[The] father [of William Henry Gates II, aka Bill Sr.] was a workaholic who sacrificed child-rearing to work at a furniture store he owned with a partner. "His complete focus was on the store," Bill Sr. says.

Mr. Gates Sr. [, son of William Henry Gates I ,] early on built a life outside of his home. Next door, the Braman family had two boys for him to play with and a father who would become his most important role model [for William Henry Gates II ].

That man, Dorm Braman, had built his business and would later become a Naval officer, mayor of Seattle and a U.S. assistant secretary of transportation. In the late 1930s, Mr. Braman brought Bill Sr. on family road trips across the country. He was scoutmaster of Bill Sr.'s Boy Scout troop, leading the boys on hikes through the Olympic Mountains and driving them in a beat-up bus to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. The troop spent two years building a log house from Douglas firs they felled themselves. Mr. Braman had "no sense of personal limitations whatsoever," says Mr. Gates Sr.

Heading for Depression

With peace went the booming prosperity of the second decade of the twentieth century, and Bremerton settled into a period of slower growth. Employment at the base tapered off from the wartime high of 6,500 to bottom out at fewer than 2,500 by 1927, but the town itself had grown to a point that many businesses could survive by serving the area's civilian population and the lessened needs of the military. Homes were being built, car dealerships opened, services expanded, and optimism prevailed.

Bremerton absorbed the next-door community of Charleston in 1927, further increasing its population and tax base. In 1928, construction began on the light cruiser USS Louisville, and employment at the naval yard jumped by 1,000, providing additional flotation to the local economy. In June 1929, just four months before the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, Bremerton voters passed an $835,000 bond issue to improve the city's water system and to build an electrical plant.

In November, after the bottom fell out of the world economy, work began on a bridge linking Bremerton with the former Manette, now East Bremerton, financed almost entirely by public subscription. When the full effects of the Depression set in, Bremerton, perhaps inured to some degree by the previous economic ups and downs of the naval yard, actually managed better than most towns and cities.

Surviving the Thirties

The Manette Bridge opened to great fanfare in June 1930, and with that completed the people of Bremerton tackled the Great Depression. A Puget Sound Navy Yard Stabilization Bureau was established to lobby in Washington D.C., for shipyard work, and each worker at the yard pledged $5 a year to support its efforts. They also agreed to regular payroll deductions to help support Kitsap County's unemployed, and all employed workers in the county were asked to give up one day's pay a month for the same purpose.

The federal government did its part too, and the shipyard actually expanded during the Depression years. Concerns over Japan's actions in the Pacific led to orders for several new ships. County projects funded by the Works Progress Administration also helped. So successful were these combined efforts that Bremerton experienced record growth in 1934 and 1935, and by the end of the decade its population had increased by half, to over 15,000. By 1940, when the national unemployment rate was still well over 14 percent of the labor force, Bremerton's stood at just 6.9 percent. Bremerton was doing well, and in 1937 its incorporated status was upgraded to city of the second class.

Business was good enough that the Bremerton Chamber of Commerce, which had been in existence since 1907, saw fit to formally incorporate in March 1938. The incorporation papers were signed by its treasurer, William H. Gates Sr., grandfather of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. And during the late 1930s and early 1940s, Bremerton was also home to the controversial founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.

His father owned, then sold and worked in, a furniture store. Neither of his parents went to high school. A year after his graduation from Bremerton High School in 1943, Gates Sr. received a letter ordering him to active duty. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, completed officer candidate school and was shipped to Japan shortly after its surrender. He traveled to Hokkaido, the nothernmost island of Japan, and a war-torn Tokyo.

In 1961, Edmark unveiled a defibrillator that operated on direct current. When a heart goes into fibrillation, it begins to flutter and is unable to pump blood through the body. Defibrillators administer an electrical shock, which momentarily stuns the heart and allows it to return to a regular heartbeat. Until Edmark introduced his DC Pulse Defibrillator, medical defibrillators used AC, or alternating current, which caused patients to spasm violently because of the high voltage. The DC defibrillator allowed surgeons to administer a more-controlled, low-voltage shock that restored the heartbeat without causing additional trauma.

Edmark licensed manufacturing and distribution rights to the DC Pulse Defibrillator and the Pressure Pulsometer to American Optical, one of the first big companies to enter the electronic medical-instruments industry. Over the next few years, Physio-Control, which had been bankrolled by Edmark and a few personal friends, received about $10,000 annually in royalties, which was plowed back into research.

