Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation

Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation

Founded in 1986 in New York, the Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation channels wealth generated by the Seaver family's control and eventual disposition of Hydril Company — a manufacturer of pressure-control equipment for oil and gas drilling. Trustees Hirschell Levine, a partner at accounting firm Withum Smith & Brown, and John Cohen oversee the foundation's grantmaking, which is heavily concentrated in medical research and Jewish communal organizations. The wealth creator, Samuel A. Seaver, served as an executive at Hydril before the company's sale, and the foundation operates as a classic 501(c)(3) private foundation rather than a family office with active investment operations. The foundation's deployment is laser-focused on a handful of institutional grantees. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has been a major, multi-year recipient of Seaver funding, alongside the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai — a naming gift that signals seven-figure-plus commitments. Additional giving flows to hospitals, human-services providers, and Jewish federations, primarily in the New York metropolitan area. The foundation does not operate direct investment programs, venture arms, or co-investment vehicles; its capital is managed through a conventional investment portfolio that includes at least one directly held commercial property — 10 West 33rd Street in Manhattan — alongside traditional marketable securities. The foundation reports approximately $149 million in assets (Altss estimate), a scale that places it among the mid-sized single-family philanthropies operating without permanent staff or a public website. The trustees run the foundation alongside their professional practices: Levine through Withum's New York office and Cohen through direct advisory work. Christopher Seaver, son of Richard Seaver and nephew of Hydril executive Frank Seaver, represents the family's next generation and previously served as CEO of Hydril Company, maintaining the link between the operating business legacy and the philanthropic vehicle. No separate impact-investing arm, donor-advised fund platform, or membership in peer networks like the Philanthropy Roundtable has been disclosed. What distinguishes the Seaver Foundation structurally is its concentrated, long-tenured trustee model paired with near-total institutional anonymity. Unlike family offices that evolve into multi-generational wealth management platforms, the foundation has remained a pure grantmaker for four decades, with no evidence of direct investing, external fundraising, or operational expansion. The lack of a website, professional staff, or public disclosure beyond IRS Form 990 filings reflects a governance posture closer to a family trust than a modern institutional foundation — a structure common among first- and second-generation philanthropies that prioritize quiet stewardship over brand-building.