Honoring the Past, Supporting the Future

For Barbara and Bill Ailor, NC State is where it all began.

The two met on campus when both were graduate students in the 1960s, Barbara in zoology and Bill in aerospace engineering. Nearly 50 years and two successful careers later, they are giving back to the university that brought them together.

The Ailors have made a $600,000 bequest to the College of Sciences, which will go to areas that the college considers its greatest needs. They have also pledged a similar gift to the College of Engineering. A bequest is a type of planned gift in which assets are donated through a will.

“NC State provided so many opportunities for both of us,” Barbara Ailor said. “So we wanted to give back and support the important work the university is doing now.”

Ailor came to NC State after earning her bachelor’s degree in biology from Gordon College in Massachusetts. Academic work was challenging for her because of a learning disability that was diagnosed after she finished her master’s degree, but she had a fondness and aptitude for science.

Her graduate work at NC State shaped both her career and her life. The university proved to be a supportive and challenging environment where she had the freedom to pursue her research at her own pace. “The teachers there were amazing at encouraging my talents and supporting my weaknesses,” she said.

She took the problem-solving and communication skills she honed at NC State with her to pharmacy school at the University of Southern California and then into her long and successful career as a hospital pharmacist.

“In my jobs, I always gravitated toward finding a problem I was passionate about and trying to collect data to see if we could figure out what was going on and fix it,” she said. This initiative led her to consistently identify problems and inefficiencies and find successful solutions.

Since her retirement, Ailor has been an active volunteer at a local learning center for children with special needs. She and her husband are also involved with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, which Bill founded. Barbara set up a volunteer trail watch program in one of the conservancy’s nature preserves.

Funds for the gift will originate from the Ailors’ retirement accounts, an option available to holders of 401(k), 403(b), IRA and other qualified retirement funds. These types of planned gifts are attractive because charitable donations from retirement accounts aren’t subject to the hefty taxes that donors’ heirs would incur if the retirement funds were left to them. Instead, donors can leave other assets to heirs that aren’t as complicated and highly taxed.

Ailor hopes the couple’s gift will honor their NC State mentors and help students follow their academic and professional dreams.

“Both Bill and I had pretty modest beginnings,” Ailor said. “We wouldn’t have gone anywhere if it hadn’t been for our education, and NC State was key to that.”