FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 5, 2007
Contact: Karen E. Warmkessel kwarmkessel@umm.edu
Ellen Beth Levitt eblevitt@umm.edu 410-328-8919
Charles B. Reeves, Jr., a retired Baltimore lawyer and longtime member and former president of Kernan Hospital’s board of trustees and its endowment fund, has donated $1 million to the orthopaedics and rehabilitation hospital in Woodlawn. A reception honoring Reeves will be held on Wednesday, June 6, at the hospital at 2200 Kernan Drive.
The 19th century mansion on the hospital grounds, purchased in 1910 by Baltimore businessman James Lawrence Kernan as a new home for a hospital for crippled children, also will be named The Reeves Mansion. The building was renovated during Reeves’ tenure on the hospital board and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Reeves, a retired partner of a well-known Baltimore law firm, Venable, Baetjer and Howard (now known as Venable LLP), served on the board of trustees at Kernan Hospital from 1959 to 1996 and was president from 1987 to 1996. He played an instrumental role in the hospital being acquired by the University of Maryland Medical System in 1986 and its merger with Montebello Rehabilitation Center in 1996.
In addition, Reeves helped to create the James Lawrence Kernan Hospital Endowment Fund, Inc., in 1974 and served as its president from 1986 until this year.
“Charlie Reeves’ unflagging support and guidance have helped to make Kernan Hospital the premier orthopaedics and rehabilitation facility that it is today,” says James E. Ross, FACHE, the hospital’s chief executive officer. “He has served this hospital for nearly 50 years and now has presented us with this magnificent gift. We can’t thank him enough for all his support.”
Davis V. R. Sherman, chairman of Kernan’s board of directors (formerly the board of trustees) and president of the endowment fund, also praised Reeves’ role in managing the endowment fund. “Under his leadership, the endowment fund has been able to support Kernan Hospital through thick and thin,” Sherman says. “At the same time, he was able to build the endowment principal to more than $30 million by insisting on a bold investment strategy.”
Reeves, whose father, Charles B. Reeves, Sr., served as president of the Kernan board of trustees from 1936 to 1955, says there are no restrictions on how his donation can be used.
“Kernan Hospital has been a big part of my life and my family’s life for so many years that I wanted to do something special to mark my retirement from the endowment’s board of trustees,” Reeves says. “The hospital’s staff does amazing work in helping patients with stroke, brain trauma and orthopaedic injuries get back their lives. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with so many talented people at Kernan for nearly half a century.”
A Baltimore native, Reeves graduated from Princeton University and the University of Virginia Law School. He practiced law with two Baltimore firms, Cross and Shriver and Venable, Baetjer and Howard, and was a Maryland assistant attorney general in the late 1950s.
He retired from his legal career at the end of 1993. Reeves has traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. He was a mountain climber and still is an avid skier and golfer. He is a member of the Order of the Knights of Malta. He has also written several books, including “Carpe Diem, The Twentieth Century Pilgrimage of an Imparfit Knight.”
Kernan Hospital is Maryland’s largest hospital specializing in orthopaedics and rehabilitation. The William Donald Schaefer Rehabiltation Center at Kernan provides physical, occupational, recreational, speech and language therapy and offers psychological and behavioral science services. Kernan is part of the eight-hospital University of Maryland Medical System.
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