Founding Benefactor of Hoag Hospital Dies at 77

The founding benefactor of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian died Thursday night at the medical center he helped build in the early 1950s, hospital officials said.

George G. Hoag II, 77, of Newport Beach was having dinner with his wife, Patty, when he suffered a cardiac arrest, said Stacey Brussard, a hospital spokeswoman. Paramedics took him to Hoag Hospital, where he died about 7 p.m.

Hoag and his parents founded the George Hoag Family Foundation, which was named after his father.

“The foundation was organized to promote charitable endeavors,” Brussard said.

In 1950, the foundation donated $500,000 to a local Presbyterian group to build Hoag Hospital, which opened two years later with 75 beds. The hospital now has 416 beds, Brussard said.

The foundation also donated $1.5 million to establish the George Grant Hoag Professorship at Caltech and hundreds of thousands of dollars to other programs, including $150,000 to UCI Medical Center’s Regional Poison Control Center.

In addition to his wife, Hoag is survived by three children, Grant and Stephen Hoag of Paso Robles and Melinda Smith of Santa Monica, and seven grandchildren.