Behind the Scenes with Carl Thomas

Executive Director of The Gheens Foundation and Metro United Way Tocqueville Society Member

By: Laura Snyder

Published On: February 01, 2012

Story by Laura Snyder

Art Direction by Dan Dry, Power Creative
& John Wurth

Photography by Ted Wirth, Power Creative

Styling by Mona Simone

Hair and Make-up by Rick Bancroft

Photo Assistance by Liam Spradlin

After 33 years in banking—19 at National City Bank, where he was Senior Vice President, and 14 at Commonwealth Bank and Trust, where he was Chairman and CEO—Carl Thomas took over as the Executive Director of the Gheens Foundation, the second largest private trust in Kentucky. Joining the Metro United Way campaign when he took his first banking job, Thomas has increased his level of giving each year, ultimately joining the highest level of United Way donors in the Tocqueville Society.

Touching the lives of most everyone who lives in Metro Louisville, the Gheens Foundation and the Tocqueville Society are two of the engines that drive philanthropy in Louisville, yet many do not even know their names and few know the story behind these significant philanthropic organizations. NFocus is honored to share that story with you and to bring you Thomas’s insider perspective.

A graduate of Louisville’s Male High School, C. Edwin Gheens met his wife, Mary Jo Lazarus, in 1925 while visiting Dr. John Kellogg’s famous fitness spa in Battle Creek, Michigan. Edwin and Mary Jo owned and operated one of the country’s oldest and most well known candy companies. Located on five acres around the area that is now Floyd Street, the Bradas & Gheens Candy Company employed as many as 400 workers during peak season and made 150 different kinds of candy—everything from chocolate-covered peanuts to orange slices—that sold in department stores like Kresge’s and Woolworth.

The Gheenses lived a lavish life at the Lincliffe estate, a Georgian Revival Mansion on a high bluff overlooking the Ohio River, where they employed a staff of gardeners, chauffeurs, cooks, maids, and security guards. While Edwin preferred entertaining guests at the Pendennis Club, Mary Jo hosted extensively at Lincliffe, throwing luncheons and teas for the Junior League and the Glenview Garden Club. The Filson Club and the Red Cross were often recipients of her signature gift—camellias, which she cultivated at great expense in elaborate greenhouses purchased for her as a Christmas gift by Edwin.

They divided their time between Louisville and La Fourche Parish, Louisiana, where they owned and operated a large plantation that eventually yielded great deposits of oil, leaving them with a fortune that far exceeded their wants and needs. In 1957, four years before Edwin’s death at age 84, they established the Gheens Foundation, which Mary Jo independently oversaw for the 21 years she lived after Edwin’s death.

While the Gheenses were passionately committed to specific philanthropic and religious organizations, in particular the Broadway Baptist Church, they left no specific guidelines as to how they wanted their trustees to allocate Gheens Foundation funds. Even when pressed for instructions by her attorney and President of the Foundation, Joe Stouffer, Mary Jo gave only the tacit response, “Times change.” Thus, the will of the Gheens Foundation is entirely in the hands of a self-sustaining board comprised of six members. Together, the board seeks out ways to invest foundation funds into projects that proactively provide solutions to social ills. For example, in 1983 when Jefferson County Public Schools were suffering abysmal standardized test scores and graduation rates, the board established the Gheens Professional Development Academy, which pioneered the educational reform methods that would become The Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA). The tremendous progress of the Jefferson County School System since that time is attributable, in large part, to the Gheens Foundation. This first extensive investment in education set a precedent of making public education a priority of the Gheens Foundation.

Although Edwin and Mary Jo had no direct heirs, their legacy has now improved the lives of two generations. If you have ever attended a Jefferson County Public School, enjoyed a Fund for the Arts program, or sought the support of Hosparus, your life has been touched by their philanthropy.

Gheens Foundation Executive Director, Carl Thomas

In 1968, Carl Thomas graduated from Waggener High School. In 1972, he graduated from Vanderbilt University and took his first job at National City Bank, where he worked until 1991, when he moved to Commonwealth Bank and Trust. In 2005, two weeks after retiring from his position as President of Commonwealth Bank, Carl received a call from his old boss at National City Bank, former CEO Morton Boyd, now the Gheens Foundation Chairman Emeritus. Jim Davis was retiring as the Executive Director of the Gheens Foundation and the board wanted someone with a banking background and visibility in the community.

According to Thomas, being the Executive Director of the Gheens Foundation, where he oversees 84 million in stocks and bonds, “is not unlike working in a bank.” A nonvoting resource to the Gheens Foundation Trustees and grant seekers alike, Carl oversees the Gheens Foundation quarterly grant process. He develops the budget, informs the trustees of how much money can be allocated in a given year, helps grant seekers turn in an average of 40 applications per quarter to the board, and then informs applicants of the board’s decisions. Thomas also follows up with all grant recipients, making sure the money granted was used for the purpose intended. He carefully documents facts like how many lives were impacted by Gheens funds. When money is given to the Fund for the Arts, Thomas wants to know how many children saw the orchestra because of a Gheens grant.