Then in 1965, American Optical announced that it had refined Edmark's inventions to the point where it no longer felt it needed a licensing agreement with Physio-Control to manufacture and sell the devices. Without a source of revenue, Edmark faced a decision: either he could shut down Physio-Control or begin running it as a business instead of a research laboratory. He chose the later. He also asked [William Hunter Simpson (born 1926)], then Northwest district manager for IBM Corp. in Seattle, if he was interested in becoming Physio-Control's first full-time president.

[William Hunter Simpson (born 1926)] had known Edmark since 1963, when he had hired the cardiologist as a consultant. At the time, IBM, which designed the first heart-lung machine for the Mayo Clinic, had been interested in further exploring the medical instruments industry. Although it meant giving up a secure position and taking a cut in pay, Simpson accepted Edmark's offer, starting his new job in January 1966.

A graduate of the School of Business at the University of Washington, who also had studied pre-med, [William Hunter Simpson (born 1926)] spent his first year at Physio-Control raising $300,000 in venture capital, attracting local investors such as Bagley Wright, whose company, Pentagram Corp., built the Space Needle for the Seattle World's Fair. He also changed the name of the company to Physio-Control Corporation, and more narrowly defined the company's market niche. According to Harriet and Terry King in The Team, a book published by Physio-Control detailing its first 25 years, Simpson told the company's five employees, "Our immediate goal is to install coronary care systems in Puget Sound hospitals and smother them with love, attention and service. After that, when the time is right, we can think about marketing nationally."

[...] Gates helped take [Physio-Control Corporation] public in 1971 — the same year that drivers on SeaTac’s stretch of Highway 99 were confronted by an infamous billboard asking “Will the last person leaving SEATTLE — Turn out the lights” erected in response to a spate of layoffs at Boeing, then the region’s largest employer. It was also four years before Gates Jr. and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft, a company that would eventually reshape the Seattle region and the larger tech ecosystem.

The success of [Physio-Control Corporation] was “the beginning of that positive feedback of people starting a technology company and doing well and going on to found new companies, and to serve as an angel investor to others,” said Malarkey, of the Technology Alliance.

The angel investing of Gates Sr. and his peers, she said, had “a spirit of community building.”

And his dad’s engagement in tech ventures helped fan his son’s curiosity about the field.

“As a sixth grader, he had me go down and meet with Dr. Edmark and [William Hunter Simpson (born 1926) , who was Physio’s president and CEO], and I wrote a long report about Physio-Control,” Gates Jr. said. Gates later worked with some employees at Intermec to develop the tape reader that he and Allen used at Traf-O-Data, their pre-Microsoft venture created to analyze traffic-counting data.

Celebrating the legacy of the man who 100 years ago shepherded in the era of modern philanthropy, the inaugural Andrew Carnegie Medals of Philanthropy were awarded today to seven world-renowned benefactors who have forged new visions for the philanthropic community as it embarks on a new century -- and millennium -- of giving.

The laureates of the first Andrew Carnegie Medals -- some of whom represent families -- are among the most illustrious in the history of philanthropy. They are Ambassadors Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg on behalf of the Annenberg Foundation, Brooke Astor, Irene Diamond, the Gates family, David and Laurance S. Rockefeller on behalf of the Rockefeller family, George Soros and Ted Turner

The awards ceremony took place at the New York Public Library, symbolizing the great importance Mr. Carnegie placed on libraries. His early philanthropic contributions focused on libraries and some 2,500 public libraries were built in his name around the world.

"The Andrew Carnegie Medals of Philanthropy honor an extraordinary group of benefactors who understand the pivotal role that philanthropy plays in developing and sustaining our democratic institutions," said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and chair of the executive committee of the 21 Carnegie institutions worldwide that spearheaded the centennial events.

"The laureates represent the diversity of the philanthropic community and its wide range of views on giving," Gregorian added. "December 10th offers an unprecedented opportunity to showcase these remarkable people, who are following in the path of Mr. Carnegie. By celebrating his legacy and theirs, we seek to reinvigorate and challenge the philanthropic community for tomorrow."

