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AROUND THE QUADS

Kraft To Receive Hamilton Medal

Robert K. Kraft ’63

Each fall, the Columbia College Alumni Association presents the Alexander Hamilton Medal to an alumnus or faculty member for distinguished service and accomplishment in any field of endeavor. On Thursday, November 18, Robert K. Kraft ’63, a businessman, owner of the two-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots and the major benefactor of Columbia’s Kraft Family Center for Jewish Student Life, will be honored at a dinner in the Low Library Rotunda.

Kraft is founder and chairman of the Boston-based Kraft Group of Companies, a holding company with interests in venture investing, sports and entertainment, and paper and packaging. The Kraft Group also makes and holds a number of investments in venture stage companies, focusing on the cable business, radio, business-to-consumer, business-to-business, Internet technology and infrastructure holdings.

A Brookline, Mass., native, Kraft attended the College on an academic scholarship. He played football and was a member of the Varsity “C” Club, Van Am Society and Senior Society of Sachems. Kraft was president of his freshman, sophomore and senior classes; students could not serve as president for three consecutive years. Thereafter, he was elected permanent class president. Kraft received a fellowship to attend the Harvard School of Business, where he earned an M.B.A. in 1965. He is a University trustee emeritus, sits on the Boston College Board of Trustees and serves on the executive committees of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Kraft purchased the Patriots in 1994, saving the team from leaving New England. In the eight seasons that he has owned the team, the Patriots have qualified for the playoffs six times and appeared in three Super Bowls, claiming the franchise’s first title with a 20–17 victory over the St. Louis Rams in 2002’s Super Bowl XXXVI and its second with a 32–29 victory over the Carolina Panthers in 2004’s Super Bowl XXXVIII. The Kraft Group’s holdings in sports and entertainment also include Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution.

Kraft and his wife, Myra, live in Brookline, Mass. They have four children, David ’94, Jonathan, Josh and Dan, and eight grandchildren.

For more information on the dinner, please contact Shelley Grunfeld, Alumni Office manager of special events: (212) 870-2288 or rg329@columbia.edu.

Lisa Palladino

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