Keck Foundation Is Focused on Science

The largest private grant ever awarded for a scientific project--$70 million to build the 400-inch Keck Telescope--is by far the largest ever contributed by the Los Angeles-based W. M. Keck Foundation.

The foundation, one of the nation’s richest, was established in 1954 by William Keck, founder of Superior Oil Co. Since Keck’s death in 1964, the foundation has grown in value to about $500 million, aided in large part by Mobil Corp.’s acquisition of Superior Oil last year.

Howard B. Keck, son of the senior Keck and chairman of the foundation, said at a press conference Thursday that the foundation’s largest grant in the past was $7 million to the Colorado School of Mines.

The founder was an oil-drilling wildcatter who worked some of the most productive oil fields in the country. He frequently took a share in a well instead of cash for his efforts. By 1921 he had enough interest in enough wells to found his own company, which became the world’s largest independent producer of oil and gas, according to the foundation.

The foundation has made grants totaling $102 million since 1979 to educational and research institutions, mostly in Southern California.