David Hamilton Koch is an American businessman, philanthropist, political activist, and chemical engineer. He is a co-owner (with older brother Charles) and an executive vice president of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that is the second-largest privately held company in the United States. Koch is the fourth richest person in America as of 2012, and the second-richest resident of New York City as of 2010.
Background
Ethnicity:
Mother was Mary Robinson and father was Fred Chase Koch, chemical engineer. Paternal grandfather, Harry Koch, was Dutch immigrant who founded the Quanah Tribune-Chief newspaper and was founding shareholder of Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway.
He is a major patron of the arts and had contributed to several charities, including Lincoln Center, Sloan Kettering, a fertility clinic at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the American Museum of Natural History's David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing. The New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, home of the New York City Ballet was renamed the David H. Koch Theater in 2008 following a gift of 100 million dollars for the renovation of the theater. Conde Nast Portfolio described him as "one of the most generous but low-key philanthropists in America". He and his brother Charles have also donated to political advocacy groups, including Americans for Prosperity. He is a survivor of the USAir Flight 1493 crash in 1991.
He and his wife Julia M. Flesher Koch have 3 children.
Education
Member of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. Played basketball at MIT, averaging 21 points per game at MIT over three years, school record. He also held the single-game scoring record of 41 points from 1962 until 2009 when it was eclipsed by Jimmy Bartolotta.
Career
Koch was the Libertarian Party's vice-presidential candidate in the 1980 presidential election, sharing the party ticket with presidential candidate Ed Clark. The ticket received 921,128 votes, 1.06% of the total nationwide vote, the Libertarian Party national ticket's best showing to date.
After the bid, according to journalist Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism, Koch viewed politicians as "actors playing out a script".
He broke with the Libertarian Party in 1984 when it supported eliminating all taxes and Koch has since been a Republican.Since 2000, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation have pledged or contributed more than $750 million to further cancer research, enhance medical centers, support educational institutions, sustain arts and cultural institutions, and conduct public policy studies.
Since 2006, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has listed Koch as one of the world's top 50 philanthropists.In 1984, Koch founded, served as Chairman of the board of directors of, and donated to the free-market Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). In 2004, CSE separated into the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and FreedomWorks. Koch continues as Chairman of the Board and gives money to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and to a related advocacy organization, Americans for Prosperity.
Politics
Koch supports policies that promote individual liberty and free market principles. He supports gay marriage and stem-cell research. He is against Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and was against Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Koch is skeptical about anthropogenic Global Warming, and thinks warmer planet would be good because "the Earth will be able to support enormously more people because far greater land area will be available to produce food".
He opposed the Iraq war, saying that war has "cost lot of money, and it's taken so many American lives".
Koch dislikes President Obama's policies. "He's most radical president we've ever had as nation... and has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we've ever had." Koch believes that Obama's father's economic socialism explains what Koch views as Obama's belief in "antibusiness, anti-free enterprise influences." Koch believes Obama himself is "hardcore socialist" who is "marvelous at pretending to be something other than that".Eighty-seven percent of David Koch's contributions went to Republicans in 2012.