Also serving on the executive committee of the Carnegie Centennial were Maxine Frank Singer, president of Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Jessica T. Mathews, president of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

An audience of cultural, philanthropic and government leaders attended as history's first Carnegie Medals were presented by dignitaries with household names. The presenters included television journalists Tom Brokaw, Bill Moyers and Barbara Walters; Pulitzer-Prize winning historian David McCullough; AOL Time Warner Co-Chief Operating Officer [Richard Dean "Dick" Parsons (born 1948)]; the respected AIDS researcher and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and World Bank Managing Director Mamphela Ramphele. CNN's Senior Anchor Judy Woodruff, a trustee of Carnegie Corporation of New York, served as the master of ceremonies.

The awards ceremony celebrated one of the most important financial transactions of the 20th century, when J.P. Morgan purchased U.S. Steel for $480 million (the equivalent of $10.6 billion today) from Andrew Carnegie, who then devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy on a level not then seen in America or anywhere else. By his death, Mr. Carnegie had given away 90 percent of his fortune.

The awards ceremony formed the high point of the daylong centennial celebration, during which leaders of Carnegie institutions worldwide held a first-ever joint board meeting aimed at revitalizing their missions prior to jointly awarding the Carnegie medals and bronze bust of Andrew Carnegie to the seven laureates.

The Carnegie family of institutions voted on a resolution to select and award the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Philanthropy biennially.

According to citations for the awardees, Ambassadors [Walter Hubert Annenberg (born 1908)] and [Leonore "Lee" Cohn Annenberg (born 1918)], who jointly head the Annenberg Foundation, were selected for the historic role their foundation has played in helping America's schoolchildren meet the challenges of the 21st century and for their personal commitment to strengthening education and the arts. Among their many gifts is the $500 million Annenberg Challenge Grant, the largest single gift ever bestowed on public education in the United States. Ambassador Leonore Annenberg accepted the award on behalf of her husband and herself.

Brooke Astor, who as president of the Vincent Astor Foundation has been a major force behind the revitalization of the New York Public Library, was chosen for her unstinting efforts on behalf of New York City's great cultural and education institutions during 40 years of inspired philanthropy.

[Irene Levine Diamond (born 1910)] -- who discovered the property that became the Hollywood classic Casablanca and who helped bring Burt Lancaster and Robert Redford to Hollywood -- was selected for her trailblazing gifts to combat AIDS and to educate the public about the disease. She served as president of the Aaron Diamond Foundation, which distributed all of its assets and became the nation's largest private supporter of AIDS research. She was also recognized for her continuing support of the arts in New York City.

The Gates family -- William H. Gates III, Melinda French Gates and William H. Gates Sr. -- who are setting new standards of giving for the 21st century as heads of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, were selected for their leadership in reaffirming an ethic of responsibility to the world at large and for their landmark efforts to promote health equity around the globe, help all students achieve and to bridge the digital divide. William H. Gates, Sr., accepted the award on behalf of the Gates family.

The Rockefeller family was recognized for its exceptional record of philanthropy over the last century. Third and fourth generations of the family now continue to build on philanthropic roots established by John D. Rockefeller, who, along with Andrew Carnegie, set standards for all who followed. David Rockefeller accepted the award on behalf of himself, his brother, Laurance S. Rockefeller, and the entire Rockefeller family.

George Soros, whose global network of foundations and Open Society Institutes spend nearly a half-billion dollars each year to support projects in education, public health, civil society development and other areas, was chosen as a laureate for his leadership and vision in fostering open societies and a better life for billions of citizens of the world.

Ted Turner was selected for his leadership in the philanthropic arena, particularly with his historic $1 billion gift to the United Nations, for his passionate stewardship of the environment and for the Nuclear Threat Initiative to reduce the global threat posed by nuclear and biological weapons.

Capping the Carnegie Centennial was an evening concert at Carnegie Hall, which Andrew Carnegie founded in 1889 after acquiring seven parcels of land on 57th Street, considered at the time an outpost on the city's cultural map.

Andrew Carnegie's philanthropic efforts actually began in 1870. In "The Gospel of Wealth," which he published in 1889, he outlined his philosophy of giving, which asserted that the rich are merely "trustees" of their wealth and are under a moral obligation to distribute it in ways that promote the welfare and happiness of the common man. He died in 1919, leaving his wife and their daughter. His great grandsons Roswell Miller and Kenneth Miller -- whose 15-month-old son is the first in the family to be named Andrew Carnegie -- attended Carnegie Centennial events.

