Steven Howard Temares (1958)

2010 circa

1976

Profile in Wall Street Journal

Steven H. Temares, chief executive of Bed Bath & Beyond, is supporting his alma mater with a $1.5 million gift that will endow a faculty position at the Brain Health Institute at Rutgers University. Mr. Temares, 53 years old, was born in the Bronx, raised in Paramus, N.J., and now lives in Warren. He graduated from Rutgers in 1980 with a degree in economics and presently serves on the Rutgers University Foundation Board of Overseers. The donation, announced Friday, is being made with his wife, Amy, and will be named in honor of his in-laws, Charlotte and Murray Strongwater. The Strongwater endowed chair in neuroscience/brain health will be the director of the Brain Health Institute, which is part of the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience. The gift from Mr. Temares will be matched with an additional $1.5 million by an anonymous Rutgers alumnus who agreed last summer to give $27 million—the largest gift in Rutgers history—to establish 18 new endowed chairs across various schools. The Strongwater chair is the second such endowed chair through the challenge grant program. The first established a faculty position in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The 18 chair initiative is part of the university's $1 billion fund-raising campaign leading into the university's 250th anniversary in 2016. Some 40% of the $1 billion goal will go toward faculty and research. More than $600 million has been raised so far. "I've intended to do something and I hope to do more, but definitely the anonymous donor and the matching gift was a catalyst to doing it now," said Mr. Temares. He says that the decision to fund the Brain Health Institute was made jointly with his in-laws after a day of touring the campus and hearing presentations. The Strongwaters selected which chair to endow and Mr. Temares says his reason for naming it after them is simple: "If you met them you would know. They are fabulous people." "It's a wonderful opportunity to be able to honor people that you love and respect," said Mr. Temares, adding that his mother has been similarly honored as well. "She's not been left out." Rutgers launched the Brain Health Institute in 2010 to capitalize on the university's strengths in cell biology, neuroscience and genetics and the school's proximity to the New Jersey pharmaceutical industry. The institute's research areas include autism, Alzheimer's, progressive hearing loss and schizophrenia. The gift from Mr. Temares will allow the school to hire a distinguished scientist and scientific administrator to lead the institute.