Securing the Future

On March 9, 1926, retired railroad magnate and art collector Henry E. Huntington invited 100 of Southern California's most influential men and women to his home in San Marino. While he had hosted many gatherings of the area's social and business leaders before, this one would prove to be historically significant for a nearby institution—and the world.

In the 35 years since its founding, Caltech had emerged as a research and educational institution of great promise. George Ellery Hale, a member of the Caltech Board of Trustees who had come to Southern California to build Mount Wilson Observatory, helped rally support from like-minded, visionary donors and persuaded many eminent scholars from around the world to join him in Pasadena. Among the first were MIT chemist Arthur Noyes, who arrived in 1914 to direct chemical research, and physicist Robert Andrews Millikan, who came from the University of Chicago to direct physical research and serve as the Institute's first president in 1921.

By the mid-1920s, the Caltech Board of Trustees recognized the need to raise flexible funds to "aid and advance" Caltech's welfare by forming a new organization, the Associates of the California Institute of Technology. Huntington's gathering was the group's first formal meeting, and Millikan later said of the event, "There is no date in the history of the California Institute of Technology more significant than March 9, 1926."

As recounted in an article in the Los Angeles Times the following day, the event featured remarks by George S. Patton and Henry O'Melveny "…who made brief addresses upon the purposes and possibilities of the organization" as well as a keynote by Millikan on investigations of cosmic rays.

The founding members of the Caltech Associates recognized that the Institute needed sustained, unrestricted support to fulfill its vast potential, and each pledged to give $1,000 per year for 10 years; the equivalent of approximately $15,000 per year in today's dollars. Their timely gifts sustained Caltech through the Great Depression, and the demanding years that followed. In part, the funds helped build the modern campus, recruit and retain the brightest minds at every stage of scientific inquiry, and allocate foundational funding to enable daring, curiosity-driven research to take flight with confidence. Thanks in large part to the original Associates 100, the Institute reached a level of excellence that is reflected in the 48 Nobel Prizes awarded, its lofty global ranking, and its unparallel students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Associates (March 9, 2026), a new generation of bold, visionary benefactors is stepping forward to fortify the next century of discovery. Like their predecessors, members of the Associates 100 Legacy Circle will comprise a select group of 100 individuals or households, and each will make an unrestricted commitment of $150,000 payable within 10 years. (This provides approximately the same purchasing power as the original 1926 gifts, adjusted for inflation.)

"The Caltech we know today exists because a prescient group of leaders came together to provide our academic community with the resources to not only endure, but to thrive," says Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, holder of the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics. "Now, we have the opportunity to prepare the way for future generations of scholars to build on this legacy and seed new discoveries in fearless fashion."

His wife, Katherine T. Faber, the Simon Ramo Professor of Materials Science, adds, "Tom and I are proud to make a gift to this initiative, and to be among the first of the new 100 names who will help secure Caltech's future."

Collectively, members of the Associates 100 Legacy Circle will infuse the Institute with $15 million in discretionary support. This flexible funding will be used to advance Caltech's highest priorities: attracting and retaining the most creative, insightful, and ambitious faculty and students; providing access to cutting-edge instrumentation and facilities designed to accelerate innovative and impactful research; and bolstering Caltech's scientific leadership on the global stage.

"Caltech's long-term track record of success gives me faith that it allocates resources wisely, which is why the vast majority of my gifts to Caltech are unrestricted," says Tracy Fu (BS '92), the 52nd president of the Caltech Associates Board. Fu and his wife, Sharon Wee, are early members of the Associates 100 Legacy Circle.

"The founders of the Caltech Associates had the vision to give the Institute an extraordinary unrestricted gift,"Fu says. "If they were alive today, I am sure they would be astounded by what Caltech accomplished in the last 100 years and would feel great pride in their foresight." Similarly, during the decades ahead, the Associates 100 will empower Caltech scholars to forge breakthroughs yet to be imagined.

In recognition of their extraordinary generosity and the important role they play in the life of the university, members of the Associates 100 Legacy Circle will have their names prominently displayed on an external donor wall located in the Garden of the Associates, located next to Dabney Hall on Caltech's campus.

"I can't think of a better way to honor the vision of our founders than by replicating their gifts," Fu says. "My imagination is inadequate to foresee what will happen at Caltech over the next 100 years, but I am certain that it will change the world for the better, and that our descendants will look upon our gifts the same way we look at the founders' gifts in 1926."