Born November 30, 1925 (age 94) Bremerton, Washington

Alma mater University of Washington (BA, JD)

Occupation Lawyer

Height 6 ft 6 in (198 cm)

Spouse(s)

• Mary Maxwel ( m. 1951; d. 1994)

• Mimi Gardner ( m. 1996)

Children

3; including Bill

William Henry Gates II^[2] (born November 30, 1925), better known as Bill Gates Sr., is an American attorney and philanthropist, and author of the book Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime. He is the father of Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft.

One of a line of businessmen named William H. Gates, and sometimes called William Gates Jr. during his career, he is now generally known as William Henry Gates Sr. due to the greater prominence of his son Bill Gates (whose full name is William Henry Gates III). He has adopted the suffix "Sr." to distinguish himself from his more famous son.

Career

[...]

[Bill Gates... between 1951 and 1964 ???]

While at Washington he joined the Chi Psi fraternity. He co-founded Shidler & King in 1964, which later became Preston Gates & Ellis LLP (PGE). He practiced with the firm until 1998, when it was merged into the firm now known as K&L Gates (with which Bill Gates Sr. is not affiliated).

Gates has served as president of both the Seattle/King County Bar Association and the Washington State Bar Association. He has also served on the boards of numerous Northwest organizations, including the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce,^[4] King County United Way and Planned Parenthood.^[1][5][6] In 1995, he founded the Technology Alliance whose mission is to expand technology-based employment in Washington.^[4]

In 1998, Gates retired from PGE. He served for fifteen years on the Board of Regents for the University of Washington,^[7] and is a co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,^[1] which his son Bill and his daughter-in-law Melinda founded. He has served as a director for Costco Wholesale, a bulk retail corporation, since 2003. He is also a founding co-chair of the Pacific Health Summit.^[8]

Gates is co-author, with Chuck Collins, of the book Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes, a defense of the policies promoted by the estate tax.^[9][10]

William H. Gates Sr. serves as an Honorary Chair for the World Justice Project.^[4] The project works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

Personal life

In 1951, he married Mary Maxwell Gates (1929-1994), whom he met at the University of Washington (UW), and they remained married until her death in 1994. They had three children: Kristianne, Bill, and Libby. His two daughters, Kristi Blake and Libby Armintrout, are both active members of the UW community.^[1]

In 1996, Gates married his second wife Mimi Gardner Gates (b. 1943), who was the director of the Seattle Art Museum.^[1]

He has been a lifelong supporter of the Washington Huskies college football team.^[7]

In 2018, it was revealed that he suffers from Alzheimer's disease.^[11][12]

Awards and recognition

• Awarded Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, to acknowledge his business and civic success at least 25 years after earning Eagle Scout rank^[13][14]

• [...]

• President of Washington State Bar Association, 1986–1986

• Recipient of University of Washington School of Law Distinguished Alumnus, 1991

• Recipient of American Judicature Society's Herbert Harley Award, 1992

• Served on Board for Judicial Administration, Washington State Supreme Court, 1993–1995

• Served on Board of Regents, University of Washington, 1997–2012

• Inducted into American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2003

• William H. Gates Hall at UW's School of Law was named for him in 2003^[15]

• Public Education Foundation speaker at Edmonds-Woodway, 2004

• Awarded Washington Medal of Merit, 2009

• Recipient of Chi Psi Fraternity's Albert S. Bard Award, 2010, for contributions to the intellectual and cultural life of the community

• Recipient of UW Alumni Association's Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus (ASLD) Award, 2013^[16]

Bill Gerberding (UW president, 1979–1995) described Bill Gates Sr. as "a good man with a big heart [and] generous public spirit", while former Seattle Mayor Norman Rice has characterized Gates' core values as "social justice and economic opportunity".^[1]

[...] Or that Gates Sr. has been a tremendous civic leader, advocating for controversial causes including serving on the local and national boards of Planned Parenthood before Roe v. Wade, and campaigning as the face of a state income-tax initiative in Washington state. And there’s his leadership for the world’s largest philanthropic trust, plus supporting numerous other global health, education and arts charities, as well as his devotion to the University of Washington and 15 years on its Board of Regents.

“His fingerprints are all over so many things,” said Jim Sinegal, co-founder and former CEO of Costco, on whose board Gates Sr. served. “The list goes on and on. It’s pretty tough to find something that doesn’t have his stamp on it somewhere along the line.”

