Support and Endowment

Major support for the Center's work has come from the National Institutes of Health, including the Institutes on Aging and Nursing Research, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Total annual NIH support is now about $8 million. Additional support comes from the California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program and the Nutrilite Health Institute. From 1986 to 1993, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation provided major support of the Center, creating our Health Promotion Resource Center.

The C. F. Rehnborg Chair in Preventive Medicine, endowed in 1989 by the Rehnborg family, Amway Corporation and the Nutrilite Foundation, perpetuates the memory and ideals of Carl F. Rehnborg by helping to encourage and advance the study of disease prevention at Stanford.

Carl F. Rehnborg first became interested in nutrition when he lived in China in the early 1900s. He observed widespread malnutrition in certain populations and conceived the idea of a plant-based supplement to fortify the diet. In 1934, Mr. Rehnborg produced what is believed to be the first multivitamin/multimineral dietary supplement marketed in the United States. A year before his death in 1973, Nutrilite Products Inc. was acquired by the Amway Corporation of Ada, Michigan, which was founded by former Nutrilite distributors Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel.

Today, Amway continues to market Nutrilite® supplements and nutritional foods around the world. Mr. Rehnborg's son, Sam Rehnborg, received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Stanford in 1958 and a Ph.D in biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently the president of the Nutrilite Health Institute, which continues the company's strong interest in researching disease prevention and health promotion, particularly through improving nutrition and overall diet.

The James Whittam Memorial Lecture, an annual lecture on health promotion, disease prevention, or exercise science, was endowed by the family and friends of Dr. Whittam and the Shaklee Corporation. He supported nutrition-oriented research projects conducted by SPRC faculty and staff over 20 years. Dr. Whittam worked with SPRC faculty on education programs for health professionals and the public. He was role model for living a healthy, productive and balanced life.

The Richard B. Terry, PhD Memorial Fund was established to provide annual awards for doctoral students in heart disease research in Richard's memory. Richard Barratt Terry, PhD (Physiology, Stanford University, 1990) came to SPRC in 1981, to work with Drs. Peter Wood and William Haskell on the effects of physical activity on plasma lipoproteins and other heart disease risk factors, work (which) led to his doctoral thesis on "Metabolic complications and health risks associated with regional adipose distribution." After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, Dr. Terry returned to Stanford in 1996 and joined the ARAMIS project on rheumatic disease. His career ended prematurely a year later when he died from renal cancer at age 46.

Richard was loved for his (British) charm, humor, intellect, and wide scope of interests. His family's gratitude led them to create the Richard B. Terry Memorial Fund. Joining Richard's wife, Amanda, their son, Ben, and daughter, Emma, in establishing the fund were Amanda's mother, Lady Patricia Davies of England, her aunt, Sayre Sheldon of Boston, and other friends and members of the Stanford Community