Ellen and Peter Zane are dedicated to making the world healthier and safer, and they are being deliberate about their philanthropic goals. Not only are they both involved intimately with the Harvard Chan School, they recently created a planned gift—through a vehicle called a CRUT—which is a gift trust for the School that will provide financial aid to students in perpetuity.

Both Peter and Ellen have had remarkable business careers. Peter joined the Kryptonite Lock company, a family business, in its formative days and attended law school at night. His “Eureka moment” of creativity occurred during a trusts and estates class in law school, when he started doodling out of boredom. His doodles turned into the proprietary aspect (the invention) of the K-4 lock, which became a market standard in the bicycle and motorcycle industries.

“We still have the original doodle,” Ellen says with a smile. The famous K-4 lock won many awards for design excellence over the years, including the Good Design Award from Japan, and was inducted into the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Peter states that a formative time of his life was a trip he and Ellen took abroad in the late ’70s to introduce Kryptonite locks to Europe. “Not only was there amazing acceptance of our product,” he says, “but being exposed to such cultural diversity and learning from a diaspora of humanity was a wonderful life experience. Thank you, bicycle thieves!”

He notes, however, that the highlight of his business was the people he worked with. “It was the employees who built Kryptonite,” he says, “and it was a privilege to work with each and every one of them.”

Ellen credits Peter with knowing how to take material risks in business. For Peter, there was no clear path to success in his family’s start-up. For Ellen, the value of branding, marketing, and learning how to innovate was a key take-away from the Kryptonite business.

“She was and will always be driven,” beams Peter, looking at Ellen with pride. “Her work ethic is remarkable.”

With a graduate degree in audiology and speech pathology, Ellen served as CEO of Quincy Hospital in Quincy, Massachusetts. She then became the founding president of the Massachusetts-based Partners Community Health Care (the Partners network of doctors and hospitals) and later went on to become president and CEO of Tufts Medical Center and the Floating Hospital for Children. She was the first female CEO in the 221-year history of the Medical Center and shepherded it from the product of a failed merger in the mid-1990s to a profitable organization. Ellen was recruited to Tufts Medical Center by Lawrence S. Bacow, the former president of Tufts University and the new president of Harvard. Of Bacow, she says, “He is a mentor and the best university president on the planet, hands down.”

Ellen attributes her rise in the men’s world of CEOs to her father’s wishing for sons. Instead, he got two girls. Ellen remembers that her father wanted her and her sister to play baseball. “We just were not interested,” she says. “Instead, he taught us how deal with any curve ball that was thrown our way in the world of business. We were prepared to take risks, be tough, work hard, and to do well at what no one else wanted to do.” Both women excelled: Ellen’s sister created a very successful publishing company. 

Ellen now serves on several corporate boards, including Boston Scientific, Brooks Automation, Haemonetics Corporation, Fiduciary Trust Company, Agnovos Healthcare, and nThrive, Inc. She is vice chair of the board of trustees og her alma mater, George Washington University, and is chair of Wellforce, the parent company of Tufts Medical Center. She is also a regular lecturer at the Harvard Chan School. This Spring semester of 2019 she is teaching the course “Women on Boards—Getting On and Adding Value.”

Peter now spends time working on various nonprofit boards in the community. He serves on the board of Community Servings, helping critically ill people receive the medical nutrition they need; was formerly board chair of Crittenton Women’s Union (rebranded to Empath); and is associated with the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Care, as well as Rogerson Communities. He’s a member of the Nutrition Roundtable at the Harvard Chan School and loves the interaction with the students and faculty. “We learn the newest developments and research in nutrition and interact with leaders in the community,” he says. As the family chef, he enjoys implementing those discoveries to create healthy meals.

When the time came in their lives to consider their philanthropic goals, Ellen and Peter sought counsel from their financial advisers and estate attorney. The couple learned how to turn stock into a gift trust, which would give them a tax deduction, create no capital gains tax (because they didn’t cash out the stock), offer an income for life, and still have a formidable remainder for the charity of their choice. 

“Part of it was that there was an opportunity to be generous and mitigate a tax liability at the same time,” Ellen explains. “A charitable remainder unitrust [CRUT] was an ideal solution.

“We created two trusts for the nonprofits we believe in. Our current income from the trust is turned into cash, and we can donate it to a current-use gifts if we want. The trust is a good vehicle for capital campaigns that the organization can value as long as we make it irrevocable. The organization can ‘book it,’” she says thoughtfully.

Their gift qualified them for membership in the 1913 Society, and Ellen and Peter’s determination to make a difference will leave a lasting legacy for public health. Not only are they both involved intimately with the Harvard Chan School, they recently created a planned gift called a gift trust for the School that will provide financial aid to students in perpetuity, and give, at their discretion, current-use funds for the Department of Nutrition and the Department of Health Policy and Management.