Warren Alpert, founder of Warren Equities, Inc. and The Warren Alpert Foundation, was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on December 2, 19 20. The youngest of five children of Tena and Goodman Alpert, both born in Lithuania and arriving in the United States in 1904 in Boston. Goodman Alpert was a dry goods peddler in Chelsea, Massachusetts, trying to make a living for himself and his family. At the age of 13 Warren starting working with his father selling linens.
Warren Alpert graduated from Boston University, College of Liberal Art s, in 1942 with a Bachelor of Science Degree. He served in the military intelligence during World War II. He was wounded on D-Day and was awarded the Purple Heart.
With the help of the United States Government GI Bill, he enrolled at Harvard Business School and received his Advanced Management Program Certificate in 1946 and his MBA Degree in June 1947.
He was employed by Standard Oil Company of California as a trainee in internal auditing and moved up to become a financial specialist of the wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of California called the California Oil Company in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
He stared his own business in 1950 with $1,000 and a used car and was the sole owner of Warren Equities, Inc. and its affiliated companies. At the time of its sale in 2015, Warren Equities, Inc. through its subsidiaries, marketed petroleum and convenience store items with annual sales of approximately $2,000,000,000. Warren Equities, Inc. also engaged in transportation and real estate and employed more than 1,600 people in eleven states in the northeastern part of the United States out of its home office in Providence, Rhode Island. The company was listed by Forbes Magazine as one of America’s 400 largest privately-owned companies. In addition, Warren was listed in Who’s Who America and The World.
Mr. Alpert served in President John F. Kennedy’s administration and was involved in the U.S. Government’s loan program in the third world. He was awarded by President Reagan a “Private Sector Initiative Commendation “. He was an ” Andrew Wellington Cordier Fellow ” of Columbia University School of International Affairs. He was a former President of the Harvard Business School Club in New York City. He was also a Trustee of Emerson College and was a Director of Boston University for seven years, where The Warren Alpert mall was dedicated in his name. He also served twenty years on the Board of Associates of the Harvard Business School, was a Trustee of Albert Einstein College of Medicine for several years.
Mr. Alpert also served on the Board of Fellows on the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and he was the founding donor of the Harvard Medical School ‘ s New Pathway to general medical education with a $500 ,000 gift to Harvard Medical School. In every sense, Warren Alpert met all definitions of the word success. In 1986, The Warren Alpert Foundation was established by Warren Alpert to reward individuals who find a cure or make a significant breakthrough for major diseases. The Foundation strives for better medical care for mankind and is also interested in supporting young people through education for the purpose of producing self-sustaining individuals contributing to society. The Warren Alpert Foundation is financed solely by money set aside by its founder.
On April 7, 1993, Mr. Alpert donated $20 Million to the Harvard Medical School to endow a new research building which is in his name at The Harvard Medical School on Longwood Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. The $20 Million commitment was at the time, the largest gift in the two hundred-year history of the Harvard Medical School. In 2000, Warren Alpert donated $15 Million to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, New York, which named the Warren Alpert Pavilion after him. In 2007, The Warren Alpert Foundation gave $100 Million to the Brown University Medical School which was renamed in his honor.
Warren Alpert passed away in March of 2007. His legacy will live on through the works of his Foundation.