William H. Gates, Sr.
Bill and Melinda Gates

Inspiration. Imagination. Innovation. Integrity. Invention. Individualism. Independence. These are the hallmarks of the Gates family.

William H. Gates, Sr., drawing on your decades of experience as an attorney and as a trustee, officer, and volunteer for more than two dozen Pacific Northwest organizations, you have been instrumental in providing guidance and helping to develop strategic direction for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is your example of generosity and unselfish giving, your love of community and of literacy, and your dedication to the progress of our nation that have inspired your son and your daughter-in-law to follow in your footsteps and become generous and deeply caring philanthropists whose largesse benefits not only our own nation but many others around the world.

Today, we honor you as Co-Chair and CEO of the foundation, but we also honor you—and Bill and Melinda Gates as well—for your faith in Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," and for celebrating it as a true clarion call to those who have great resources, urging them to use their wealth in the service of humanity. And this all three of you have certainly done. Indeed, Bill and Melinda, despite the pressures of shepherding one of the world's leading companies, have had the wisdom and foresight to understand that their true legacy will arise from the great good they have done—and will do—as philanthropists, working to help develop and deploy life-saving vaccines, ease human suffering by improving global health equity, and to promote education and learning on a worldwide basis. It is a testament to the Gates family and their dedication to the ideals of philanthropy that the Gates Foundation has become one of the largest and most important foundations active in the world today.

Your far-ranging philanthropy encompasses the extraordinary and innovative Library Program, which is committed to bringing computers with Internet access to every public library serving a low-income community in the United States and Canada. States, cities and provinces that stretch from the Yukon Territory to Texas and from New York to California have received computers and thus free access to information for more than 140 million people—almost half the population of North America. The International Library Program has similar goals, striving to close the digital divide for all the people of the world. Surely, if Andrew Carnegie were with us today, he would be the first to applaud this new chapter in the cause that was perhaps dearest to his heart: the development and proliferation of libraries as the true schoolroom of the world, open to everyone.

For the leadership of the Gates family in reaffirming an ethic of responsibility to the global community and for your landmark efforts to promote health equity around the world, to help all students achieve and to bridge the digital divide, the 21 institutions founded by Andrew Carnegie present the inaugural Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy to you with pride and admiration.