User:MBMadmirer/David H. Koch

David Hamilton Koch (pronounced "coke", born May 3, 1940) is an American businessman, philanthropist, political activist and chemical engineer. He is a co-owner, (with older brother Charles), and an executive vice president of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that is the second largest privately held company in the U.S. Koch is the richest resident of New York City, as of 2010. He is a major patron of the arts and funder of conservative and libertarian political causes.

Early life and education
Born in Wichita, Kansas, Koch is one of four sons of petroleum industry innovator Fred C. Koch. He attended the Deerfield Academy prep school in Massachusetts, graduating in 1959. He went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), earning both a bachelor's (1962) and a master's degree (1963) in chemical engineering.

He established an MIT record in basketball by scoring an average of 21 points per game over three years, and held MIT's single-game scoring record of 41 points, from 1962 when he was captain of the team, until it was broken in early 2009 by Jimmy Bartolotta.

Political career
Koch was the Libertarian Party's vice-presidential candidate in the 1980 presidential election, sharing the party ticket with presidential candidate Ed Clark. The Clark-Koch ticket received 921,128 votes (1.06% of the total nationwide), a Libertarian Party national ticket's best showing ever.

The ticket's platform included the abolition of U.S. Federal agencies including the FBI, CIA, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Department of Energy, and other federal regulatory agencies; the Party also supported ending Social Security, minimum-wage laws, corporate taxes, and proposed legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide.

Since 1984, Koch has been a Republican.

Advocacy
In 1984, Koch founded, served as Chairman of the board of directors of, and donated to the free-market Citizens for a Sound Economy. In 2004, these organizations separated into, respectively, Americans for Prosperity Foundation and FreedomWorks. Koch continues as Chairman of the Board and gives money to Americans for Prosperity Foundation and gives to a related advocacy organization Americans for Prosperity. The Washington Post has reported that both Koch and FreedomWorks deny that Koch has ever provided funding to FreedomWorks since its creation. Both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have been linked to the US Tea Party movement, which opposes much of U.S. President Barack Obama's policies and legislative agenda. In addition, Koch sits on the board and gives money to the libertarian Cato Institute and Reason Foundation. So far David and his brother have given about $100 million to various Tea Party organizations.

In the late summer and early fall of 2010, Koch's contribution to free-market think tanks and other advocacy organizations came under increased scrutiny. A number of pieces highlighted Koch support for the tea parties, Republican candidates, California Proposition 23 (2010), and alleged that Koch's activities were "covert." In July 2010, New York Magazine profiled him. In August 2010, Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote an article about the political spending of David and Charles Koch. . In September, a Koch Industries subsidiary was one of several oil refiners to contribute to the campaign against California Proposition 23. White House political advisor David Axelrod wrote a piece in the The Washington Post, calling them "campaigners we can't see." Koch told Elaine Lafferty the articles were "hateful" and "plain wrong", and Investor's Business Daily called it a "war on Koch Industries".

Philanthropy
Since 2000, David Koch has pledged and/or donated more than $600 million to the arts, education and medical research. .

Arts
In July 2008, David Koch pledged $100 million over 10 years to renovate the New York State Theater in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (now called the David H. Koch Theater), and has pledged $10 million to renovate the outdoor fountains at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Koch has been a trustee of the American Ballet Theater for 25 years and has contributed more than $6 million to the theater.

Medical Research
A prostate cancer survivor,, Koch sits on the Board of Directors of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and has contributed $41 million to the Foundation, including $5 million to a collaborative project in the field of nanotechnology. Koch is the is the eponym of the David H. Koch Chair of the Prostate Cancer foundation, a position currently held by Dr. Jonathan Simons.

In 2007, he contributed $100 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to help fund the construction of a new 350000 sqft research and technology facility to serve as the home of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He also contributed $20 million to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, $30 million to the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York, $25 million to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houstonto establish the David Koch Center for Applied Research in Genitourinary Cancers , $15 million to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Centerand $25 million to The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

Koch gave $10 million to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where he was honored with the Double Helix Medal for Corporate Leadership for supporting research that, “improves the health of people everywhere.”.

Education
David Koch contributed $7 million to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) show Nova, and is a contributer to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., including a $20 million gift to the American Museum of Natural History, creating the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing and a contribution of $15 million to the National Museum of Natural History to create the new David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, which opened on the museum's 100th anniversary of its location on the National Mall on March 17, 2010.

David Koch also financed the construction of Deerfield Academy's $68 million state-of-the-art Koch Center for mathematics, science and technology. and was named the first and only Lifetime Trustee.