News Release

Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and president of Bloomberg Financial Markets, has been elected chairman of the board of trustees of The Johns Hopkins University.

Trustees Lenox D. Baker Jr. of Norfolk, Va., George L. Bunting Jr. of Timonium, Md., and Stuart S. Janney III of New York were elected vice chairmen of the board.

Baker and trustee R. Champlin Sheridan Jr. of Hanover, Pa., were appointed co-chairmen of the Johns Hopkins Initiative, taking Bloomberg's place at the head of that six-year campaign to raise $900 million for the university and the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. All six elections and appointments took effect at the May 20 meeting of the board of trustees.

As chairman, Bloomberg succeeds Morris W. Offit, founder and chairman of Offitbank in New York, who had headed the board of trustees since 1990. Offit will remain as a member of the board.

Bloomberg is a 1964 Hopkins electrical engineering graduate who has served as a trustee since 1987. He chaired the Johns Hopkins Initiative through its planning, its public launch in October 1994 and the nearly two years since then. Through April, the campaign has raised $574.9 million in gifts or pledges, 64 percent of its goal. Of that, $371.5 million is for endowment and facilities, 70 percent of the goal for those critical needs.

Bloomberg last fall announced what he called his own initial campaign commitment of $55 million, the largest gift in the history of Johns Hopkins. He designated portions of the gift for use throughout the Johns Hopkins institutions.

"Time and again, Mike has shown the depth of his commitment to Johns Hopkins and the breadth of his vision," Offit said of Bloomberg. "His leadership as chair of the Initiative and as vice chair of the trustees has been extraordinary, and I am personally delighted to congratulate him as my successor."

Bloomberg, 54, founded Bloomberg Financial Markets in 1981. It is now one of the world's most important sources of business, financial and market news, transmitting information through leased computer terminals and a news service, broadcasting a radio service and television programs, and publishing magazines and other print publications.

New campaign co-chair Baker is a dual Hopkins graduate, having received his bachelor's degree in 1963 and his medical degree in 1966. He has served on the board since 1993 and has chaired both the Johns Hopkins Initiative's principal gifts committee and the National Council for Johns Hopkins Medicine. Baker is a senior partner in Mid-Atlantic Cardiothoracic Surgeons Ltd. in Norfolk, one of the largest such practices in the country, and is a director of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Virginia. Baker and his wife, Frances, have made an initial campaign gift of $2 million toward a fund to endow the deanship of the School of Medicine. Frances Watt Baker is also a dual graduate of Hopkins, having received her bachelor's degree in 1963 and her medical degree in 1966.

Sheridan, the other new campaign co-chair, earned his bachelors's degree from Johns Hopkins in 1952. He previously was vice chair of the Johns Hopkins Initiative and vice chair of the board of trustees, on which he has served since 1989. He is chairman of the Sheridan Group, one of the nation's leading scientific and medical printers. Sheridan and his wife, Debbie, have made a $20 million campaign commitment benefitting the university's Milton S. Eisenhower Library, for which Sheridan has been serving as campaign chair.

"Both Champ and Lenox have been invaluable to us as the Initiative has unfolded," Bloomberg said. "I am grateful they are willing to accept this new challenge as campaign co-chairs."