Helping Sustain UHF's Future
UHF’s Legacy Society honors and recognizes those who have included a bequest or other type of planned gift arrangement for UHF in their long-range financial plans.
This Legacy Society Profile of J. Barclay Collins II appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of Blueprint.
Throughout an influential career that has taken him from London to Venezuela, from board rooms to oil fields, from a top New York City law firm to the senior management team of a global energy company, J. Barclay Collins II has always made time for one thing—and it’s not golf.
“Throughout my life, I’ve been a volunteer,” notes the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania native. “It has been a deep privilege for me to help nurture organizations that serve the public good.” This has meant devoting his time, talents, and resources to numerous nonprofit organizations that support the causes he cares about—United Hospital Fund is lucky to be among them.
The former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Hess Corporation, Mr. Collins has served on the UHF board since 1984 (the same year he started at Hess). He has been Board Chairman since 2006.
Mr. Collins recently joined UHF’s Legacy Society, making a planned gift to help sustain UHF’s future. “I think it’s important, in your testamentary relationships, to support in perpetuity the organizations that have been important to you,” he says.
His commitment to improving health care was shaped, in part, by his belief that it is intrinsically related to the other causes he supports, which include environmental preservation, the arts, and education. “I think it’s important to focus on these broader issues and make an effort to find solutions that could be related,” he says.
His schedule hasn’t slowed since retiring from Hess: in addition to UHF, he chairs the New York Botanical Garden and Mystic Seaport Museum boards and is actively engaged in other nonprofits. He does make time for his favorite hobby, sailing. And for a week or two every summer, his grandchildren visit him in Mystic, Connecticut, where they stay on their grandfather’s 50-foot mahogany ketch, “India.” Helping them learn to sail is perhaps emblematic of another of his philanthropic priorities: passing the torch to the next generation of volunteer leaders.
Mr. Collins is bullish on UHF’s future and believes its role in New York is critical.
