Generosity Remembered

The Sequoia Hospital Foundation recently received a generous gift of more than $230,000 from the estate of grateful patients Jean and Richard “Dick” Collins. Their gift to the “Greatest Need” fund will further enable the Foundation’s Board of Directors to quickly address urgent and compelling needs throughout the hospital.

Jean was a pioneering women in the field of aviation, earning her pilot’s license in 1946 at age sixteen. She worked at Nystrom Aviation and went on to found the Delcon Corporation which was later sold to Hewlett Packard. While at Nystrom she met Dick, a mechanical engineer and a helicopter test pilot with Hiller Aviation who once flew dynamite in Alaska for the Alaskan pipeline. Dick and Jean loved travel and wildlife and rescued many owls before releasing them back into the wild. Together they built a Swift Globe airplane and flew throughout the United States and Canada with friends.

Jean and Dick were married for 62 years until Jean’s death in 2016. Dick followed in 2018. Their shared love of Sequoia Hospital inspired their significant legacy gift.