University Park, Pa. -- Frank P. Smeal, who with his late wife Mary Jean made numerous contributions to Penn State University including a $10 million gift in 1990 to form the Mary Jean and Frank P. Smeal College of Business Administration, died on April 8 at the age of 84.
At the time, the Smeals' $10 million gift for Penn State's College of Business was the largest individual donation in the history of the University. The gift created five endowed chairs within the college as well as a separate endowment for program excellence. Frank Smeal was also instrumental in creating the Goldman Sachs & Co. and Frank P. Smeal University Endowed Fellowship in Business Administration.
"Frank Smeal was a very special friend to Penn State," said Penn State President Graham B. Spanier. "He and Mary had a great deal of confidence in the University and the impact it is having on young lives. They backed up that confidence with financial support that will forever make a difference in the quality of a Penn State education."
"We will be indebted always to the vision and legacy of Frank Smeal, our benefactor and namesake," says Judy Olian, dean of the Smeal College of Business. "Throughout his professional, community, and personal life, he made lasting contributions to individuals and organizations in small and large ways. His legacy will endure, and his life will serve as inspiration to all who knew him."
In addition to their gifts for business education at Penn State, the Smeals also gave $1 million in 1980 to establish an endowed faculty chair in literary theory and comparative criticism. In 1982, they established the Katey Lehman Creative Writing Awards in memory of Mary Smeal's sister. In 1983, they established the Henry W. Popp Graduate Assistantship in Botany and Plant Pathology in honor of Mary Smeal's father, a longtime professor of botany at Penn State.
As part of the initial Campaign for Penn State, which concluded in 1990 with Frank Smeal as vice chairman, the Smeals provided the lead gift that resulted in the construction of an academic building at Penn State's DuBois Campus, which bears the name of Frank Smeal's mother, Mary. Frank Smeal spent the first two years of his collegiate career at the DuBois Campus.
The first chairman of the Smeal College's Board of Visitors, Smeal received the University's Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1974 and was named alumni fellow of the College of Liberal Arts in 1986. Penn State DuBois honored him as outstanding alumnus in 1987. He was also a member of the Laurel Circle of the University's Mount Nittany Society.
After serving in the U.S. Army for four years after graduating from Penn State, Smeal joined Guaranty Trust Company, which later became part of Morgan Guaranty Trust. During his 30-year career with the Wall Street firm, he advanced to executive vice president and treasurer and was instrumental in counseling New York City through its financial crises in the mid 1970s.
Smeal left his post at Morgan Guaranty Trust in 1977 for Goldman Sachs & Co., where he became partner and member of the company's senior management committee, as well as managing director of the fixed-Income department. Often referred to as the "dean of the municipal bond market," Frank Smeal retired from Goldman Sachs in 1985.
Smeal was past chairman of the Public Securities Association and a 1993 recipient of the association's achievement award. He was formerly director of the American Re-Insurance Company and president of the Municipal Bond Club of New York and the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America.
Smeal, born on Aug. 7, 1918 in Sykesville, Pa., graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Penn State in 1942 with a degree in economics and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard and a law degree from New York University.