NEW YORK, NY (April 11, 2013) --
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. announced today that
Christopher “Kip” Forbes of the Forbes publishing family and real estate
magnate Jeffrey Gural have joined its Board of Directors.
Mr. Forbes is currently Vice
Chairman of Forbes Media LLC and serves on several boards. He and his
family were honored with the 2008 Ellis Island Family Heritage Award in the
field of Business in tribute to his grandfather B. C. Forbes, who immigrated to
America in 1904 and founded Forbes Magazine 13 years later. Since 2009 the
Forbes Family has annually underwritten the B. C. Forbes Peopling of America
Award which recognizes individuals who have immigrated to America and made a
major contribution to the American experience. A magna cum laude graduate of
Princeton, Mr. Forbes was promoted to the rank of Officier of the Legion of
Honour by the French government in November 2011.
Mr. Gural is Chairman of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, which currently manages
approximately one hundred fifty buildings in the Metropolitan area, of which
Mr. Gural has an ownership interest in forty-one of them. He sits on many
corporate and non-profit boards, including The Real Estate Board of New York
and the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Mr. Gural is a major owner and breeder
of Standardbred racehorses and has recently become the lessee of the
Meadowlands Racetrack, the leading Standardbred track in North America.
He and his family underwrote an Ellis Island Museum gallery in memory of his
great-grandfather, Jacob Rabinowitz, a Russian immigrant and founder of the
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).
“We are so honored and pleased to
have Messrs. Forbes and Gural join our Board of Directors at this important and
challenging time in our history,” said Stephen A. Briganti, Foundation
President and CEO. “As we work with the National Park Service to rebuild in the
wake of Hurricane Sandy, we continue construction of the second phase of The
Peopling of America® Center, a major expansion of the Ellis Island Immigration
Museum which will explore immigration in the post-Ellis Island Era, right up to
the present. We welcome their guidance and support as we work toward the
completion of this and future projects.”
The Foundation’s full board list
is available at http://www.ellisisland.org/EIinfo/board.asp.
About The Statue of
Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit organization founded in 1982 to raise funds for and oversee the historic restorations of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, working in partnership with the National Park Service/U.S. Department of the Interior. Its endowment has funded over 200 projects at the islands.