Thane Kreiner and Steven Lovejoy ’78 Announce $3.7 Million Estate Gift to Santa Clara
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 2, 2023—Longtime bioscience entrepreneur and Santa Clara University leader Thane Kreiner and his husband Steven Lovejoy ’78 have announced plans to donate the remainder of their estate—assets currently worth $3.7 million—to benefit two impact-driven programs at Santa Clara University.
The legacy gift, included in the couple’s estate plan, would benefit programs Kreiner has led or shaped for years:
- Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and
- The Black Corporate Board Readiness (BCBR) program in the Silicon Valley Executive Center at Santa Clara.
“These programs have brought immense purpose and impact into my life, my marriage, and the world,” said Kreiner. “Steve and I want whatever is left when we die to make a real difference for people and planet.”
This remainder gift would be unrestricted and available to provide flexibility for maintaining and innovating within their chosen programs.
“Santa Clara has benefited from the strong leadership, energy, and vision of Dr. Thane Kreiner for almost two decades,” said Santa Clara President Julie Sullivan. “This gift from Thane and Steve will help ensure the ongoing impact of two programs that are vital to our Jesuit mission for equity and social justice.”
About the Donors
Thane Kreiner
Kreiner is a proven leader who has led and built enterprises including bioscience company Affymetrix and four bioscience startup companies. Kreiner earned an MBA and a Ph.D. in Neurosciences from Stanford University, and a bachelors in chemistry from the University of Texas, Austin. Shaped in part by the experience of being a gay man during the height of the AIDS epidemic, he has continually sought vocational opportunities that leverage his skills in science and leadership to improve the lives of others.
After landing an internship at the company that would later become Affymetrix, Kreiner would go on to spend 14 years building the pioneering DNA chip company, transforming biomedical research. In roles from project manager to senior vice president of sales and marketing, he helped Affymetrix go public and grow to $10 billion in market value.
In 2003, he joined Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics as an advisory board member. The center was being led by his former Stanford ethics professor, Kirk Hanson.
“I have always felt deep resonance with the mission and purpose of Santa Clara University,” said Kreiner, who took extra ethics courses during his MBA studies.
For three years he served as a startup CEO for four companies, and then in 2010 was recruited to run Santa Clara’s Center for Science, Technology and Society, which would later become Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. For 10 years under his leadership, Miller Center grew from a social enterprise accelerator serving 120 organizations to one serving more than 1,000 enterprises in 100 countries.
After leaving Miller Center, Kreiner and his friend Dennis Lanham co-founded the Black Corporate Board Readiness (BCBR) program at SCU’s Silicon Valley Executive Center, which Lanham leads. BCBR helps develop community and connectivity to support talented Black executives to join and lead public and private corporate boards. The men had long discussed creating such a program, and were moved to action after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Steven Lovejoy
Steven Lovejoy ’78 is a retired chemist who spent 24 years conducting aerospace research at the Advanced Technology Center of Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Palo Alto.
A fifth-generation Californian, Lovejoy is active in historical preservation and genealogy, as president of the Sonoma County Genealogical Society and a commissioner on the Sonoma County Historical Records Commission.
He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Santa Clara in 1978, and in 1986 earned his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Washington. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at SRI International in Menlo Park before joining Lockheed Martin, from which he retired in 2013.
The couple lives in Sebastopol, California, with their two cats, Lucie and Tasha, and donate regularly to nonprofits such as Santa Clara University, the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, the American Conservatory Theater, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
“As I reflect on my career, I see three endeavors that produced profound change in the world and bent ‘the arc of history towards justice’,” said Kreiner, citing transformational work at Affymetrix, Miller Center, and BCBR. “Two of them are at Santa Clara University, and both have enormous potential as engines of impact.”
About Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship
For over 25 years, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship has been a leader in the global social enterprise movement. With an emphasis on climate resilience and women’s economic empowerment, we accelerate social entrepreneurship to end poverty and protect the planet. Located at Santa Clara University, we have served more than 1,300 social entrepreneurs based in over 100 countries that have impacted hundreds of millions of lives. We fuse the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley with the university’s heritage of social justice, community engagement, and global impact, guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
About BCBR
Launched in February 2021, the Black Corporate Board Readiness (BCBR) program accelerates diverse representation in corporate governance by accompanying highly experienced, qualified Black leaders through a structured executive education program. The BCBR program connects participants to experienced board members, rigorously prepares them to excel, and builds a community devoted to better business performance and racial equity. For more information see https://www.scu.edu/execed/individuals/bcbr/.
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit, Catholic University in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, infusing ethics and social consciousness into a rigorous cross-disciplinary education for its nearly 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
Media Contact
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Communications | dlohse@scu.edu | 408-554-5121
Thane Kreiner (left) and Steven Lovejoy ’78.