Alumnus Tim R. Garde commits $50,000 to create new Trustee Scholarship

Tim R. Garde, a 1978 Penn State graduate in accounting, has committed $50,000 to the Smeal College of Business to establish the Tim R. Garde Trustee Scholarship, which aims to help support the financial needs of deserving students.

Garde comes from an entrepreneurial family and started his career with his family’s drug distribution and medical equipment company, the publicly-held Spectro Industries. There, he eventually served as the company’s senior vice president of marketing and chief operating officer of the medical equipment division.

After Spectro was acquired by McKesson in 1985, Garde rose through a number of ventures in his career, including serving on a senior-level management task force to start a new business entity for at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He then moved into a position with Vox Medica’s Healthcare Marketing Communications Group in Philadelphia, where he eventually became executive vice president and general manager.

In 2007, Garde joined Star Group Communications, Inc., a marketing communications company, as managing partner of Star Group and its life sciences group Star Life Sciences. Since then, Garde has become more actively involved with his alma mater by serving on the Smeal Alumni Society Board, lecturing in marketing classes several times a year and playing an active role in Smeal’s recent branding efforts. Last year, he decided he wanted to deepen his relationship with the college in the form of a scholarship commitment.

“I hope that this scholarship brings real value to the students and to the Smeal community at large,” said Garde. “I’ve always felt that, if you’re fortunate enough to be able to give back, you should do it.”

“Timmy’s involvement with the college truly exemplifies how our strong alumni network differentiates the Smeal education,” said Charles H. Whiteman, the John and Becky Surma Dean of Smeal. “His active volunteerism and contributions to current students make a tangible impact in the Smeal College of Business.”

The Trustee Matching Scholarship Program maximizes the impact of private giving while directing funds to students as quickly as possible, meeting the urgent need for scholarship support. In this groundbreaking philanthropic model, Penn State matches 10 percent of the total pledge or gift at the time a Trustee Scholarship is created, making funds available immediately for student awards. This University match, which is approximately double the endowment's annual spendable income, continues in perpetuity, tripling the support available for students with financial need.

The Tim R. Garde Trustee Scholarship will help the Smeal College of Business to reach its goals in For the Future: The Campaign for Penn State Students. This University-wide effort is directed toward a shared vision of Penn State as the most comprehensive, student-centered research university in America. The University is engaging Penn State's alumni and friends as partners in achieving six key objectives: ensuring student access and opportunity, enhancing honors education, enriching the student experience, building faculty strength and capacity, fostering discovery and creativity and sustaining the University's tradition of quality. The campaign's top priority is keeping a Penn State degree affordable for students and families. The For the Future campaign is the most ambitious effort of its kind in Penn State's history, with the goal of securing $2 billion by June 30, 2014.