HSU billionaire alum Fisher honored
Times-Standard 2/2/07
Fisher is the renowned investor, author, and Forbes magazine columnist who champions state-of-the-art research of California's redwood forests.
In a “Resolution of Commendation” adopted Jan. 23, the CSU Trustees formalized their official acknowledgment of Fisher's endowed gift of approximately $3.6 million to HSU last year to finance the new Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology, the Arcata campus's first endowed chair.
The gift provides approximately $90,000 each year in perpetuity to support redwood ecology research. It is the first endowed chair in the world devoted to a single tree species. HSU biology professor Stephen C. Sillett, whose pioneer redwood research has been chronicled in a range of publications from Nature to The New Yorker, is the first holder of the chair.
The CSU Trustees praised what they called Fisher's deep commitment “to advancing the world's understanding of redwood forest ecology and changing the way scientists and others look at and comprehend the redwoods.” They further lauded him for “transformational thinking by developing new knowledge that others will follow.”
In ceremonies at the CSU Chancellor's Office, Long Beach, Chancellor Charles B. Reed told Fisher, “California State University is grateful for your support and the confidence that you have placed in our faculty and students at Humboldt State University.”
HSU President Rollin C. Richmond called Fisher a unique individual with “the capacity, interest, and willingness to invest in his alma mater for the sake of taking redwood forest ecology to new proverbial heights. Ken Fisher's visionary benevolence will foster a stronger understanding of redwood ecology. The results of that research will help our community better understand the science and phenomena at work in these awe-inspiring forests that dominate our region. Humboldt State greatly appreciates and eagerly anticipates the discoveries that the Fisher Chair will accomplish. We also appreciate what it represents: the confidence of one of Humboldt State's most successful alumni in the institution's capacity for cutting edge research.”
”Simply from the time I was a little kid, I've been in love with redwood trees, in all kinds of different ways,” Fisher said in his acceptance remarks. “And the center and the right place in the world to do research in redwoods is Humboldt because it is in the middle of them. Humboldt and the CSU system are archetypal of the normal college student, not some particularly unusual college student. And yet Steve Sillett is a transformational scientist who every single year is changing the way scientists understand how the redwoods work. One of the things I've always tried to do in my life is to push transformationalists to change how we understand how the world works. And so to be able to do that in a place where normal college students can see it in front of them -- so that they as normal people can see that they too can evolve in life to the extent that they desire and participate in the transformational process -- to me is simply too great an opportunity to pass by. [Steve] will do phenomenal things for the redwoods and for society, but doing that at Humboldt will also do a great deal for a great many other people.”
Fisher is the founder and CEO of Fisher Investments Inc., Woodside, Calif., and London, which manages assets of some $35 billion for Fortune 500 companies, prominent institutions and affluent individuals.