William Polk Carey,81, an entrepreneur who founded a New York-based investment management firm bearing his name and donated millions of dollars to help found business schools at universities in Maryland and Arizona, died January 2, 2012. In 1988 Cary established the W.P. Carey Foundation to support educational causes and donated generously in later years. He gave $30 million in April to the University of Maryland law school. In 2006 he made a $50 million bequest to Johns Hopkins University to found the Carey School of Business at that Maryland university, and in 2003 he gave $50 million to ASU to found its W.P. Carey School of Business. In recognition of his extraordinary support, ASU renamed the university’s business school in his honor, and the gift has been instrumental in helping the W. P. Carey School to become one of the world’s top business schools. U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times all now rank W. P. Carey School programs among the Top 30 nationwide. At the time, Carey’s generous donation was the second-largest gift ever to a U.S. business school. Carey’s family has deep connections to ASU. His grandfather, John Samuel Armstrong, introduced legislation that created the university in 1886. Carey also had an honorary doctor of science degree from ASU. "The ASU family mourns the loss of our benefactor and friend Bill Carey," says ASU President Michael M. Crow. "Bill Carey was not only a great business leader and philanthropist, but also a visionary. He knew that metropolitan Phoenix needed a first-rate business school to advance in the 21st century and saw in ASU the potential to develop that school. Through his generous investment in ASU almost a decade ago, the school that bears his name has become world-class and will continue to educate future business leaders for many generations to come." Says Robert Mittelstaedt, W. P. Carey School of Business dean, “Bill gave us the ability to dramatically advance the quality and status of the school much more rapidly than would have been possible otherwise. He was a philanthropist who believed a primary way to advance our country was through education, and he helped a number of schools, including ours. He was also a student of economics and a great admirer of top-tier economists.” At the time of his death, Carey was chairman of W.P. Carey & Co., which manages a global investment portfolio totaling about $11.8 billion, according to the company statement. Carey was a leader in the field of corporate finance for nearly 60 years and found innovative ways to provide needed capital to hundreds of companies through the firm he founded. He specifically led the way in developing a sale-leaseback investment strategy for commercial real estate that has kept his company in the forefront of leaders in that industry.