Carol Berry Milgard

2007 Lifetime Achievement Award

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#1 Cheerleader For A Lifetime

Carol Milgard was a force in the community that not everyone directly knew, but certainly felt in one way or another.

Carol was the wife of Gary Milgard, founder of Milgard Windows. She died this summer (2007) at the age of 70, volunteering to the end. Gary died in 2005.

During their ownership of the company, she began the company's charitable donation program and championed issues concerning children and education.

It was more than a decade ago that Carol started a volunteer program at the company called Matching Gift/Community Action Team.

It had only six contributors that year. It grew.

The program includes more than 6,000 volunteers who gave $300,000 back to its community.

To this day, the employee-matching donation program at the company that bears the Milgard name helps fund hundreds of communities causes throughout the United States. Wherever the window giant has locations, money is donated that would have not been there had Carol not initiated the matching gifts effort.

Carol's community service efforts shifted into higher gear after the Milgards sold the company in 2001 and concentrated their efforts on Gary E. Milgard Family Foundation.

Milgard Windows is the largest window-manufacturing business on the West Coast. Its sale funded the foundation.

While Gary's name was on the foundation, it was Carol who served as its president and provided the philanthropic foundation with its vision, drive and heart.

The Milgard name is linked to some of the biggest donations of recent record in the South Sound. One of the first was a $10 million donation to University of Washington Tacoma in 2003 to create the Milgard School of Business. That donation was matched by a $5 million check from Gary's brother Jim.

Other significant donations include a $12 million gift to the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound to create a facility called Gary and Carol Milgard Family HOPE Center in Lakewood that opened this summer.

The center will be home to a Lakewood branch of Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound and provide the regional office for Kids at Hope. Kids at Hope in a national effort based in Arizona that strives to rally communities around a common effort to help children and to look at issues holistically rather than as individual programs. A Boys & Girls Club is also set for Tacoma's South End. Yet another donation of note was a $2.5 million gift to MultiCare Health
System in Tacoma.

Other community programs that have felt Carol's touch include Charles Wright Academy, Mary Bridge Children's Hospital, Hoover Institute, Neiska, Junior League of Tacoma, Tacoma Country and Golf Club, The Vintage Club in Indian Wells, Calif., St. Mary's Episcopal Church and the Lakewood Racquet Club.

More important than donations she directed as president of the Milgard Foundation and from her volunteerism, even as substantial as they were, was Carol Milgard's ability to gather others to support efforts she championed.

"She helped us get others involved," said Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound President Gary Yazwa. "She got people really engaged with us and what we do, and really became a champion of the Boys and Girls Clubs. A lot of people have given more than they ever have before because of Carol. She was a big part of us reaching people and bringing people together that we hadn't
reached before."

Her heart was always focused on her community and its children. This was her town, and she wanted to make it better by bringing out the best in others, he added.

Born in Tacoma, she was a graduate of Stadium High School and later graduated from the University of Washington, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority, before returning to her hometown.

"She was just a bundle of energy and a bundle of sunshine," said Chris Zemanek, the Milgard Foundation's executive director. "She was just a fireball. She really was. She just loved helping people, particularly children. She wanted to make sure they had the same opportunity that more privileged children did."

Carol is survived by two daughters, Cari Milgard DeGoede and Lori Milgard Rivera; her son, Mark, and five grandchildren.

Her children serve on the foundation's board and meet four times a year to coordinate donations toward community efforts around Pierce County. Her grandchildren have also become engaged in the charity.

Carol also made sure that the foundation had a system to teach future generations of Milgards the role of service to the community.

The foundation allocates 1 percent of the donation money for that year to the four Milgard grandchildren to donate as they wish each year. The grandchildren are responsible for determining which organizations they want to visit, and they then also decide how the money will be allocated.

During the summer months, the grandchildren visit several charitable organizations in Pierce County to guide them through the decision making process and best assess where their efforts should best be spent. Last year's recipients were Mary Bridge Children's Foundation, Tacoma Goodwill Industries and Toy Rescue
Mission.