(l-r) Shane Strum, Mark Kent, Dr. Patricia Rose-King

By Vanessa Orr

Since the Kent Family Foundation was established 14 years ago, it has donated $15.6 million to various organizations ranging from Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Los Angeles and Miami to health care systems and universities throughout the nation. The foundation recently donated $500,000 to Broward Health Foundation, including $250,000 to name the grand lobby of the new medical office building at Broward Health Medical Center (BHMC) in honor of Shane Strum, and $250,000 to name the learning center within the new GME space at BHMC in honor of Patricia Rowe-King, MD.

Shane Strum is the president and CEO of Broward Health System, one of the nation’s 10 largest public healthcare systems and the Interim CEO of Memorial Healthcare System. Dr. Patricia Rose-King, Broward Health’s designated institutional officer, has been a physician for the past 30 years and leads Broward’s Graduate Medical Education (GME) Center.

“Leadership really matters, especially in public health systems,” explained Broward Health Foundation Chair and Kent Family Foundation member Dr. Mark Kent, FACHE, FACMPE, who announced the donation at the Amazon 13th Annual Broward Health Ball held in April. “It’s really important to get behind educating physicians because while it’s nice to go to groundbreakings, buildings alone don’t treat patients.”

Kent says that his family foundation chose to honor Strum for “bringing new life” to the public institution.

“We want to put our money where leadership is executing; we look for ROI and donate to organizations that are accomplishing great things and can demonstrate their success,” he said.

For example, Broward Health recently held two groundbreakings—one at Broward North and one on its main campus—despite not having built anything new in more than 35 years.

“That is leadership,” said Kent. “In the five years that he’s been CEO, Shane has done a tremendous job of ensuring that Broward Health is the place to come for great care.

“Patricia Rose-King is a phenomenal person who has helped to expand our multimillion-dollar simulation lab, and is also responsible for training our physicians and clinicians,” added Kent. “You have to build a place where people want to get training and she has done that; we recently enrolled one of the largest GME classes in Broward Health’s history. I am immensely proud of the work they have both done for the residents of Broward County.”

The Kent Family Foundation

Now in its 14th year, the Kent Family Foundation supports numerous charities, focusing on organizations that emphasize health care, education, and children’s and veterans’ services.

“After I sold my third company, my family and I made the decision to give back by establishing a family foundation,” said Kent. “Privately, my parents had been giving to their alma maters, but we’d never really thought about donating as a family structure.”

Each member of the family is able to make smaller individual donations, and they meet annually to discuss larger gifts. To date, the foundation has donated $15.6 million to educational institutions including Purdue University, Columbia University and Harvard University, and health systems including Broward Health, Larkin Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering and the Cleveland Clinic.

Kent is especially proud of the foundation’s support of the Business Opportunity Program (BOP) at his alma mater, Purdue University. In addition to recruiting, enrolling, educating and providing support for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing careers in business, the program brings incoming first-year students to campus a semester early to help them better prepare for school.

“These students are often the first in their families to go to college, and studies have shown that the BOP program is tied to better graduation rates,” said Kent. “We want to invest in institutions and organizations that bring about change in their communities and that have proven, successful outcomes.”

At the Broward Health Ball, Kent challenged participants to join him in the 2026 naming campaign, and said that he will match the dollars given to this effort.

“I look forward to matching that investment in 2027, and really shining a light on Broward Health and showing its impact and effectiveness,” he said. “But our investment alone isn’t going to do it; I need other people to join me.

“I can’t wait to see what the response will be,” he added. “Maybe we’ll reach some large, crazy, multimillion-dollar number; I’d love for that to be the case.”

To learn more about donating to Broward Health Foundation, visit www.browardhealthfoundation.org.