An amplifier, a family credo and a crisis led to an $80 million gift for UCI MIND

Dr. Joshua Grill, executive director at UCI MIND – the organization at UC Irvine that’s technically known as the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most important hubs for research into Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia – is an expert at running scientific clinical trials.

And while such trials can be wildly technical and arcane, most boil down to a fairly simple question of cause and effect. If you introduce a cause (by giving a trial participant an experimental drug, or a placebo, or a back rub, or whatever), will it produce an effect (robust health, no physical change at all, annoying rash, etc.)?

So it’s maybe more than a little ironic that even Grill, expert that he is, couldn’t possibly have foreseen the cause-and-effect path of an electric bass amplifier, hand-crafted in Orange County nearly 60 years ago, morphing into a business that eventually financed the philanthropic whopper that becomes official today – a gift of nearly $80 million to UCI MIND.

Most of that money (nearly $50 million) is coming from members of the Quilter family, the crew that includes Patrick Quilter, who invented the amp, and Chris Quilter, who in high school played in a band with the bassist who wanted that first amp, and Charles Quilter, the oldest brother who was an early investor in Patrick’s amplifier business.

Last year, they were all part of the deal when a corporate descendant of Patrick’s original amplifier business, QSC Audio, was bought up by Acuity Brands, a lighting company, for more than $1.2 billion.

“It is a bit of a journey,” laughed Ann Quilter, Charles’ wife and Patrick’s sister-in-law.

Ann Quilter, 79, is a long-time philanthropist and volunteer in Laguna Beach. She’s also the Quilter who got other Quilters (including Chris and Patrick) to view UCI MIND as something worth supporting.

She has been a participant in a longitudinal study looking at descendants of people who died of different types of dementia (her mother suffered from Alzheimer’s and her father had Lewy Body Dementia). And her experience, she explained, has made her something of a UCI MIND fangirl.

“It’s not just because of the research they do (at UCI MIND), but also because of their incredible outreach to the community,” Ann Quilter said. “It’s not an ivory tower institute. UCI MIND lives in the community.”

Grill said UCI MIND will use the gift announced Sunday, Dec. 7, to put up a three-story building on land that’s currently used as parking for UCI’s medical school, and that the building will become UCI MIND’s new, all-in-one home base.

If that comes to pass, it will replace what is currently a multi-building network that includes, among other things, many aging offices, at least four tiny rooms used for clinical trials, a basement with walls the color of unripe limes and a repository for about 1,500 human brains.

In all, UCI MIND includes 75 faculty from 29 departments who conduct research that, in some way, could lead to ways to manage Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The goal is to put it all under one roof.

But that building, which won’t go up for several years, will include one last bit of cause-and-effect serendipity: Ann Quilter’s name. UCI MIND’s new building will be called Ann Hutchinson Quilter Hall.

It turns out that in addition to all the other stuff that first Quilter amp eventually became, it also spawned what might be one of the more expensive (and community-minded) family pranks ever played.

Money equals money

You can see how big a deal $80 million is to UCI MIND by watching Grill’s eyes widen as he describes the calls and meetings he took with different members of the Quilter family, starting about 13 months ago.

In November 2024, at Ann’s request, Grill had lunch with Ann and husband Charlie Quilter at their home in Laguna Beach. A couple days later, Ann came out to Grill’s office to give UCI MIND $5 million.

“She hand-wrote the check,” Grill said.

On its own, that would be huge; enough for Grill to begin a multi-year capital campaign that, eventually, might finance a new home.

But in early December, one day after UCI MIND held its annual fundraising gala, Grill took a call from another Quilter, Chris. Grill and Chris talked for an hour, and Chris ended the call by saying he also would pledge $5 million. Grill was happily shocked. A day after that, Chris sent an email to Grill saying Patrick, too, would pledge $5 million.

So, a year ago this month, Grill had $15 million pledged toward a building.

But he also had a potential way to build on that.

The two brothers-in-law had asked Grill a couple of questions: What would it take to get Ann Quilter’s name on the building? And would it be possible to make that happen without telling Ann?

The cost question isn’t tricky; it’s a simple percentage of the price of the building.

