Our next honor, for Meritorious Service,
is being awarded to Karl Beutner.
Karl graduated from Saint Mary’s College
in 1971 and continued on to earn an MA and
PhD in microbiology and immunology, as well as an MD from the State University of New
York at Buffalo.
Eventually, Karl returned to his hometown
of Vallejo, CA to practice dermatology, where
he started a clinical trials group that conducted
hundreds of clinical trials resulting in the
development of new treatments and vaccines
for a variety of skin diseases.
Karl served as Chief Medical Officer of Dow
Pharmaceutical Sciences, which was acquired
by Valent Pharmaceuticals and Anacor Pharmaceuticals
and later acquired by Pfizer.
Along with his clinical practice, Karl is
co-founder, CEO and CMO of DermBiont a company
focused on the cutaneous microbiome to better
understand and treat skin diseases.
Karl was a founding member and first Chairperson
of the Saint Mary’s College School of Science
Advisory Board.
Over the years, Karl and his wife, Mary, have
strongly supported and become leading advocates
for the efforts to purchase equipment for
the School of Science and support students
and faculty in science research at Saint Mary’s College.
Karl’s dedication to the mission is
profound.
Karl is thoughtful, he listens very well and
one of those signs of a great CEO or entrepreneur
is somebody that listens.
You have to bring out the talents in people
and that’s Karl’s gift.
It’s no doubt, I think one of the
Lasallian sayings is that the brothers would
meet you where you are and help you get to
where you want to be.
And that’s what they did to me.
And that’s a large part in the commitment
I have to the college.
I’ve also seen my children flourish here.
Karl helped us assemble the science board,
working with Roy Winsley.
Karl felt that we had to get the best people
we could from the School of Science, most
of the Science Board members, with a few exceptions,
are graduates of the college.
He recruited and helped us recruit terrific
people like Dr. Dennis Meiss, who helped us
acquire a Neuro Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer
It’s the equipment that has allowed
the expansion of the curriculum and it’s
a lot of the faculty that do research studies
that they would not have been otherwise able
to do it.
Other members of the advisory board have been
very supportive and it's been a very collegial
group.
I’ve enjoyed interacting with them, getting
to know them and see their passion and excitement
about what we’re trying to do.
Part of the reason we’ve had so much
success raising funds to buy this equipment
and maintain it is because the faculty have
been involved and Karl has taken the time
to talk to faculty members.
At Saint Mary’s, science has become
one of the fastest growing areas for majors.
So there are ever increasing numbers of students
that are interested in this.
I think it’s a reflection of the general
awareness of the importance of technology
and science in our world.
Thank you all.
Not sure why I deserve this.
In large part, I am who I am because of the
brothers and because of Saint Mary’s College.
And I have a lot of people to thank for that.
First and foremost, the love of my life, my
wife Mary, we’ve only been married 36 years
but it’s a good start.
I’d like to thank Rod Turner and Nancy Richardson,
who I think nominated me for this.
Rod was instrumental in the formation of the
advisory committee and Nancy has taken over
as chairperson of that.
 
The whole board is incredibly enthusiastic
and very supportive.
And Dean Wensley, he puts up with me and he
listens to me when there is something wrong
with my ideas.
And as my wife says ‘Karl, you have lots
of ideas, some are better than others’,
but he listens quite patiently.
It was actually Dean Wensley who first contacted
me about developing an advisory board for
the School of Science, soon after we formed
it we realized that we have beautiful physical
facility, but for reasons I won’t recount,
it was built but never equipt.
And so, Mary and I kicked off a donation to
start an endowment for the equipment for the
School of Science.
But then, believe it or not
he taught me ecology and biology, spent a
Jan Term going faculty member to faculty member
saying ‘What equipment do you need?
What equipment will expand the curriculum,
support the curriculum, will make us competitive?’
and came up with a list of equipment.
We had 1.6 million dollars, nice round number.
And so then, Ron had the bold step
to say ‘well we aren't going to nibble around
the edges, we are going to go through the
big piece,’ and the big piece was the big
piece of equipment you saw the MMR.
It allows scientists to look at molecules
at a molecular level.
It cost a little bit over half a million dollars.
And then Dennis Meiss and his wife, Dennis
is an alumni of Saint Mary’s, they stepped
up and made the lead donation and made the
MMR possible.
And now Dennis is leading the subcommittee
in the School of Science to raise the 1.1
million we need for the rest of the equipment
and I’m happy to replace that as of this
week, I’m told we have $935,000 of the $1.1.
And once we have that done, I think we need
to focus on building the endowment so we don’t
get behind on equipment again.
I’d like to see a few more endowed faculty
positions and I am who I am because of Saint
Mary’s and it's not just me, its my family.
My son Karl Jr. he has the same affliction
I have with curiosity, they kicked him down
the hall in the School of Science here at
Saint Mary’s, he went from Biology, to Chemistry,
to Physics to Mathematics and then on to attend
graduate studies at UC Davis.
Still got out in four years, there aren’t
a lot of colleges that would allow him to
do that.
And he is now doing a thing called Computational
Biology in a little company in Southern California
called AmGen.
Kate and Matt, Kate got her AA
degree at Saint Mary’s and her B.S. at Samuel
Merritt, worked a few years at Surgical ICU
Medical Center and then went on and got a
Masters as a Nurse Practitioner, she picked
a Jesuit school, Georgetown, we’ll forgive
her anyway, she now practices in the cardiology
department of a place down South called Stanford.
Matt was very focused, kid knew what he wanted
to do, he went on to medical school, and is
now at UCSI.
Even more important are my two daughter in
laws, who is not only an alumnus,
but also Valedictorian of her class, they
made us grandparents for the first time.
Adaline and Elizabeth are class
of ‘38 and ‘39.
The future is bright for the School of Science.
I hope that as it grows it’ll attract smarter
and smarter student and faculty that’ll
keep an eye out for students like me who are
not academic wonders, but have a curiosity
and grit.
I think to learn science, you have to be encyclopedic,
for the younger ones in the crowd, encyclopedia
is what we had before Wikipedia and Google.
I think what I have is curiosity and grit
and willingness to question conventional wisdom.
I think that’s what it takes to apply knowledge,
to research, discovery and ultimately development.
And so again, thank you Saint Mary’s.
