Mary Maxwell Gates Biography
Mary Maxwell Gates was born on July 5, 1929 and died on June 10, 1994 was an American businesswoman who also served for 18 years, 1975-1993, on the University of Washington board of regents.
She was the first female president of King County’s United Way, the first woman to chair the national United Way’s executive committee where she served most notably with IBM’s CEO, John Opel, and the first woman on the First Interstate Bank of Washington’s board of directors. Her son Bill Gates is a co-founder of Microsoft.
Mary Maxwell Gates Age
Maxwell Gates was born on July 5, 1929 and died on June 10, 1994 at age 64
Mary Maxwell Gates Husband
She married law graduate William H. Gates, Sr. in 1951
Mary Maxwell Gates Children
She had three children, one of whom was Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates
Mary Maxwell Gates Family
Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, as Mary Maxwell to James Willard Maxwell (Nebraska, 1901-1960), a banker, and his wife, whom he married in c. 1927, Adele Thompson (born c. 1903, probably born in Enumclaw, Washington).Her grandfather, James Willard Maxwell (1864-1951), was president of the National City Bank in Seattle from 1911 to 1929 and a director of the Seattle branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Mary Maxwell Gates Education
Gates graduated from Seattle’s Roosevelt High School and then attended the nearby University of Washington, where she received a degree in education in 1950.
Mary Maxwell Gates Career
In 1975, Governor Daniel J. Evans appointed Gates to the board of regents for her alma mater, where she led the movement on the board to divest the University of Washington’s holdings in South Africa to protest apartheid. In addition, Gates served on the UW Foundation Board of Directors, the UW Medical Center Board, and the UW School of Business Administration’s Advisory Board.
Gates also served for many years on the boards of several major corporations: First Interstate Bank of Washington; Unigard Security Insurance Group; Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company, which became U.S. WEST Communications; and KIRO Incorporated.
Beyond the Seattle area, Gates was appointed to the board of directors of the national United Way in 1980, becoming the first woman to lead it in 1983. Her tenure on the national board’s executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed her son’s company with John Opel, a fellow committee member and the chairman of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other IBM executives. A few weeks later, IBM took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer.
Mary Maxwell Gates Death
Gates died at age 64 in 1994 at her Laurelhurst home after a months-long battle with breast cancer. Since then, her family has established two endowments in her name at the University of Washington. The UW’s Mary Gates Hall is named in her honor and houses the UW’s Undergraduate Academic Affairs, the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, the Career Center, and the Information School. A street on the northeast section of campus, formerly Union Bay Place, is named for her.
Following her death, it was disclosed that she was the target of a kidnapping attempt several years earlier.
Mary Maxwell Gates Net Worth
Net Worth (2019) $1 Million – $10 Million (Approx.)
Estimated Net Worth (2018) $100K – $1 Million
Mary Maxwell Gates Facebook
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Mary Maxwell Gates Twitter
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Mary Gates, 64; Helped Her Son Start Microsoft
Mary Gates, a prominent Seattle businesswoman who helped her son, William H. Gates 3d, get the contract that led to a lucrative relationship with I.B.M. for his fledgling Microsoft Corporation, died at her home early today. She was 64.
The cause was cancer.
Mrs. Gates had been scheduled to receive the Municipal League of King County’s Citizen of the Year award today to honor her as an “exceptionally talented, civic-minded citizen.”
“She is widely viewed as one of the strongest people in this community for getting things done,” said Eileen V. Quigley of the league. “She’s been active in the community for 20 years in a variety of ways.”
Mrs. Gates was a director of several companies, including First Interstate Bancorp, U S West Inc. and KIRO-TV of Seattle.
She had been a regent at the University of Washington since 1975, the same year she became the first woman to serve as a director of First Interstate Bank and the first to serve as the president of the King County’s United Way. She was later appointed to the board of the United Way of America; in 1983, she became the first woman to lead it. Right Time, Right Place
Her tenure on the national board’s executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed with John R. Opel, a fellow committee member who was the chairman of the International Business Machines Corporation, the business that I.B.M. was doing with Microsoft.
Mr. Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other I.B.M. executives. A few weeks later, I.B.M. took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer.
The success of the I.B.M. P C gave Microsoft and its MS-DOS (for Microsoft Disk Operating System) a lift that eventually made it the world’s largest software company for personal computers. Sales now exceed $3 billion.
Mrs. Gates’s father, Willard Maxwell, was a vice president of Pacific National Bank, which later became First Interstate. Her husband, William H. Gates Jr., is a lawyer in Seattle.
In addition to her son and husband, Mrs. Gates is survived by two daughters, Kristianne Blake of Spokane, Wash., and Elizabeth Armintrout of Seattle, and four grandchildren.