Susan and Greg Schaffer

Greg earned a bachelor’s degree from MIT in electrical engineering in 1965; a master’s from the University of California, Berkeley, in electrical engineering in 1969; and a master’s from the University of Arizona in computer science in 1971. Over the years, he has been involved with 11 Silicon Valley startups. Now he designs analog integrated circuits. Susan was raised in the United States and Europe. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in art history. Greg joined the MIT Outing Club as a junior and has been a rock climber for 50 years. Susan prefers solid ground.

Greg: “I’m loyal to MIT because it gave me the knowledge to succeed, so we established a trust to support unrestricted funds in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in the School of Science. We had a family trust that wasn’t earning much. I heard MIT had its own investment group that was doing very well, and when I checked its history, I thought, Wow! We transferred the trust over to MIT, and it’s been great. We get a tax break and income for life for both of us that grows over time—and we get to make a gift to MIT. It’s good for us and good for the Institute. I’ll tell you—way back, I was doing my own investing, but it wasn’t worth the time. I had to second-guess the market, which was just too chaotic. Now MIT is doing a great job, and we don’t have to worry. The Institute is one of the real brain centers of the world. If you look at what it does in biology, biotech, electronics—it’s fantastic. We love the way MIT is moving along.”

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For information, contact Barbara Pitts: 617-324-8888; bepitts@mit.edu. Or visit giving.mit.edu.