George S. and Dolores D. Eccles Professorship in Ophthalmology

THE ECCLES FOUNDATION, established in 1960 by GEORGE S. and DOLORES DORÉ ECCLES, has given generously to organizations that have a clear, beneficial impact on the lives of people in Utah and the region. The founders’ vision was to fund initiatives that make a lasting difference in the arts, the community, education, and medicine. The couple, who met at Columbia University and married in 1925, lived the rest of their lives in Utah, where they were tireless leaders in civic, business, and humanitarian concerns. George Eccles, who came from a banking family, became a prominent figure in Utah and Idaho finance. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of First Security Corporation–the oldest multi-state bank holding company in the United States–from 1945 until his death in 1982. Highly respected also in national and international banking circles, George Eccles was a leading member of both the Association of Bank Holding Companies and the Association of Reserve City Bankers. After World War II, he became an economic and financial consultant to the Marshall Plan and served as general chairman of the International Monetary Conference in Vienna in 1964. His wife, Dolores Eccles, known as “Lolie,” was a founding member of the Junior League of Ogden and served on the boards of Westminster College and Ballet West, among her many other volunteer activities. She was introduced to Johns Hopkins when she became a patient of Hopkins ophthalmologist Arnall Patz, who was director of the Wilmer Eye Institute. She later served on the board of the National Society to Prevent Blindness, and remained a key figure in Utah arts and philanthropy until her death in 1994.