Warren Alpert, 86, Oil Tycoon Gave $100 Million to Brown

Warren Alpert, who died Saturday at 86, was a gas station and convenience market tycoon who made headlines in January when he donated $100 million to Brown University, which promptly announced that it would name its medical school after him.Among Alpert’s holdings was the Drake Petroleum Co., one of New England’s largest distributors of gasoline and oil, and Xtra Mart Convenience Stores, most of them situated at his gas stations.Childless and eschewing luxuries other than a home at the Ritz Tower on Park Avenue, Alpert became interested in medical and education philanthropy in the 1980s and began giving money to his alma maters, Boston University and Harvard University. In 1993, he donated $20 million to Harvard Medical School; at the time, it was the largest gift the school had ever received.In 1987, his foundation began handing out an annual Warren Alpert Prize for medical advances. Winners have made discoveries in a wide range of fields, including cancer, AIDS, and nutrition. The latest prize amount was $150,000.“I really don’t want to make my relatives rich,” Alpert told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in 1993. “I want to do something for society, and I intend to do it. It’s me. I made it, and I intend to spend it and do it my way.”Born in 1920, Alpert grew up in a clapboard house in working-class Chelsea, Mass., outside Boston. As a young man, he helped his father sell textiles — curtains, towels, and ties — from the back of a truck. Eventually, his father had his own dry-goods store, but he died when Alpert was 16.Alpert joined the Army in military intelligence shortly after graduating from Boston University in 1942. He took part in the Normandy beach landings on D-Day but was later injured and returned to America.After working for Standard Oil of California, Alpert returned to the East Coast and in 1950 began a small gasoline distributorship in Providence, R.I. The company grew rapidly and soon included port facilities and a string of gas stations. Later additions included a merchandise distributorship, an underground tank testing service, and, in the mid-1970s, convenience stores.Alpert kept his businesses private and said he never took on long-term debt because “you’ve got to pay it back.” He was also known for answering phones himself and refusing to hire any domestic help besides, in 1992, an 84-year-old butler who was not replaced when his working days came to an end.In the 1950s, Alpert was close to Henri Soulé, the founder of Le Pavillon, the trailblazing Manhattan French restaurant. “Soulé would call Warren at 2 o’clock and say, ‘I just got a salmon from Air France that was caught off the coast of France this morning,'” the president and CEO of Warren Equities Inc., Alpert’s holding company, Herbert Kalpan, said.Later, Alpert was a fixture at Le Cirque, where he was demanding and regular presence, usually dining alone.

Warren Alpert, 86, Oil Tycoon Gave $100 Million to Brown

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