James T. Dresher, Sr., Professorship in Cardiac Surgery

JAMES T. DRESHER SR. was known as a “turn-around artist” who improved the fate of every company he touched. As CEO of York International, a global heating and air-conditioning company in York, Pennsylvania, he took a money-losing operation to a Fortune 500 company that installed systems at several Winter Olympic games and inside the Chunnel, the tunnel connecting England and France. After retiring from York, Mr. Dresher acquired and ran Unidata, a software company based in Denver. The Dresher family also built and operated 12 McDonald’s restaurants and were early supporters of Baltimore’s Ronald McDonald House and countless other charitable organizations in the Baltimore area. Mr. Dresher, with his wife VIRGINIA, started the Dresher Foundation in 1989.

Mr. Dresher died in 1999 and Mrs. Dresher passed away in 2014.  The Dresher’s children and their families remain foundation trustees.