DANIELS PIONEER NET WORK
Building DU’s Future
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Pioneer pride runs deep in the Kaplan and Corkin families—and for many good reasons. The University of Denver Colorado Women’s College is the institution for which the late Herb Corkin served as a trustee in the 1960s. DU is the place where George Kaplan (BA 1970) and his wife, Marjorie (Corkin) (Colorado Women’s College BA 1969), both attended and met soon thereafter. The couple has now been married 41 years. It is where Marjorie’s sister Janice (Colorado Women’s College BA 1970) got her start as a sculptor and a painter, and Cary (BSBA 1974), Marjorie’s and Janice’s cousin, transferred from Brown University to finish his business education. Ever since George, Cary, Marjorie and Janice graduated from DU, they have supported their alma mater in any way they could. “We were brought up in families that believed in giving something back,” says Cary. The family’s foundation, the Robert Lloyd Corkin Charitable Foundation, named for Marjorie’s late brother, Bobby, was founded in the 1960s. It supports a number of organizations in the Boston area, where the family now lives, but it has been particularly generous in its gifts to DU’s Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS), the Colorado Women’s College and the Daniels College of Business. “The reason we’re passionate about giving to DU is that we feel the University gave us the foundation for our own personal growth,” says George, a Denver native who happened to graduate from Lincoln High School the same year as DU Chancellor Robert Coombe. After graduation, George and Marjorie moved to the Boston area, where George joined the Corkin family business, The Entwistle Company, which manufactures military support equipment, wire and cable machinery, hydraulic systems and more. Cary graduated a few years later and also returned to his hometown to begin his Entwistle career. “All four of us have become involved in making the decisions on where to put our foundation’s resources, and DU is a great cause. With four of us as alumni, it was really an easy decision.” Most recently, the Corkin Foundation established
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(From left): George Kaplan and Cary Corkin in front of a P-25 shipboard firefighting truck that the Entwistle Company manufactures for the U.S. Navy. It is used onboard aircraft carriers. The Entwistle Company was founded in 1918 by James Entwistle, an electrical engineer and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company was purchased by the Corkin family in 1951.
two scholarships for undergraduate Daniels and AHSS students. They also contributed to the Margery Reed Hall renovation project, a donation for which a room will be named (the Corkin Family Student Lounge). Years ago, the family made a major gift that made possible the building of the Robert Lloyd Corkin Theater at the Colorado Women’s College. And Cary is a Daniels Dean’s Society member and interviewed prospective DU students as an Ammi Hyde interviewer for many years. “We are indebted to the Kaplan and Corkin families and their foundation for their vision and transformative gifts for undergraduate students,” says Dr. Daniel Connolly, senior associate dean. “Because of their amazing generosity, future generations of undergraduates will benefit in so many ways, including access to a DU education, richer experiences while at DU and wonderful, state-of-the-art facilities. They are stunning examples of paying it forward.” For the Corkins, making the University of Denver a better institution is their way of giving thanks. “DU was important to me, and I received an excellent education there,” says Cary. “I try to stay connected, and when we are able to do something to help DU through our foundation, we want to do that. It is a great university that deserves our attention.” •