Class of 2012
Lewis Katz is director of the Katz Foundation, which supports a variety of charitable, educational and medical causes.
His $15 million gift to The Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University helped fund a law school building in State College that bears his name.
To support pioneering medical research, Mr. Katz established an annual prize and endowed a visiting professorship in cardiovascular research at Columbia University. He serves on the Board of Visitors of Columbia University Medical School.
Mr. Katz is a former principal owner of the New Jersey Nets and the New Jersey Devils, a former member of the board of governors of the National Basketball Association and was a co-managing partner of YankeesNets. He is a current shareholder of the Nets, the New York Yankees and the YES Network. In all of these sports ventures, Mr. Katz pledged a share of team profits to benefit inner-city youth.
A native of Camden, New Jersey, Mr. Katz has established several programs to help the children of his birthplace. He helped build two Boys & Girls Clubs that serve nearly 3,000 young people each year. Later this year, Mr. Katz plans to open Katz Academy, a charter school in Camden that will serve students in grades K through 4. Plans for a second school are in the works.
Active in Jewish cases, Mr. Katz helped build Jewish Community Centers in Cherry Hill and Margate, New Jersey, both named for his parents. He helped found a third community center, now under construction in Princeton, also named in honor of his parents. He was instrumental in establishing a Hebrew day school in Voorhees, New Jersey that is named for his two children.
Mr. Katz is a founding partner of and serves as of counsel to the law firm Katz, Ettin & Levine in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is the majority owner of five radio stations in Atlantic and Cape May counties. He is a former owner of Kinney Parking Systems, then the largest parking company in New York City, and the former chairman of Interstate Outdoor Advertising, one of the largest regional outdoor-advertising firms in the country.