Meet Our Donors

We thank all our planned-gift donors for their generous support. Here are some of their stories.

Dr. Peter Kranz

Few outcomes can be attributed to a single event. What is more often the case is that a life is the product of a collection of events, influences and experiences, each acting on the other until it is impossible to distinguish a part from the whole.

Theorists call it Gestalt. Dr. Peter Kranz, an assistant professor in educational psychology at The University of Texas Pan American, considers its implications daily. It's tidy. It makes sense. But it's also clear some events have the potential to weigh more heavily in the mix than do others—like say, Kranz's own experience at Utah State University.

"I had a terrific experience at Utah State," said Kranz, who received both his masters and PhD in psychology from USU. "I was basically a mediocre undergraduate student at Grinnell College (in Iowa), a good academic school, but Utah State took a chance on me, which I have always appreciated.

"The faculty was excellent, my learning was extremely meaningful on both a personal and professional level; the people at Utah State University and in the Logan community couldn't have been nicer and any more accepting of this transplanted Easterner. I have nothing but positives when I think about all phases of my experiences at Utah State," Kranz said.

And that's why the celebrated professional has created the Peter L. Kranz Endowed Scholarship in the College of Education and Human Services, generously naming the Utah State University Foundation the recipient of a generous scholarship gift through his estate.

"In thinking about what I would like to do with my trust and thinking about the experiences in my life, where I am, and how I've gotten there, Utah State was right there at the top," Kranz said. "So when it came to creating a gift, I said to myself, 'Gee, that's easy, why not Utah State?'"

Kranz said he's hopeful his scholarship will bring about meaningful impact in the lives of both undergraduate and graduate-level students, for those targeting teaching or research and for those exploring a specific discipline, masters or PhD. "Whatever it is, my hope is that they can make a difference out there in the world, which I think is important," Kranz said.

Dr. Carol Strong, dean of the College of Education and Human Services, said Kranz has parlayed his USU experience into a distinguished career as director of several university counseling centers and as a researcher, but most importantly as an honored mentor and teacher.

"Dr. Kranz has made significant contributions to his field," Strong said. "His generosity to the college is exemplary and this gift will allow future educators to receive the same rich benefits of the USU experience that he did. By remembering his alma mater in his trust, he has created a legacy of empowerment, not only for students at Utah State, but for everyone else whose lives are touched by his profession."

"When I think of Utah State," said Kranz, "I think not only of a warm and accepting and professional faculty, but of the many friends I made while I was there. I was given so many opportunities, both in the classroom and out, and the people I met really made a difference for me. I just experienced terrific feelings of acceptance and kindness and that's why I wanted to give something back."

Bob & Mary

We're getting a little older and we find ourselves thinking about the future a lot more than we used to. Not just our future and that of our children, but also the future of Utah State, an organization we’ve believed in and supported for so many years. We want to be sure that it will still be doing its job long after we’re gone. So, a few years ago, we decided it was time to start making definite plans to help ensure our favorite charity’s future as well as that of our family.

We started gathering information right here, at this website. Then, we talked to our financial advisors and to the staff at Utah State. We spent a rainy Sunday afternoon at home with a calculator, a legal pad, and a pile of mutual fund statements.

After looking over the different gift plans available to us, we decided that a Charitable Gift Annuity was right for us. We were reassured that it would pay us income for the rest of our lives – in a fixed amount that we could depend on, and at a higher yield than our CDs or mutual funds were providing us. We liked the income tax deduction we could claim for setting up our Gift Annuity, and also the fact that part of our annuity income would come to us tax-free.

Best of all, our Gift Annuity has allowed us to make a larger gift to Utah State than we would ever have been able to make in an outright gift or through our estate. We’re very satisfied with our decision!

Justin

I bought a lot of life insurance when our family was young. Wanted to be sure that Bev and our children would be taken care of should anything unexpected happen to me.

Well, I’m still around, thank goodness. Our children are grown and settled, and Bev and I did little better financially than we ever thought would be possible when we were starting out. Truth is, our family no longer needed all the life insurance coverage I was carrying for them.

That excess insurance was really an asset that was no longer productive for us. We talked about it with our accountant, and she said that we could donate some policies to our favorite charity – Utah State. We would receive an income tax deduction approximately equal to the cash surrender value of the policies, which would come in very handy at tax time.

Utah State could either cash in the policies and use the funds for current projects, or hold them for the death benefits they will pay when we die.

It was a win-win result: we were able to help Utah State out significantly, but we did it by using assets we had almost forgotten about, and in a way that didn’t affect our cash-flow or our family’s security.