But those lists represent just a small portion of Gates’ professional and charitable activities, and they only tell a fraction of his story. Because while his service on boards and his work leading fundraisers pack an epic CV, what most impresses the people who’ve worked and volunteered alongside Bill Sr. isn’t found on his resume.

[...]

Early days of Northwest tech

[...]

Gates’ first wife, Mary Maxwell, was a fellow UW Husky and they had three children together: Kristi, Bill (known by family and close friends as “Trey” in reference to the three card in a playing-card deck) and Libby.

Early in his law career, Gates Sr. and his law firm became involved in the region’s nascent tech industry, and that involvement only strengthened and expanded over time.

[...]

Gates’ early legal clients included Redmond’s [Physio-Control Corporation], a pioneer in heart defibrillators led by Dr. Karl William Edmark, and Intermec Corp., an Everett-based business and creator of the most widely used barcode symbols and the hand-held barcode scanner. Gates was on the board of directors for both companies.

Gates helped take [Physio-Control Corporation] public in 1971 — the same year that drivers on SeaTac’s stretch of Highway 99 were confronted by an infamous billboard asking “Will the last person leaving SEATTLE — Turn out the lights” erected in response to a spate of layoffs at Boeing, then the region’s largest employer. It was also four years before Gates Jr. and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft, a company that would eventually reshape the Seattle region and the larger tech ecosystem.

The success of [Physio-Control Corporation] was “the beginning of that positive feedback of people starting a technology company and doing well and going on to found new companies, and to serve as an angel investor to others,” said Malarkey, of the Technology Alliance.

The angel investing of Gates Sr. and his peers, she said, had “a spirit of community building.”

And his dad’s engagement in tech ventures helped fan his son’s curiosity about the field.

“As a sixth grader, he had me go down and meet with Dr. Edmark and [William Hunter Simpson (born 1926) , who was Physio’s president and CEO], and I wrote a long report about Physio-Control,” Gates Jr. said. Gates later worked with some employees at Intermec to develop the tape reader that he and Allen used at Traf-O-Data, their pre-Microsoft venture created to analyze traffic-counting data.

Stoking the tech engine

A few years after [Physio-Control Corporation] went public, Gates Sr. and others eager to grow the new economy began working with other angel investors to support the region’s burgeoning biotech and IT industries.

Along with Simpson and venture capitalist Tom Cable, the trio founded Washington Research Foundation.

The nonprofit helps research institutions, including the UW, turn their discoveries into commercial products and invests in promising innovations. Established in 1981, the foundation was one of the first organizations of its kind nationally, and has secured more than 110 product licenses, earning more than $350 million for the UW. Gates brought his legal acumen to the project, drafting legislation that granted the organization tax-exempt status.

In 1975, Gates Jr. and Allen started Microsoft, though it wasn’t until the 1980s that the company began taking off with the public release of MS-DOS, Microsoft’s partnership with IBM on the early personal computer, and the introduction of Word and other Office products.

As the younger Gates was trying to grow his company, he came to his dad for advice on non-software decisions and relied on his parents for help recruiting talented employees, particularly those older than himself. Bill and Mary were adept at connecting people and integrating them into social networks.

“I was mono-maniacally focused on Microsoft and quite a bit younger than some of these experienced people we were bringing in,” Gates Jr. said. “Even when I wanted to hire Steve Ballmer, [to get him] to drop out of business school, he was a year in, my parents had him over and were helpful.”

But while Microsoft was growing, computer technology was still a foreign field to many. People didn’t fully appreciate the value of the sector and the role that IT and biotech was to play in everyone’s lives.

So in 1996, Gates Sr. helped launch the Technology Alliance, a tech-centered alternative to the more traditional chamber of commerce, which set about proselytizing the power of IT to local leaders. Part of their mission was visiting other tech hubs — Silicon Valley, Boston, North Carolina — and deconstructing what made them successful in order to try to replicate their strengths in the Northwest.

Gates Sr., who many say has a striking ability to see to the core of an issue and ask the right questions at just the right time, wanted to figure out a way to deliberately cultivate the technology field.

His idea was “maybe we should be smart about this and not rely on happenstance,” said Marty Smith, a former partner at the Preston Gates & Ellis law firm and currently co-founder of MetaJure, a legal technology company.

The Technology Alliance went on to create the Alliance of Angels, one of the region’s most important angel investment networks; as well as Ada Developer’s Academy, a unique and intensive computer training program for women.

