By Ellen DiBiase
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly. Read the complete issue at http://bit.ly/10W17nX.
As Harker’s “Cornerstones for Success” campaign continues to gain momentum, the school’s advancement team is proud to announce that Jeffrey and Marieke Rothschild (Isaac, grade 11) have made a generous visionary level gift to the campaign.
The celebrated purchase of the Union Avenue campus accelerated the need for Harker to swiftly address the cross-campus improvements outlined in its strategic plan. Now, thanks to the generosity of current parents like the Rothschilds, several much-needed facilities will be in place for the upcoming generation of Harker students.
Involved with Harker since 2010, Jeff and Marieke Rothschild have been very supportive of the capital campaign to build a sports and performing arts complex on the upper school campus. After meeting with Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, to first learn about the benefits of Harker purchasing a third property and building the proposed complex on the upper school campus, the duo have offered valuable input on the process.
Jeff Rothschild began his career as an engineer working on operating systems and mainframe storage systems with Honeywell and Intel. In 1994, he joined Accel as an entrepreneur-in-residence, which later led to his initial involvement with Facebook as a consultant. After his consultancy via Accel ended at Facebook, he was asked to stay on as a staff member to assist in maintaining the resiliency of their expansive system of servers. He currently serves as the vice president of technology at Facebook, a role he has held since 2009, and continues to maintain his relationship with Accel as a consulting partner.
He and his wife have long supported a variety of educational institutions both locally and across the country. The Rothschilds sponsor a scholarship for undergraduate students in financial need at Vanderbilt University (Jeff’s alma mater), and earlier this year he participated in the 2013 Harker TEDx conference as a guest speaker.
The Harker TEDx program, run solely by students to foster and promote dialogue on youth entrepreneurship, began in 2011 and continues to grow each year with support from parent entrepreneurs who are willing to spend their time mentoring Bay Area students. Isaac Rothschild has also been active in youth entrepreneurship, representing Harker at the Entrepreneurship Leadership Conference this past March after being nominated by Harker faculty to attend.
The Harker School extends its gratitude to the Rothschild family for their charitable gift to the school and welcomes them to an exceptional group of capital campaign donors who have long supported the school’s growth across all three campuses.