A Gift to the Next Generation
Coulter-Jones supports research and care in pediatrics
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| Laura Coulter-Jones, B.S. ’80, M.B.A. ’90, enjoys spending more time with daughter Michelle these days. |
Laura Coulter-Jones, B.S. ’80, M.B.A. ’90, doesn’t miss the grueling workdays that infringed on her time with her daughter, Michelle. Nor
does she miss making pressure-packed decisions that affected thousands
of workers, as well as business lines worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
When it comes to
life as a high-powered executive, Coulter-Jones has been there, done that. She looks back on her time with the Miami-based Coulter Corporation, a family-built manufacturer of biomedical testing instrument systems, as a deeply satisfying experience that’s been relegated
to her past.
These days, the Coral Gables resident loves to go boating with her husband, Mike, and is content to be
a full-time mom, gardener, and philanthropist who recently made a $750,000 gift to the Department of Pediatrics.
Of that list of things, naturally being
a stay-at-home mother is of paramount importance.
It’s a role Coulter-Jones fulfills gratefully, in light of the fact that her first bid to start a family ended in heartbreak.
“Basically, I had a little boy who came down with viral meningitis when he was a week old,” Coulter-Jones says of Michael William Jones, who was born in 1993 and was named after her husband. “Michael passed away when
he was 11 months old. The meningitis pretty much went straight to his heart.”
Coulter-Jones and her husband
had their firstborn flown from Miami
to Pittsburgh in an unsuccessful effort
to arrange a heart transplant. Both parents were amazed by how rapidly their medical costs escalated as they fought to save their son’s life.
“We were fairly well off and
could pay what insurance didn’t cover,” Coulter-Jones says. “We felt bad for those who couldn’t.”
That sentiment largely explains why Coulter-Jones’s philanthropic endeavors frequently have a health care nexus. Coulter-Jones helped establish and has supported the Pediatric Mobile Clinic, which provides free health care to uninsured children. Also, ten years
ago the Coulter family gave Jackson Memorial Hospital $5 million to
erect a pathology facility.
Coulter-Jones started devoting a significant amount of time to charitable activities in 1997, when the Coulter Corporation was acquired by Beckman Instruments, forming Beckman Coulter, Inc., which is headquartered in California. That same year, Coulter-Jones created the Laura Gene Coulter-Jones Foundation, which
was later shortened to the L. Coulter Foundation. She became a University
of Miami trustee in 1998.
There are a couple of reasons
why Coulter-Jones is drawn to the Department of Pediatrics. For one,
she thinks highly of Steven Lipshultz, M.D., professor and chair of pediatrics. “After reading about Dr. Lipshultz’s work, and how he discovered that
some adult heart medicines are bad
for children, I thought that pediatrics would be a good place to focus,” Coulter-Jones reveals.
Coulter-Jones also has an affinity
for pediatrics because of something
she’s wondered about since her baby boy’s damaged heart caused him to succumb to organ failure. “If there was some genetic abnormality, could they have treated him differently?” Coulter-Jones wonders.
Not long ago, that question spurred her to make a gift to support pediatric genetic research. Her most recent donation of $750,000 will establish Michelle’s Gym, a facility bearing her daughter’s name. Located on the fifth floor of the Batchelor Children’s Research Institute, the goal of Michelle’s Gym is to prevent and treat disorders linked to heart disease, obesity, and nutritional imbalance.
Consider it Laura Coulter-Jones’s way of paying homage to both of her children, as well as her way of ensuring that other parents never have to experience the loss she endured 16 years ago. |
