Charitable Giving & Tax Tips PLANNING MATTERS Winter 2020 your legacy is part of our story Donors Suzanne Wright Fletcher and Robert Fletcher JAFAR FALLAHI JAFAR A Family Affair Honoring Parents’ Legacy IN THIS ISSUE Frederick Kauffman Forging New Paths Advisor’s Corner Gift Annuity Offers Stability Nobel Medal on Display Inspiring Future Discoveries PLANNING MATTERS 2 ADVISOR’SCORNER Giving in Uncertain Times: Consider Charitable Gift Annuities In a time of market volatility, can assets be put to work for you and support Johns Hopkins? The answer is yes! A Johns Hopkins charitable gift annuity (CGA) can be an excellent way to support the future of Johns Hopkins and provide income to you. Gift annuity payments are steady, reliable, and never subject to market volatility. And, in a world of paltry interest rates, a Johns Hopkins CGA could offer a higher rate of return — as much as 9.5% — than many conservative investments. WILL KIRK WILL Benefits to you: In return for your gift of $10,000 or more in cash or Michael E. Zerolnick, JD, CPA Gift Planning Advisor appreciated securities, Johns Hopkins enters into a simple contract with Office of Gift Planning you, invests the funds, and pays up to two beneficiaries fixed income for life at a rate based on the ages of the beneficiaries. Tax benefits could include: ASK THE ADVISOR n an income tax deduction We want to hear from you! n partially tax-free income If you have a question about n favorable treatment of capital gains how to meet your financial For a personal CGA proposal based on your age and giving amount, and philanthropic goals, contact the Office of Gift Planning to speak with one of our gift planning ask the Office of Gift advisors. You can also use the gift calculator on our website: Planning. Email us at giving.jhu.edu/giftplanning. [email protected] or call 410-516-7954 or 800-548-1268. Johns Hopkins does not provide tax, legal, or financial advice. Please consult your own advisors regarding your specific situation. COVER 3 AFAMILYAFFAIR BY SARAH ACHENBACH An endowed scholarship uzanne Wright Fletcher, SPH ’73, had a big decision to fund honors parents’ legacy make. As a college sophomore in 1960, she wanted to and carries on a passion for S pursue medicine, but a favorite professor was dissuad- public health. ing her. So, she turned to an expert: her father, Dr. Robert D. Wright, one of the first professors in the Johns Hopkins Department of International Health. Bob Wright wrote his middle public health at the Johns Hopkins daughter a long letter, extolling Bloomberg School of Public Health the merits of medicine and the joy with husband Robert Fletcher, he had found in his calling. He SPH ’73. Today, they are professors even channeled his hero, Benjamin emeriti in the Department of Popu- Franklin, noting his important con- lation Medicine at Harvard Medical tributions to medicine. School after pioneering careers in The letter did the trick. Suzanne public health. became an internist, clinical epi- “It is difficult to imagine a more Bob and Helen Wright were demiologist, and national leader fulfilling life,” Suzanne reflects. lifelong sailors. Bob built the boat many years before, with in breast cancer screening and In 1981 when Bob Wright died, sails sewn by his sweetheart. prevention research, studying Suzanne, along with her sisters Johanna Wright Parkes and Louise Wright Reza and their mother, Hel- en, memorialized Bob Wright’s pas- sion for international public health and his instrumental role in the field by creating the Robert D. and Helen S. Wright Scholarship Fund at Johns Hopkins. For nearly 40 years, supporting this endowment, which provides financial assis- tance to students in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, has been a family affair. Until her death in 2002, Helen gave outright gifts to the scholar- ship, which her family has contin- ued to do. continued on next page COVER CONTINUED 4 continued from page 3 AFAMILYAFFAIR “We’ve been involved in and community. In the the international epidemi- “We are so proud of 1950s, Bob Wright founded ology clinical network and the University of Virginia’s know so well the need,” our parents and the Department of Community Suzanne says of their gifts. exciting lives they Health. Helen, a Virginia “My parents felt strongly that State Board Member of the funds needed to be available gave us growing up. League of Women Voters, for students to be educated easily convinced her hus- in this field.” Their sense of band to work by her side on Each of the sisters has commitment to civil rights issues. In 1963, made provisions in her Bob joined the Hopkins estate for the scholarship, what they believed Department of International and each is active in steward- Health and, shortly there- ing the