Packard Will Leave $2 Billion to Foundation

Hewlett-Packard founder David Packard plans to bequeath his $2-billion fortune to the foundation created by him and his late wife, making the charity one of the nation’s 10 wealthiest, its director said.

The Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation would rank with others such as the Ford Foundation, which is valued at $4.7 billion, Executive Director Cole Wilbur said Thursday. Currently the foundation has $145 million in assets and last year it gave away $15 million.

The bulk of the donation will consist of stock contributed to the foundation, a charitable organization created by the Packards in 1964 to finance education and health projects throughout the world, Wilbur said.

Packard, 75, told Wilbur last week of his intention to leave the money to the foundation when he dies, the director said.

‘Really Make a Difference’

“His feeling is that there is a lot of important concerns in research and education, and he’d like to help develop them and to help really make a difference in this community and the world,” Wilbur said.

Packard was away from his office and unavailable for comment, the company said.

Packard’s wife died in May, 1987, and the couple’s four children are closely involved in planning the donation, Wilbur said.

All four of the Packard children are members of the board of trustees of the foundation. Two have graduate degrees in marine biology, one has a computer science degree and one is a classics scholar with an engineering degree.

Packard is chairman of the Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Corp., located in Silicon Valley about 25 miles south of San Francisco. The company is a scientific instrument and computer research and development concern founded in 1939 by Packard and William Hewlett.