Charles E Kaufman

Mr. Kaufman was an investor and retired director of purchasing for the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Company. Mr. Kaufman, who died in September at the age of 97, bequeathed an estimated $50-million to the Pittsburgh Foundation. Most of the gift, between $35-million and $40-million, will go to a fund he established at the foundation in 2005, the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation. The fund supports research in biology, chemistry, and physics and supports awards “for achievement in and contribution to the field and humanity,” according to its mission statement. It was created with $1.5-million from Mr. Kaufman and has since given three awards of $50,000 each to researchers. The remainder of the bequest will go to a donor-advised fund Mr. Kaufman established in 1984 with his late sister, Virginia, that supports causes in Jewish health care, land conservation, programs for older adults, and public education. A lifelong bachelor with no children, Mr. Kaufman lived for most of his life in the South Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh, much of the time with his sister. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati in 1936 and a master’s degree in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon in 1942. While in graduate school, he worked as a chemical engineer at the Hagan Corporation, in Pittsburgh, which eventually became the Calgon Corporation and, later, Merck. Indeed, it was his education and career that guided his investment strategies, which involved putting money into companies at the forefront of cutting-edge scientific research.