Santa Barbarans Drs. Clifford W. and Juliette Sponsel make gift to Mayo Clinic in Arizona

Thursday, June 29, 2006

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Mayo Clinic in Arizona has received a $500,000 gift from Drs. Clifford W. and Juliette Sponsel, of Santa Barbara, Calif. Because of their strong interest in the causes and treatments of stroke, they directed their gift to establish the Sponsel Endowment for Neurological Research.

"This fund provides both stability and momentum for our neurological research programs," says Richard J. Caselli, M.D., Chair of the Department of Neurology at Mayo Clinic. "We are thrilled by this gift and by Clifford and Juliette Sponsel's commitment to finding better treatments and cures for stroke as well as disorders like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease."

Mayo Clinic is recognized as a leader in the care of stroke patients in the Southwest. In May 2006, Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix was one of the first hospitals in Arizona to be designated a Certified Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.

The Sponsels have been residents of Santa Barbara since 1954. Dr. Clifford Sponsel spent his career as an aeronautical engineer with General Motors Corporation, Glenn Martin Company, Bell Aircraft Corporation, and Ryan Aeronautics. He founded and served as chief executive officer of Western Design & Manufacturing, and later, Spectral Dynamics.

He is a 1931 civil engineering graduate of Tri-State University in Angola, IN, and a trustee emeritus, having served on the university's Board of Trustees from 1978 to 1999. In 1977, Tri-State University presented its Distinguished Service Award to Dr. Sponsel. In 1985, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering, and in 2004, Tri-State awarded Dr. Juliette Sponsel an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Mayo Clinic's Neurology Department is one of the largest in the world, with more than 110 neurologists working at Mayo's three sites in Rochester, MN; Jacksonville, FL; and Scottsdale, AZ. Mayo's neurology clinical investigators in Arizona collaborate with colleagues in Rochester and Jacksonville and locally with researchers at numerous institutions, including Sun Health Research Institute, Barrow Neurologic Institute, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Arizona State University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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