scholarship, a joyful in made them after, he and Helen went to task that Johanna says has fantastic role Nigeria, where he served as brought them closer togeth- founding chair of the Depart- er. “We are so proud of our models.” ment of Community Health parents and the exciting lives —JOHANNA WRIGHT PARKES at the new University of they gave us growing up,” Lagos College of Medicine, a she explains. “Their sense of Hopkins initiative. commitment to what they believed in made them Bob Wright created the public health curricu- fantastic role models.” lum and a family planning clinic, developed an “The scholarship fund carries forward what our environmental and occupational health laborato- parents spent their lives working toward,” adds ry, and more. “He glowed with the whole idea of Louise. “Our hope is that the fundamentals of teaching,” says Louise, who lived in Nigeria as a preventative medicine will continue to expand, college student. and people will explore new ways to get well and When Bob and Helen Wright returned to stay well.” Baltimore and Hopkins in 1968 their adventures They’ve compiled the stories of Bob and continued. In 1972, the Wrights sailed to Bermuda Helen Wright’s life in a booklet that is given to the and back in a 31-foot sailboat. The only other scholarship recipients. Included are Bob’s elo- crew were two young men, Bard Stebbins and quent letter to then-college-aged Suzanne and his Dan Baker, sons of fellow Hopkins faculty. 1976 bicentennial address to the Maryland Public With each Wright scholar, Suzanne witnesses Health Association on his favorite Founding Fa- her parents’ transformative spirits live on. “It’s ther. The biggest story within the pages, though, so important that others are able to benefit from is Bob and Helen’s boundless love for adventure their wonderful life,” she says. IN MEMORIAM 5 THEIRLEGACYTOLD Professor Elaine tion and technology services company. Through Koppelman Eugster Paul’s estate, he and his wife Karin Weifenbach, enjoyed a long career gave two paintings to the university, Philadelphia at Goucher College Lady and Lady in White by Grace Hartigan, an ab- in Maryland, teach- stract expressionist artist. ing mathematics and the history of science Jacques Hager lived in from 1961 to 2001. She Maryland and served earned a doctorate in in the U.S. Navy during the history of science World War II. For 30 from Johns Hopkins in years, he was a beloved TED FANTI 1969 and a master’s in teacher for the Wash- Elaine Eugster established a ington Board of Edu- scholarship fund. engineering and com- puter science from the cation. He established university in 1987. Elaine established the Hans two endowed funds Eugster Research Fund following the loss of her through his estate: one husband Hans P. Eugster, a distinguished Hop- to support the Johns kins professor in the Department of Earth and One of Jacques Hager’s Hopkins Children’s Planetary Sciences. Through her estate, she made gifts benefits the Children’s Center in caring for Center. a generous gift to the fund, which supports de- families with emergent partmental purchases and activities in the Krieger needs and the other to benefit Alzheimer’s disease School of Arts and Sciences. research in the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center. Born in Baltimore, Paul Weifenbach re- ceived his bachelor’s in engineering from Johns Hopkins and was a sergeant in the Maryland National Guard. In 1981, he and his wife founded P.K.W. Associates, an informa- A gift from Paul Weifenbach, Philadelphia Lady is a paint- ing by Abstract Expressionist Grace Hartigan. ON CAMPUS 6 NOBELMEDAL FINDSAHOME BY BETH MORGEN Tours of the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus start at “ Mason Hall, where alumnus A n object carries Martin Rodbell’s Nobel Medal all kinds of associations, is on exhibit and certain to thoughts, and inspirations.” inspire future students who Suzanne Richardson’s words dream of making their refer to a very specific object: own discoveries. her father’s 18-carat gold Nobel Medal. Martin Rodbell, a 1949 grad- uate of Johns Hopkins, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1994 for his discovery CANNER LARRY of G-proteins, a critical class of proteins involved in cellular When it came time for Richardson communication, particularly hor- and other family members — mone function. He was working for including three siblings and mother, the National Institute of Health in who just turned 94 — to decide on the 1970s when he made his break- a place to give and exhibit Rodbell’s through. medal, they chose Johns Hopkins. Understanding the structure and Richardson says the Nobel Med- function of G-proteins and G-pro- al embodies Rodbell’s personality tein-coupled receptors has enabled and lifetime of work.