Robert Conover "Bob" Macauley (December 11, 1923 – December 26, 2010) was an American businessman who left his paper company to create the charity

Americares Americares is a global non-profit organization focused on health and development that respond to individuals affected by poverty, disaster, or crisis. The organization addresses poverty, disasters, or crises with medicine, medical supplies and h ...

, which he established in 1982 and which has provided billions of dollars of aid to needy people in crisis situations in countries around the world. Macauley had been aiding

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

ese orphans starting in the early 1970s and expanded his personal involvement in philanthropic causes after the 1975 crash of a U.S. military jet evacuating children stranded the survivors and others trying to leave the country.

Biography

Macauley was born on December 11, 1923, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Raised in

Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich (, ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast (Conne ...

, he attended

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

and then

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, where he shared a room with

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

. He served in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

with the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

and earned his undergraduate degree from Yale after completing his military service. He joined his family business and established the Virginia Fibre Corporation in 1972.Grimes, William
"Robert Macauley, Founder of Humanitarian Aid Group, Dies at 87"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', December 29, 2010. Accessed December 30, 2010. Macauley first became involved in major charitable efforts following the Tan Son Nhut C-5 accident in April 1975, in which a

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

Lockheed C-5 Galaxy The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-rang ...

carrying

ese orphans as part of

Operation Babylift Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

, crashed on landing killing more than 150 and leaving 175 survivors, many of them among the 2,000 children awaiting transportation to the United States in the days before

Fall of Saigon The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Saigon, the capital of ...

to North Vietnamese forces later that month. When he learned that it would take more than a week to evacuate the surviving orphans due to the lack of military transport planes, Macauley chartered a

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...

from

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

and arranged for 300 orphaned children to leave the country, paying for the trip by mortgaging his house. Macauley founded Americares in 1982, a year after he organized shipments of humanitarian aid to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

at the behest of

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

and had organized an airlift to provide medicine to victims of the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...

. Accepting no pay, he served as chief executive officer of the charity until 2002, distributing material collected from companies to people in need in trouble spots around the world. In 1991, Macauley received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards. A resident of

North Palm Beach, Florida North Palm Beach is an incorporated village in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami Metropolitan Area. The population was 13,162 at the 2020 census. The village won an award from the National Association of Home Buil ...

New Canaan, Connecticut New Canaan () is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,622 according to the 2020 census. About an hour from Manhattan by train, the town is considered part of Connecticut's Gold Coast. The town is bounde ...

and

Brewster, New York Brewster is a village and the principal settlement within the town of Southeast in Putnam County, New York. Its population was 2,390 at the time of the 2010 census. The village, which is the most densely populated portion of the county, was nam ...

, Macauley died at the age of 87 at his Florida home on December 26, 2010, due to

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

. He was survived by his wife Leila, as well as by a daughter, a son, a stepson and four grandchildren.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macauley, Robert 1923 births 2010 deaths United States Army personnel of World War II Deaths from emphysema Businesspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut People from North Palm Beach, Florida Phillips Academy alumni United States Army Air Forces soldiers Yale University alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American philanthropists