Private Giving
Penn State Intercom......January 30, 2003

Challenge gift endows a Trustee Scholarship

Richard Squires and his wife, Pamela, have made a challenge gift in support of scholarships for undergraduates in The Smeal College of Business Administration.

The Squires will donate up to $100,000 on the condition that honors graduates of The Smeal College contribute a total of $500,000 in new scholarship funds.

The Squires' gift will endow a Trustee Scholarship. Trustee scholarships are directed to students who have great financial need, something that appealed very much to the Squires. One of the features of the program is that the matching funds will be available for spending very soon after confirmation of the pledge and guidelines and will be awarded in the name of the donor's endowment.

Unlike other scholarship funds, contributions to the Trustee Scholarship program are matched by funds from the University, adding 5 percent of the original gift each year to the spendable income from the endowment. Since the average spending from an endowment is 5 percent of its market value over the preceding three years, the matching will, in effect, double the funds available on an annual basis in perpetuity. The University has allocated at least $1 million for Trustee Scholarships established in the 2002-03 fiscal year and will add a minimum of $1 million each year through 2006-07, making at least $5 million available in matching funds. Trustee Scholarships require a minimum gift of $50,000, payable over five years.

Richard Squires graduated from the University with a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1979. He went on to earn his master of business administration from the Harvard School of Business in 1983. After starting his career with entities associated with the Bass Family and Rainwater Inc., he founded his own real estate investment firm, RS Holdings Inc., in 1988 and co-founded SPI Holdings LLC, a nationwide real estate investment company, in 1995.

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