In
1981, Beckman went through a further parting with his company.Beckman Instruments merged with SmithKline
Corporation, a pharmaceutical giant whose existing business interests meshed
well with those of Beckman Instruments.The
resulting company was called SmithKline Beckman, and it was headquartered in
Philadelphia.It was a difficult decision
for Beckman to make, because it meant giving up control of the company that
he had built himself to an alien East Coast firm.He remained convinced, however, that his primary
responsibility was to the shareholders, and this merger was best for them.He retained a seat on SmithKline Beckman’s board of directors, but the
company was no longer his.In 1983 SmithKline Beckman sold the process
instruments and controls and electronic components divisions to the Emerson
Electronics Company as a subsidiary called BI Technologies.By 1989, SmithKline had decided that Beckman
Instruments’ business did not fit with their corporation, and it was spun off
again as Beckman Instruments under the direction of Lou Rosso, a longtime Beckman
employee.In 1997 Beckman Instruments
merged with Coulter Corporation of Miami, another leader in biomedical instrumentation,
to form Beckman Coulter Corporation under the leadership of John Wareham.As Beckman’s instrument empire evolved beyond his personal control, he
became free to devote more time to his philanthropic activities.
The Beckmans established the Beckman
Foundation in September 1977 in order to support basic scientific research,
with a special emphasis on chemistry.There
was no staff and no public office, and Arnold and Mabel made all the decisions
themselves over the dining room table of their new home in Corona del Mar.In its first years of existence, the foundation
made numerous small grants to a number of organizations, as well as two significant
grants to the Scripps Clinic and the University of Illinois.The Beckmans explored the use of matching-grant
gifts in this period, where they achieved maximum effect from their gifts by
requiring the recipient to match their funds from other sources.
Arnold Beckman had become a member of the board of directors of the System
Development Corporation (SDC), a non-profit who produced software and systems
for the U.S. Air Force.As the information
technology sector matured, however, SDC began to have trouble maintaining a
competitive edge as a non-profit.Beckman and the other members of the board decided to take SDC public
as a for-profit company with the majority of the shares belonging to the non-profit
System Development Foundation (SDF).By 1980, SDC had become sufficiently lucrative that the Burroughs
Corporation made SDF a handsome offer for its acquisition.SDF accepted the offer, and it was suddenly
left with $65 million in cash and no defining purpose.The decision was made to give away the entire
capital and disband SDF.Arnold’s close
experience with SDF led him to propose a similar scheme to Mabel.They would give away their entire fortune, recently doubled by the merger
of Beckman Instruments and SmithKline, in their lifetimes.This radical philanthropy turned out to be a full time job for both of
them.
Over the course of the 1980s, five major Beckman Institutes were founded across
the country.They represented Beckman’s
vision of major centers that would engage in cutting-edge work in the molecular
sciences.The Beckmans gave generously
to help achieve this vision, and in keeping with their principles they ensured
that the institutions that bore their name would be second to none.
The first such center was the Beckman Research
Institute at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California.The Institute was constructed to be a center for advanced research rather
than for clinical care.The Beckmans
were concerned that most philanthropic money was going to patient care, without
a sufficient commitment to the basic research that constituted real progress
in medicine.In keeping with Arnold
Beckman’s interests, the Beckman Institute at the City of Hope focuses on molecules
and the processes of life.At about the same time, the Beckman
Laser Institute at the University of California at Irvine opened.This center investigates the use of lasers in medicine and provides cutting-edge
treatment based on its research.It
is not technically part of the University of California; it is a private nonprofit
that shares space and other resources with the University.A final clinically-allied organization officially
opened in 1989 at Stanford University.The Beckman Center, part of the university’s Medical School, was
dedicated to the fields of molecular and genetic medicine.It was intended to be “an interface between
bench and bedside,” furthering both basic research and the quick application
of those advances
Following
their generous gift to the University of Illinois in support of research, the
Beckmans decided to build a Beckman Institute
at Urbana-Champaign.This Institute
would be the first without a link to a clinical institution; indeed, the new
Beckman Institute would be dedicated to extremely basic pioneering research.It was dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach
to scientific progress, one that fit well with Arnold Beckman’s own opinions
about problem solving.After this show
of generosity to his undergraduate institution, Caltech was not far from Beckman’s
mind.A similar center, The
Beckman Institute at Caltech, was opened there in 1989, with a special mission
to support research “too far afield for conventional funding sources.”Also in keeping with Beckman’s interests, the Institute was established
with a special emphasis on providing Caltech with the most advanced instrumentation
available.These five Institutes, at
City of Hope, Irvine, Illinois, Stanford, and Caltech, were to become the five
jewels of Beckman’s philanthropy.
Over the course of the 1980s, the Beckmans made several smaller grants to support
other worthwhile endeavors.They built
the Beckman Center
of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine in order
to provide a focal point for the scientific community of the West.Beckman was worried that history had placed all the significant organizations
for science on the East Coast, and his new Center attempted to remedy that situation
by providing a Western counterpart.He
gave $2 million to the Chemical Heritage
Foundation in Philadelphia to support the Beckman
Center for the History of Chemistry, dedicated to both scholarly research
and public understanding.Further grants
went to Illinois Wesleyan University, the University of Southern California,
UC San Francisco, Rockefeller University, Harvey Mudd College, Pepperdine University,
the Patty and George Hoag Cancer Center in Orange County, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center, the Orange County Boy Scouts, and the Cullom Memorial Library
back in Cullom, Illinois.Despite their active effort, the Beckmans could
not give away their sizeable fortune before Mabel’s passing in 1989.
Mabel’s passing was very difficult for Arnold; she had been his best friend,
closest companion, and confidante for sixty-four years.Despite the fact that they had distributed
almost $200 million together in the last decade of Mabel’s life, Arnold’s personal
fortune was still significant.He decided
to reconfigure his foundation to be a foundation in perpetuity, a strategy associated
with more traditional philanthropy.This was a difficult decision, because it went against what he and
Mabel had decided.The Foundation currently
exists to provide funding to the established Beckman Institutes and to give
grants for other worthy projects that further the Beckmans’ areas of interest,
such as science in education.Beckman personally administered the foundation until his final retirement
in 1993. He dedicated his retirement years to his extended family. Arnold O. Beckman died on 18 May 2004 at the age of 104.
In
1981, Beckman went through a further parting with his company. Beckman Instruments merged with SmithKline
Corporation, a pharmaceutical giant whose existing business interests meshed
well with those of Beckman Instruments. The
resulting company was called SmithKline Beckman, and it was headquartered in
Philadelphia. It was a difficult decision
for Beckman to make, because it meant giving up control of the company that
he had built himself to an alien East Coast firm. He remained convinced, however, that his primary
responsibility was to the shareholders, and this merger was best for them.
He retained a seat on SmithKline Beckman’s board of directors, but the
company was no longer his. In 1983 SmithKline Beckman sold the process
instruments and controls and electronic components divisions to the Emerson
Electronics Company as a subsidiary called BI Technologies. By 1989, SmithKline had decided that Beckman
Instruments’ business did not fit with their corporation, and it was spun off
again as Beckman Instruments under the direction of Lou Rosso, a longtime Beckman
employee. In 1997 Beckman Instruments
merged with Coulter Corporation of Miami, another leader in biomedical instrumentation,
to form Beckman Coulter Corporation under the leadership of John Wareham.
As Beckman’s instrument empire evolved beyond his personal control, he
became free to devote more time to his philanthropic activities.
Following
their generous gift to the University of Illinois in support of research, the
Beckmans decided to build a 
Beckman
the Citizen