About the WHCF Foundation
Wallace Coulter is one of the most significant people of the 20th century. After inventing the Coulter Principle, Wallace incorporated Coulter Electronics (later Coulter Corporation) and with his younger brother Joseph R. Coulter, Jr., led this private, global diagnostics company for more than 40 years. In 1975, Sue Van was initially hired to manage Wallace’s personal and business assets. At the time of the sale of Coulter Corporation to Beckman Instruments in 1997, and prior to establishing the Foundation, Sue was the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Coulter Corporation, as well as the Trustee of both owners’ personal trusts. In 1998 the Foundation received its funding from Wallace’s estate.
Guiding Principle
Under the direction of Sue Van, Trustee, President & CEO, every grant from the Foundation was designed to support groups that were under-resourced, under-represented, and under-recognized. By providing risk capital, seed investment, and business guidance the Foundation helped innovative initiatives and underserved communities realize their potential.
Transformative Philanthropy
The first step in the evolution of the Foundation involved relationships with colleges, universities and key hematology, cytometry and biomedical engineering societies.
Its university-based translational research grant programs provided capital to biomedical engineering departments, an under recognized (at the time) and under-resourced discipline. Additionally, the program helped establish a business-like process to accelerate academic innovations to the marketplace.
The goal of the society relationships was to assist them in expanding their global reach and influence. By sharing expertise, scientific knowledge, and best practices, they improved the standard of care in resource-limited areas around the globe.
Starting in 2010, through grants also promoting capacity and infrastructure building, the Foundation began working with various Asian-American / Pacific Islander (AAPI) and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) cultural community groups.