“This city would be very different without Bill having lived here,” Smith said, “and that’s nothing to do with Microsoft or Trey.”

But as Gates Jr. and others explained, his dad wasn’t driven so much by a fondness for technology, but by his love of education and the University of Washington, and his desire to promote strong communities and a robust economy. Technology, it seemed, could be harnessed to bolster many of his favorite causes.

“My dad is not a technology person,” Gates said. “He got drawn into that, but he was about, ‘How is this a great community to live in? How is it educating students really well?’”

‘Justice and fairness for all’

Before technology and global health, even before Bill Jr. and his sisters, Gates Sr. was focused on the law.

He earned his law degree and passed the bar exam in 1950. He became heavily involved in the law’s professional associations, including serving as president of the local and the state bar associations, holding multiple leadership positions with the American Bar Association, participating in numerous court commissions, and other posts.

The legal world was a natural fit with some of Gates’ key values.

“This man has the most deeply rooted sense of justice and fairness for all people,” said Connie Kravas, the UW’s leader of fundraising and promotions.

Fellow attorneys said he had a great aptitude for the law, possessing a suite of five skills that makes him unusually talented in the field: He’s an analytical, strategic thinker; empathetic to his clients; has a broad knowledge base; is a great listener and can put himself in his opponent’s shoes; and, because he has all of these skills, is also well respected by other litigators and judges.

“Bill is one of the very few people I’ve seen that has all five,” Smith said. “He was one of the most respected lawyers in town.”

His son is among those who have benefited from Gates Sr.’s legal skills. Beginning in the 1990s, Microsoft faced a series of legal challenges stemming from government accusations that the company engaged in anti-competitive practices. Gates Jr. sought advice from his dad in the matter.

“We had a legal dispute early in Microsoft where I felt sure we were right and we ought to stay the course,” Gates Jr. said. “He helped reinforce that.”

Again, friends and colleagues cite Gates Sr.’s personal actions and demeanor among his greatest professional accomplishments.

Tom Alberg had just begun practicing law in Seattle when he met Gates Sr., who is 15 years older than himself. In the 1960s, Alberg was a local leader among young attorneys and they raised the call for equal rights for black and white lawyers. They needed support from Gates, who held sway in the legal community.

“Bill treated us like equals,” Alberg said. “He wasn’t like, ‘You young kids.’ He was very gracious and listened to what we had to say, at least, and probably gave us good advice.

“He was always very open to younger people and younger lawyers,” said Alberg, who went on to start the venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group and serves on the executive committee for Technology Alliance.

And Gates Sr. was more humane than one might expect a leader at a top firm to be. Colleagues tell stories of the respect with which he treated younger associates. He supported them when they asked for leaves to travel and start families.

Understanding the value of women

Perhaps most striking, Gates Sr. appears to have always regarded women as his equals, despite the fact that he joined the workforce at a time when America was just tuning in to June and Ward Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver.

“The firm was incredibly supportive of women,” said Connie Collingsworth, general counsel at the Gates Foundation and former partner at Preston Gates & Ellis, which is now K&L Gates.

His support was genuine, said Collingsworth, who met Gates Sr. in 1990. “It wasn’t that he was saying, ‘I’m going to meet a quota or a mission agenda point.’ It was subtle. He just did what he thought was right.”

When Gates Sr. helped start the Technology Alliance, a groundbreaking organization addressing the issues of a male-dominated field, he chose Susannah Malarkey to head the group. Malarkey, by her own admission, wasn’t experienced in tech, but Gates saw her potential.

“Bill was way ahead of his time,” Malarkey said. “He understood the value of women when most men of his generation were pretty old school.”

Not surprisingly, friends say Gates applauded the achievements of both of his wives: first Mary, who served as UW regent for 18 years and engaged in numerous civic causes before she passed away in 1994, and then Mimi Gardner, former director of the Seattle Art Museum.

“He was totally comfortable in his own skin and celebrated women accomplishing things,” Malarkey said, noting the parallels between Gates Sr. and his son in this regard. “Bill celebrates Melinda’s success in the same way that Bill and Mary supported one another.”

Gates Sr.’s mother was the one who seeded his respect for women, Gates Jr. said. Gates Sr.’s mother, Lillian Elizabeth Rice, was very sharp, despite having only an eighth-grade education. Gates Sr. was also close to his first mother-in-law, Adelle Maxwell, whom Gates Sr. has described as independent and insightful.

