Stephen Peeps Named President and CEO of New Foundation

PALO ALTO – Stephen Peeps has been named president and chief executive officer of the new Lucile Packard Foundation for Children, Richard E. Behrman, M.D., chairman of the foundation’s board of directors, has announced. Peeps, who is currently associate vice president for development at Stanford University, will join the foundation on May 27.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children, a nonprofit public benefit corporation, was incorporated on August 29, 1996. Its general mission is to address the special health care needs of children and their families by supplementing and supporting direct health services that are provided by a range of community-based organizations and agencies.

The foundation’s initial assets of approximately $65 million were created by a transfer of unrestricted funds from the Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford when that hospital merged with Stanford Health Services in January. These assets have since been converted to a permanent endowment that the foundation aims to increase significantly through fundraising. A portion of the endowment’s annual income, as well as future gifts raised, will be distributed as grants, once grantmaking guidelines have been set.

The Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, as a provider of premier medical and surgical pediatric services for children, will likely be a primary and continuing focus of the foundation’s support, but will not be its exclusive grantee, Behrman said.

Other areas of concentration, as well as specific grantmaking guidelines and the foundation’s geographic reach, are under initial consideration by the board of directors. Peeps, as the foundation’s new president, will lead the board in making those decisions, which may take the balance of 1997, Behrman said. This will include extensive consultation with other charities and children’s health service providers throughout the region. Proposals will not be considered, nor will grants be made by the foundation until further notice.

Peeps, 44, has served in various senior roles at Stanford since earning his undergraduate degree there in 1974. Prior to his current post, he was associate vice president for public affairs. Winner of the Kenneth C. Cuthbertson Award, the university’s highest honor for administrative service, Peeps also holds a master’s degree in education from Harvard University.