May 09, 2006 - Claremont, Calif. -

Sometimes, large gifts come in unforeseen packages.

When 90-year-old Founding President Emeritus Joseph B. Platt steps to the podium to deliver Harvey Mudd College's commencement address this Sunday, May 14, his legacy will be punctuated with a bold new exclamation point.

The college recently received a $15 million bequest from the estate of Katherine Hackstaff Schlegel that wasn't altogether unforeseen. Platt and his band of founding trustees first reached out to her father John D. Hackstaff, an engineer who lived and worked in Los Angeles, in 1959. This was four years after the college's founding in December 1955 and during the year before Hackstaff's death in 1960, he visited the college, donated books to its library and provided advice on how to create a meaningful curriculum in its fledgling engineering science department.

After Hackstaff's death, Platt sent condolences to his widow Florence and continued to invite her to college events, as he did with the couple's only child Katherine when her mother passed away nine years later. When Katherine died on Dec. 31, 2003, at age 93, it was learned that she had perpetuated her parents' interests and named Harvey Mudd College as the residual beneficiary of her estate. HMC received $14.96 million, plus jewelry and other personal items.

A early distribution of the estate was received in 2005 and included $2 million for the construction of the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons, where the Hackstaff Atrium is located. One-half million dollars was used to match a challenge by an anonymous donor to endow the Joseph B. Platt Professorship in Teaching Excellence; $2.2 million helped to complete a challenge match by late Trustee Joseph Jacobs to fund the Jacobs Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. The remaining $10.2 million will be used to endow scholarships for Harvey Mudd College students.

Katherine Hackstaff Schlegel received her B.A. from UCLA and M.A. from Columbia University and worked for many years in the personnel department of the now-defunct Los Angeles Savings and Loan. She was an active supporter of several charities, including PEO and the Ebell Club. Her only stipulation on the gift was that it be used to establish the John D. Hackstaff Fund and that projects or activities supported by the fund give credit to her father.

Born in St. Louis in 1877, John Hackstaff was a mechanical engineer, specializing in oil and gas transmission lines and held a patent in oil drilling technology. He graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1898 and served a brief time as general manager of Southern California Gas Company and Midway Gas Company. He moved to Los Angeles in 1912 and served for many years as general manager of Empire Pipeline Co. based in Bartlesville, Okla. He was a member of the Society of Mechanical Engineers and served two terms on the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.

Among the personal items left to the college was a treasure of historical memorabilia in the form of documents detailing the involvement of Katherine's grandmother Priscilla Hackstaff in the women's suffrage movement, including letters from Susan B. Anthony.

Platt, who left his position as professor of physics at the University of Rochester to become HMC's first president, guided it for its first two decades. He remains active in teaching physics at the college and recently regaled alumni with his traditional campfire sign-along during Alumni Weekend. Platt was feted at a 90th birthday celebration last year.