1996 Annual Report
Leonard Ely
Some of the best advice I ever had was from my grandfather," Leonard Ely, Jr., of Palo Alto recalls. "He said, `If you ever make a decision and everybody agrees with you, then you are the slowest guy in the crowd.'"
Ely's grandfather was Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D., who from 1916 to the early 1940s was President of Stanford University, guiding it from being a sleepy, small "Farm" school to being poised on the brink of greatness.
Young Ely took that advice to heart, even to disagreeing with a tradition that just about everyone in the family should be a physician. As the oldest of 22 grandchildren (comprising one of Palo Alto's great families), Ely charted a course for himself that took him into business and ultimately into "giving back to the community" in time, money and personal leadership.
He and a twin sister were born in 1923 in the old Palo Alto Hospital on Embarcadero Road, where the lawn bowling green is now. The family moved in 1927 to a house his father built in the 2100 block of Bryant--a home which Ely nearly two decades later purchased and still resides in with his wife, Shirley.
"My father was 56 when I was born--and we were the oldest, with a younger sister and brother yet to follow--and he soon got called by the IRS. They said, `You can't deduct your grandchildren,'" Ely recalls. Leonard Ely, Sr., was a distinguished orthopedic surgeon and medical school professor.
Ely credits his father with giving him the freedom to be himself: "In the Wilbur family, because they were all doctors, you were expected to be a doctor," he recalls. But Ely was inclined toward business. "My dad told me that if I knew I wanted to go into business I should go do it. There was no pressure to become a doctor; I really appreciated that."
Ely says he was "not a real good student" until he reached Stanford after World War II: "In the second year of Business School I got the best grades in my life because I was doing something I really wanted to do instead of something that was required."
As a young Air Force pilot, Ely participated in bombing raids in the Philippines and over Japan --including one unforgettable raid: "We were bombing the island of Kyushu, and one day, flying toward Japan, we saw the big mushroom cloud over Nagasaki but didn't know what it was." Later they realized it was The Bomb.
In 1954, he opened a Chrysler dealership in Redwood City, and in 1961 added one in Palo Alto (later moved to Menlo Park). "In 1970 I had to get my hip replaced (a problem from childhood) so I sold the Redwood City dealership--and changed the Menlo agency to Chevrolet." Becoming "bored just running dealerships," he created two leasing companies and two land companies before he retired in 1985.
His retirement was the start of a new career, one that has given Ely great satisfaction and extensive community gratitude. He has never counted the organizations of which he has been part--"a lot," he says. He is especially proud of his work with the Community Foundation, Castilleja School, the Gamble Garden Center and PAMF and its predecessor, the Palo Alto Medical Research Foundation--stemming from an interest in research his father had.
"I did well in business so I thought I'd like to give my time to the community in what I like to do--starting things and reversing things when they're going wrong.
"I've thought a lot about where philanthropy comes from, and why it is a unique U.S. phenomenon--and I think Bill Hewlett has it figured out: The people who came to this country were independent but they helped each other.... As we came together in urban communities we started donating money." After many years of trying to fix things via Washington, D.C., "they're now saying, `Hey, you solve it locally,'" Ely notes approvingly.
He is seriously concerned about HMO managers making decisions that should be made locally by physicians. But, he says, that makes it even more important for institutions such as PAMF to be strong enough to defend their ability to make decisions locally.
There's also a new emphasis on health and preventive care. "In the past we would be out raising money to build or fix a hospital. The new way is to keep people out of the hospital"--something PAMF's new campus will enhance, Ely says. "But it will take a terrific amount of dollars to make the whole thing possible," and local community support will make a huge difference, he adds.