“My two grandmothers, not to insult my grandfathers, were significantly more talented than my grandfathers,” Gates Jr. said. They “were both very smart.”

Trying to level the playing field

Gates Sr.’s quest for fairness and access to opportunities extended beyond his personal interactions into broader social causes, from fundraising at the UW to his leadership at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But his pursuit of a more level playing field led to Gates Sr.’s most visible public defeat: the failure of a voter initiative to establish an income tax for Washington’s richest residents.

Washington arguably has the most regressive tax structure in the nation, meaning the tax burden here is disproportionately higher for the poor than the rich. Gates and others sought to correct that disparity with a 2010 ballot measure, one that would have pumped funds into state education. The initiative would have created an income tax for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually and for couples with incomes of $400,000.

The measure pitted Gates against long-time friends [Daniel Jackson Evans (born 1925)] and Tom Alberg; Steve Ballmer, who in 2000 succeeded Gates Jr. as CEO of Microsoft; Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos; as well as many other tech leaders. Both sides spent millions on the campaign, which supporters lost in a vote of 36 percent in favor and 64 percent against the initiative.

My dad “had a firm conviction” that the income tax was the right solution and “he thought a lot of people would come along and support him,” Gates Jr. said. “Even as that coalition ended up being quite small compared to what he hoped for, he stuck with it.”

And he didn’t hold a grudge against those who saw the issue differently — a trait he displayed on countless occasions.

Opposition over the initiative “hasn’t affected our 55-year-old friendship. It survives easy things like that,” said Evans, a Republican who while governor had twice pushed for a state income tax as part of a broader package of tax reform.

In the five years since the initiative failed, the problem of income inequality has only become more exacerbated. Particularly in the greater Seattle area, an ongoing tech boom continues to push housing prices upward and some residents and leaders fear that lower- and middle-class workers will keep getting priced out of the city — a downside to the success of an IT economy that Gates Sr. surely would not have wanted.

“Seattle is certainly doing well at tech jobs at the moment,” Gates Jr. said. “Some people think too well.”

But Gates Sr. hopes that others will take on the challenge of working toward better communities in his home town and globally.

“[W]hat really makes Washington state great — and the rest of the Pacific Northwest for that matter — [are] the people. I am amazed by how many people have stepped up to help transform the local community into a global hub of partnership, big ideas and the determination necessary to solve tough problems at home and in poor countries,” Gates Sr. said. “I don’t see any signs of that letting up.”

From a box of letters to a billion-dollar foundation

While Gates Sr. wasn’t able to help usher in an income tax, he’s had other avenues for his vision of a fairer world, namely his role co-running the multi-billion-dollar Gates Foundation.

“He’s just the heart and soul of the foundation,” said Collingsworth, general counsel for the organization. “He’s there every day representing the family.”

And he brings with him an enthusiasm that’s helpful when tackling intractable problems of disease and poverty.

“When I come into the office, I am blown away by the signs of progress — both large and small — that prove the world is getting better,” Gates Sr. said. “Earlier this year, for example, the country Nigeria celebrated going a full year without a case of polio. I remember when my children were young and polio was a real terror in the United States. To think that we have wiped out 99 percent of that awful disease — and that the job will, in all likelihood, be finished in just a couple years — is rather remarkable.”

When I come into the office, I am blown away by the signs of progress — both large and small — that prove the world is getting better.

The foundation officially formed in 2000 through the consolidation of multiple charitable organizations supported by the Gates family and Microsoft. But in fact, Gates Sr. was playing an essential role in this arena well before the charity coalesced.

Evans recalled a time he was staying with Bill and Mary at their home in Palm Springs, Calif. Gates Sr. had a big box of letters from people seeking financial support from his son for a variety of causes.

“Bill was the one who said, ‘Son, let me take a look at these,’” Evans said. “That was the beginning of the Gates Foundation.” Gates Sr. perused the inquiries, sorted them and made recommendations to his son.

“Bill counseled him, ‘It’s time for you to begin thinking about what you can give back,’” Evans said.

The Seattle-based foundation has grown to nearly 1,400 employees worldwide helping manage and distribute grants from a trust that totals $41.3 billion. The organization has multiple initiatives, including global health, with an emphasis on vaccines, AIDS and malaria research; alleviating poverty and hunger in developing countries; and in the United States, the foundation is investing in high school and higher education, with a local focus on early learning.