“We spend most of our time saying ‘no,’” Thomas says. “Five in eight of our grant applications are turned down. As a banker, I have no trouble saying ‘no,’ but when you say ‘no’ here, it’s not so easy as saying ‘no’ as a banker. As a banker, you know you’re doing the right thing when lending money is not in the best interest of the client or the bank, but when you say ‘no’ as the Executive Director of Gheens, you just know that people need the money. However, we have to balance the needs of today with the needs of tomorrow so that we can be here into perpetuity. We take no donations, we live off of what we make on stocks and bonds and oil interests in Louisiana. The Gheens Foundation is the second largest foundation in the state,” Carl says. “At $84 million, that is disappointing. We need more people to establish foundations.”

The Metro United Way Tocqueville Society

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, an aristocratic Frenchman, embarked on an extensive tour of America. From his observations and reflections, Tocqueville published the two-volume Democracy in America, which is widely regarded as the most important book about America ever written by a foreign observer. When Tocqueville visited Kentucky, decrying its reliance on slavery, he surely would never have imagined that 179 years later, citizens of Kentucky’s largest city would “form an association” in his name, a philanthropic society known as The United Way Tocqueville Society.

Tocqueville identified the forming of “associations” to promote the general welfare as a uniquely American response, one that was both previously unknown in the modern world and also one that was critical to the success of the democratic experiment. He wrote, "I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support.”

In 1984, in honor of Tocqueville’s identification of what is distinctly American about philanthropy, the United Way of America named its major donor society "The Alexis de Tocqueville Society." Our Metro United Way Tocqueville Society includes 244 individuals, each of whom donates $10,000 or more annually. Together, they make up over $3.5 million of the local Metro United Way donor base. A Tocqueville Society member’s $10,000 donation to the United Way enables Family & Children’s Place to serve 20 sexually abused children; 3,850 warm meals at the Salvation Army Louisville Center of Hope; 10 Big Brother or Big Sister partnerships; 385 round trips for seniors who need transportation to medical appointments; a year of services for at Bridgehaven for someone with severe mental illness. According to incoming director Jerry Henderson, “Having a strong and growing Tocqueville Society ensures that the Metro United Way is able to continue to deliver on its vital mission to the community.” Outgoing director Chris Burnside has worked passionately to ensure the strength and growth of the Tocqueville Society, and under his direction, membership grew 50% in the past 3 years. “It's really exciting,” said Burnside, “When we started 3 years ago, many of us on our Steering Committee could not even spell Alexis de Tocqueville. Today, we have a Society that is really starting to sizzle."

Metro United Way Tocqueville Society Member Carl Thomas

The Gheens Foundation and the Tocqueville Society are yoked together by way of a shared dedication to public education. 1962, the Gheens Foundation made its first grant to the Metro United Way in the amount of $840. To date, the Gheens Foundation has made over $4 million in donations to the Metro United Way, making them one of the largest ever recipients of Gheens Foundation grants.

As Executive Director of the Gheens Foundation, Carl Thomas is professionally linked to both organizations, but personally, he has also made the $10,000 individual commitment to the United Way’s Tocqueville Society. When I ask him why, he says pragmatically, “Bankers are expected to be involved in the community. It’s good for the bank. It’s good for the individual. It’s just good business. The United Way is a very efficient and effective way to give. They have community-based boards that do the allocations, and the fundraising costs are very reasonable.”

Then, Thomas recounts a memory of being a 24-year-old employee of National City Bank and taking a United Way sponsored field trip with coworkers to the Home for Innocents. “We went to the pediatric convalescent center and saw children who were very ill and were not going to get better. I didn’t really think a lot about things like that when I was 24, but I did sign up for the United Way’s payroll deduction plan. Each year, I increased the amount of my gift. When I got up to 4 digits, Dick Swope and Joe Tolan convinced me to move up to the Tocqueville level.”

One of the Tocqueville Society’s benefits is distinctive networking, like small luncheons with corporate and government leaders. However, Thomas, like other Tocqueville Society members I’ve met with, appreciates this benefit without seeing it as the main enticement. “The luncheons are nice,” Thomas tells me, “but I would have done this without the luncheons. I just think I have duty to do this, as being one of the fortunate ones. Regardless of your politics, going forward, we know that the state, federal, and local governments are broke. In this environment, who’s going to step up? Or are we going to be stepping over people lying in the streets? The need is there.”