By Voice staff

Holy Names University students aspiring to careers in journalism, medicine and science will have scholarship assistance available to them beginning in the fall of 2010 thanks to the generosity of Robert (Bob) Summers, a Chevron executive who served on several boards of the university until his death in 2007.

The Endowed Scholarship in memory of Summers and his sister, Beverly, totals $1 million. Summers, who served as corporate director of public affairs for the East Bay for Chevron, began establishing a strong relationship with Holy Names in 1980, said Irene Woodward, former president of the school. “He was able to get many gifts for Holy Names from Chevron through the years, but the greatest gift was Bob himself.”

Woodward recalls Summers as a quiet man who worked industriously for the school. Soon after his relationship with Holy Names began, he helped initiate an annual business symposium which brought business and civic leaders together on HNU’s Oakland campus for a day to dream and plan together for an improved Oakland and East Bay. Summers also served on the board of regents for many years.

Of the scholarship, Woodward noted that it was “the one final thing done in the same way he had done everything — quietly, modestly, without bringing attention to himself, but with deep loyalty and devotion. I might say that he fulfilled every university president’s dream: to learn one day that someone has left the institution a very significant amount of money for student scholarships. We had no idea that he included us in his will, much less such a very large gift.”

Summers’ estate also gifted a $1 million endowment to St. Mary’s College in Moraga for student scholarships, also in the fields of journalism, medicine and science. They are being made available this semester.

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