He has this ability to recognize the humanity in everybody.

Friends say that Gates Sr. lives the foundation’s credo that “every life has equal value.”

“He has this ability to recognize the humanity in everybody,” said Smith, Gates Sr.’s former colleague. Whether he’s interacting with an HIV-positive child in India or a head of state, “to Bill there really isn’t a difference. To him they’re each human lives worthy of your attention and time.”

Since it began, the Gates Foundation has issued $34.5 billion in grants. Gates Sr. is a co-chair of the foundation, with direction from his son and daughter-in-law and Warren Buffett, who has contributed billions of dollars to the foundation.

Gates Sr. “has been a steady influence right from the beginning,” said Dr. Bill Foege, who recently retired as senior fellow for the Foundation’s Global Health Program and served as former director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control. “He provides that sense of security.”

In the late 1990s, Gates Sr. met with Foege, who came up with the strategy for eradicating small pox worldwide, to get his advice on the most worthwhile, promising strategies for addressing global health issues. Foege encouraged them to pursue vaccines, a path they were already exploring.

Working with Gates Sr. has provided Foege with some interesting insight into his own field.

“He has demonstrated to me that lawyers are more important than doctors when it comes to global health,” Foege said. It turns out that in some cases, changing the law can do more than medicine to make widespread strides in health outcomes.

Global health needs to be “based on good science and the best results are based on good management,” Foege said, “and management is often tied to the rule of law.”

Because of its massive wealth, the organization is powerful and wields significant influence on public policy at home and abroad, and its investments in impoverished countries can change their very cultures — for good and, in certain cases, some would say ill.

He has demonstrated to me that lawyers are more important than doctors when it comes to global health.

Critics have raised concerns about the foundation’s transparency and outsized-role in shaping the debate over public education in America. They admonish the group for favoring technologically-based solutions, including the use of fertilizers to boost agricultural output in developing countries.

At the same time, the foundation has fostered great achievements through immunizations that are curbing polio and other diseases, empowering women through support for family planning, funding teacher training and expanding online access to education.

“When I started medical school, which was almost 60 years ago at the University of Washington, I knew I was interested in global health,” Foege said, but he couldn’t find three other people on campus who shared his passion.

“In the past 15 years, this has become the most popular subject on campus after campus. The difference occurred in about 1999,” Foege said, “when the Gates family took this on as an issue.”

A roller-skating Santa at 6-feet, 7-inches tall

Towards the end of his 2009 book, “Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime,” Gates Sr. ruminates on the challenge of imparting meaningful advice to college grads.

He writes, “Every time I am preparing to give a commencement address I go around for weeks asking myself and anyone else who will listen, ‘What’s most important for the graduates to hear about what matters in life?’”

He comes to the answer: Family, friends and public service, in that order.

In addition to his love of the law, the UW, the foundation and all his other causes and crusades, Gates Sr. — by his own admission and according to others — has strived to put family and friends first.

For Harold Kawaguchi, a former officer for Physio-Control and chairman of the board for Stratos Group, that commitment was clear from Gates’ help when he was adopting children.

Gates Sr. was his personal attorney for the adoptions. “He didn’t hand it off, he did it personally,” Kawaguchi said. “He retained his personal touch even for things that wouldn’t seem meaningful from a big business standpoint.”

For Smith, who worked at Gates’ firm, his boss was eager to celebrate the birth of his three daughters, and was the first to call after his wife had surgery.

“He was a mentor for me as a lawyer. He was a role model in terms of getting involved in the community and a facilitator in my doing that. He has been an incredibly good friend and listener,” Smith said. “He’s just a person who’s been there in a way in my life that I never had growing up.”

Former governor Evans remembers how much fun he’s had with Gates Sr.

Their long-standing bridge group would go out for dinners every few months, hosted by the two losing players. One such occasion was co-hosted by Gates Sr., who devised a treasure hunt that sent the 12 diners across Seattle as they solved clues leading everywhere from an oyster bar in the old Olympic Hotel to Ivar’s restaurant on the waterfront. It was a tremendous effort and a night they all cherished, Evans said

Evans also recalled a Christmas party the Gates held when their children were young. The Evans family arrived to find a roller-skating party. Gates Sr., at six feet, seven inches tall, was dressed as Santa Claus. On roller skates.

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