But other parts of that question aren’t so easy to answer.

Grill needed a rough estimate for how much a new UCI MIND home would cost to build and, to get that, he needed to get UCI and a specific builder committed to the project. He also needed to secure a site on campus. And he had to come up with a long-term plan for what would – and wouldn’t – be allowed into the building. (Eventually, Grill said, dry labs would be deemed OK while wet labs, which are more expensive, were kept out.)

By April, he had what he needed. So Grill went out to visit Patrick with what he knew to be a pretty expensive message: Getting a name on the new UCI MIND building would cost about $50 million.

Grill admitted he was a little nervous. But more than that, he was also excited about the possibilities. If Patrick agreed to the terms, the new building might switch from being a long-term to short-term project.

“I love talking about our mission and the importance of our work, so the opportunity to talk to someone who was interested and had the capacity to amplify our mission was exhilarating,” Grill wrote via email.

“The meeting went really well.”

Patrick signed on. And, soon, lawyers representing the family and the school hammered out the necessary details, bringing the Quilter family’s contribution to UCI MIND close to $50 million.

But the thing about fundraising is that money leads to money. Having the Quilter pledges in hand gave Grill a message he could bring to other potential donors – that their contributions stood a strong chance of becoming something tangible in a fairly short time. Grill said UCI MIND has received seven-figure gifts from Harriet Harris, the Brethren Community Foundation, Laura Khouri and Mike Hayde, and Keith Swayne, bringing the total close to $80 million.

Still, while the meeting with Patrick Quilter went as well as Grill could have imagined – getting money in hand and a pledge that sparked enough add-on giving – it also left him with a challenge.

“One of the hardest parts was keeping it a secret from Ann.”

‘False modesty’

A hand-held video shot in early July, reportedly at a restaurant near Italy’s Lake Como, shows Ann Quilter and an unnamed friend dining with Charles Quilter, who is mostly dapper though wearing Birkenstocks without socks.

The occasion is Ann’s birthday. And Charles, by way of offering a present, pushes a piece of paper across the table, toward his wife. It’s a diagram of the future UCI MIND building. As Ann scans it, her mouth falls open.

Before she says anything, Charles retrieves the paper and reads a message from his brothers. They thank Ann for turning them on to what they view as a good cause – UCI MIND – and warn her that she can’t secretly move to get her name taken off the building out “any sense of false modesty.”

She seems to laugh and hold back tears in equal doses.

“My two brothers-in-law,” Ann Quilter said last week, “they really raised the ante.”

But the ante, Quilter added, is about community, not family naming rights.

UCI MIND will be getting a building – and, with it, more name recognition – at a time when America’s aging population will turn Alzheimer’s and other dementias into a full-blown national crisis.

About 164,000 people in Orange County (and 7.2 million in the United States) currently exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. By 2040, as America’s population ages up, those numbers are projected to more than double, according to federal data and research by, among others, UCI MIND.

All of that means dementia research is in a race of sorts; come up with a way to at least manage Alzheimer’s, or prepare for a new, dementia-tinged world.

Grill, for one, is optimistic that the worst of the possible crisis will be averted.

“We are literally changing the diagnoses and treatment of (Alzheimer’s disease), and we are going to continue to make important progress,” Grill said.

“The more resources that are available, the faster the progress will come. But the progress – I am sure – will continue.”

Grill said the new building will, in turn, help to hire and train new researchers and, critically, expand UCI’s public outreach. Currently, he said, the school is contacted by up to 10,000 people a year seeking information about dementia or clinical trials or other issues via in-person education. He noted that UCI MIND also has a website (mind.uci.edu), a blog (mind.uci.edu/blog) and a podcast, “Spotlight on Care,” (mind.uci.edu/mindcast/#spotlight) that deliver up-to-date information for people with hard questions.

It’s why Ann Quilter is happy about her family’s donation.

“We’re perfectly fine with our lifestyle now,” she said. “And doing what we can, for this particular cause, is a simple matter of responsibility.

“But this isn’t about the glory of building a building,” she added. “It’s what it all brings; the synergy of researchers working together that will attract more people and attention to this. It’s critical. We couldn’t be happier with this decision.”