Harold Simmons Philanthropy
Born in Texas to educators Reuben Leon and Fairess in 1931, Harold Clark Simmons was the middle child in an all boys brood of three. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in economics (1951), he attended the same university for his MS Economics degree (1952).
His career began when he worked as an employee for a U.S. government agency prior to working at a bank based in Dallas. Reconsidering his options and plans, he made a personal shift from employee to entrepreneur. Though barely making ends meet and borrowing money, he made his first investment in the form of buying a small drugstore. A decade of hard work and smart moves on the part of Harold Simmons saw the venture grow into a drugstore chain across Texas that has reached a value of over $50 million.
Deciding to try his hand at becoming a financier, he sold his entire first business in 1973 to Eckerd Corporation. A success at this field as well, he currently manages five NYSE-listed corporations. Harold Simmons is the chairman of several prominent directorship boards such as Titanium Metals Corporation (since 2005), specialty chemicals business Kronos Worldwide Incorporated (2003), NL Industries Incorporated (1987) and synthetics company Valhi Incorporated (1961). Listed as the 214th individual on Forbes World’s Richest People in 2007, he rose through the ranks to become the 146th in 2009.
Among his many awards are the 2002 Angel of Freedom Award by Human Rights Initiative, Charles Cameron Sprague Community Service Award, and the Annette G. Strauss Humanitarian Award.
Together with his wife Annette, and through the Harold Simmons Foundation (1988), he became a major benefactor for several diverse groups:
• Dallas Center for the Performing Arts
• Uplift Education
• Dallas Achieves
• YWCA
• Parkland Memorial Hospital
• Text Protects
• Crystal Charity Ball
• Dallas County Dental Society
• Our Children’s House
• Children’s Medical Center Dallas
• Big Thought
• Ronald McDonald House
• Dallas Black Dance Theatre
The most blessed of his recipients is the University of Texas Southwestern. Harold Simmons has been an extremely generous supporter since 1983, when he pledged $8 million pledge for the Harold C. Simmons Arthritis Research Center. Five years after, he contributed $41 million to the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Simmons Biomedical Research building named for his parents. In 2005, a $50 million clinical and research program grant was given, as well as a $500,000 fund for an endowed chair in clinical oncology for the school’s first president Dr. Charles Sprague. Recently, Harold Simmons donated up to $125 million to the Innovations in Medicine Campaign that UT Southwestern started in 2002.
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