Marilyn K. Glick

(Mar. 8, 1922-Mar. 23, 2012). Marilyn Koffman Glick was active in community work from an early age. At seven years old, she was the youngest volunteer for the Jewish National Fund Flower Day in Detroit, where she spent her early childhood. She relocated to Indianapolis as a teenager. and was an honor student at Shortridge High School, graduating in 1940.

In the early days of her career, she advanced in the Indianapolis Life Insurance Company from a clerk in the policy loan department to the head of the reinsurance department and secretary to the vice president. In 1945 she met World War II veteran Eugene B. Glick, whom she married two years later. She applied her business skills to the two-person company she and her new husband started that same year, now recognized as one of the largest privately held real estate ownership, development, and management firms in the U.S. She supervised the Gene B. Glick Company’s construction projects and was tenacious in securing scarce building materials.

As the business grew, Glick became the mother of four girls and transitioned to full-time parenting and community service. She made substantial personal leadership contributions to the Indiana State Symphony Society and its Young Audiences program, she was president of the Borinstein Home Guild (now Hooverwood Guild) from 1966-1968, and she founded People of Vision in Indiana.

This dedication to eye health culminated in the Glicks’ largest philanthropic grant to date, a $30 million gift to the Indiana University School of Medicine for the construction of its new Glick Eye Institute in Indianapolis. Marilyn hoped that the Eye Institute would become a national center of research and development of new treatments to restore and preserve vision.

Jewish causes were a particular passion for Marilyn Glick. She served on the boards of her Temple Sisterhood, the National Council of Jewish Women, and Hadassah—The Women’s Zionist Organization. She and her husband funded several projects and fellowships through the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem and were major benefactors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis and its programs and services.

Marilyn Glick began collecting glass art in the 1980s and became one of the nation’s most noted collectors. Part of her collection is on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Her artistic interests have been reflected in donations to the Indianapolis Art Center and its Marilyn K. Glick School of Art. Governor Evan Bayh, who appointed her to the Indiana Arts Commission where she served for eight years, recognized her contribution to the arts community. She and her husband were also honored with the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award.

Major recipients of Glick and her husband’s philanthropy also include organizations in the arts such as Heartland Film and Dance Kaleidoscope; those in education such as La Plaza, Inc. and Early Learning Indiana; and those helping individuals in need such as Coburn House and Gleaners Food Bank. They provided a $15 million pledge to develop the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, designed to promote Indianapolis downtown neighborhoods and cultural districts. History also has been a focus of the Glick’s philanthropy. In December 2007, the building that houses the Indiana Historical Society was renamed the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in honor of their major gift for its Campaign for the Indiana Experience.

Glick wrote of her eventful life in her autobiography, Once Upon a Lifetime: Marilyn’s Story (2007). She also funded a geothermal glassblowing studio at Ball State University which opened in 2010.

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