcher helped advance the field of biotechnology and interdisciplinary research. Those desires spawned the first Butcher Symposium in 2002, which was designed to “break down the walls within the sciences and get everyone working together for the biggest benefit.”
Charlie had been pursuing that goal for decades.
In 1965, The New Yorker put it this way: “Charles Butcher .... is one of those simultaneously hardheaded and romantic people who like to speculate on what life will be like 25 or 50 years hence and who then go out and do something to help make their speculations come true.”
In 1968, Charlie’s fascination with cooperative ventures in science led him to found the Lazy Eight, a network of scientists interested in cross-disciplinary approaches to technical problem-solving, education and issues of poverty. As Jane notes, the “lazy”—or sideways—number eight is the symbol for infinity, which could signify the potential of collaborative work.
Jane Butcher with CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano
Jane and Charlie Butcher have also been core supporters of the Conference on World Affairs, the annual CU-Boulder forum that takes place in April.
The first phase of the 257,000-square-foot Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building is slated for completion in late 2011 and will house the university’s Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, or CIMB, as well as the chemical and biological engineering department and the biochemistry division of the chemistry and biochemistry department.
The building has been instrumental in helping CU-Boulder recruit a “dream team” of scientists and engineers led by CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Thomas Cech, a 1989 Nobel laureate in chemistry and former president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as chief scientific officer and CU-Boulder Professor Leslie Leinwand, also a founding scientist of several successful biotech companies.
With the new gift, more than $30 million in private support has been raised for the building, including an initial naming gift from CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Marvin Caruthers of chemistry and biochemisty. The balance of the funding for Phase I, budgeted at $146 million, is expected from additional private funding, as well as grants and sponsored research support.
To support the biotech building or for more information, please contact Jessica Wright, assistant vice president and principal gifts officer for the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biology at the CU Foundation, at 303-735-0973 or jessica.wright@cufund.org. You may also contact Mary McGee, CU Foundation director of development for the College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School, at 303-541-1470 or Mary.McGee@cufund.org.