Mayo Clinic is forming a new permanent professorship to augment cancer research that will focus on finding new treatments and preventive measures to reduce the incidence of cancer. This professorship is made possible by a $2 million gift from The Vasek and Anna Maria Polak Charitable Foundation, and the recipient, Keith Stewart, M.B., Ch.B., has been approved by the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees.
“This gift is a demonstration of the trust that is placed in us to do work that truly matters.”
Vasek Polak was a native of Prague, Czech Republic. He fled Prague in 1948 and later came to the West Coast, where he was the owner of the first Porsche-only dealership in the United States, located in Manhattan Beach, Calif. In 1983, he married Anna Maria Littlejohn; the two met when he repaired her car. She died of cancer in 1993. In 1997, Mr. Polak passed away at the age of 82. The Vasek and Anna Maria Polak Charitable Foundation, located in Torrance, Calif., was established with assets from Mr. Vasek Polak.
The Vasek and Anna Maria Polak Charitable Foundation chose to make this commitment to Mayo even though the clinic is not within the geographic regions that it was primarily established to support. Jeff Bucher, co-trustee of the foundation, felt it was the right decision to make after experiencing Mayo Clinic’s style of patient care.
“We generally fund only medical institutions within the state of California,” said Mr. Bucher before his death in June 2009. “But in this case, we recognized the global impact that Mayo Clinic has. In addition, many patients from California seek care at Mayo Clinic’s locations in Phoenix and Scottsdale, where the named professor practices.”
Jeffrey Bucher had been a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area and served as co-trustee for the foundation. Mr. Bucher also was a Mayo Clinic patient who was impressed by Mayo Clinic’s facilities and the care he received — so much so that he and his co-trustee, Soterios “Sam” Menzelos, made this thoughtful commitment outside of the foundation’s usual geographic area of support.