Sanford Health CEO Bill Gassen announced in an email to Sanford employees on Saturday morning that Thomas Denny Sanford has died.
Sanford died on Saturday at the age of 90.
Sanford, originally from East St. Paul, has been South Dakota’s wealthiest person for years. He gifted a Sioux Falls-based health system, which bears his name, nearly $1 billion, and also gave away millions to other organizations in South Dakota and throughout the country.
According to his obituary, Sanford was a champion for charitable organizations that benefit children, health care, higher education, workforce development and the arts. His first significant donation was a $2 million gift in 1999 to Children’s Home Society of South Dakota.
In 2007, he made history with his $400 million gift to the Sioux Valley Health System, which became Sanford Health. Additional gifts to Sanford Health were used to establish specialty facilities, including the Edith Sanford Breast Center, Sanford Children’s Hospital, Sanford Imagenetics and Sanford Health’s Virtual Care Initiative. Passionate about the power of education, Denny funded numerous scholarships including South Dakota’s Build Dakota and Freedom scholarship programs. He was also instrumental in construction of the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls and provided significant gifts to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) and Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. “We are forever blessed that Denny chose us and our communities to make the transformational gifts that will change lives for generations,” Gassen said in a statement. “He was a driving force in modern medicine, empowering researchers and clinicians to think big and pursue bold, innovative endeavors at a pace not otherwise possible. We are able to provide care for more patients in their time of need because of his generosity.”
