SOURCE OF WEALTH: GEICO, Berkshire Hathaway, SQ Advisors
FUNDING AREAS: Medical Research, Education
OVERVIEW: Lou Simpson and Kimberly Querrey move philanthropy through the Querrey Simpson Charitable Foundation. According to available tax filings, the foundation awarded around $36,000 in grants in 2018 . In the past, the family has given big gifts, particularly towards biomedical research and higher education.
BACKGROUND: Lou Simpson graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Northwestern University, and received his master’s in economics from Princeton University in 1960. He managed the portfolio for GEICO, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., for more than 30 years before founding his own investment-advisory firm, SQ Advisors. Simpson was at one point seen as a potential investment manager successor for Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. SQ Advisors recently converted to a family office.
Kimberly K. Querrey co-founded SQ Advisors with Louis Simpson. She served as president of Querrey Enterprises, an international business operations, environment, and health and safety consulting firm. The couple resides in Naples, Florida.
ISSUES:
MEDICAL RESEARCH: In 2015, the couple gave a $92 million gift to Northwestern towards the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center and gave another $121 million in 2022. A year prior, they gave a $25 million donation to Northwestern to endow the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine (SQI). In 2020, they gave $15 million to the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine to establish the Simpson Querrey Institute for Epigenetics. Simpson’s son Ted is a 1996 graduate of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and Simpson was a Northwestern trustee. They have also given money to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
EDUCATION: Simpson has supported his other alma maters. The couple made an $8 million gift to Ohio Wesleyan University toward a new fitness center. They made a $20 million gift to fund the Louis A. Simpson *60 International Building at Princeton and a $10 million gift in to establish the Louis A. Simpson Center for the Study of Macroeconomics at Princeton’s Department of Economics. Simpson and was an economics instructor at Princeton in 1961-62.
In the past, through their foundation, the couple have supported places like University of Notre Dame.
On the West Coast, Simpson was also once a trustee of UCSD Foundation. The couple gave at least $1 million to University of California San Diego in 2012 alone, though it’s unclear if this was medical research-related as well.
OTHER: The couple now have strong ties to Florida. Querrey chairs the board of Artis Naples, which the family has supported. She’s also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, another grantee.
LOOKING FORWARD: Grantmaking through the foundation has been modest of late but perhaps it will ramp up, particularly in their Florida community.
CONTACT:
Querrey Simpson Charitable Foundation
4501 Gulf Shore Blvd. N. No, 702
Naples, FL 34103
