Airgas founder and his wife donate $75 million to his alma mater, the University of South Carolina

When Merion native and Lower Merion High School graduate Peter McCausland first set foot on the University of South Carolina campus as a 16-year-old, he liked it immediately, and in nearly 60 years, it has never disappointed him.

On Wednesday, McCausland and his wife, Bonnie, who live in Hobe Sound, Fla., but still maintain a residence just outside Philadelphia, along with their foundation, donated $75 million to the school, one of the largest gifts from individuals in the school’s nearly 225-year history.

Peter McCausland is well known locally for having founded and run for more than 30 years the Radnor-based Airgas Inc., which he successfully defended against a hostile takeover, now the stuff of textbooks. He and his wife also made headlines in 2009 when they bought the historic Erdenheim Farm, in Whitemarsh and Springfield Townships, to save it from development.

The gift will go to the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, which will be renamed for the McCauslands. It will be used to create career-development programs for students in the liberal arts and sciences, including paid internship stipends for up to 150 students per year. It also will expand research and teaching in neuroscience and support faculty, the college said. The university previously named its brain-imaging center for the McCauslands.

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“I loved the school when I went there, and I reconnected with it about 25 years ago,” McCausland, 75, who earned his bachelor’s degree in history in 1971, said in an interview. “I started giving to the school for different programs, and the school has been such a good steward of the funds … and the programs that we funded have been very successful.”

McCausland said his professors inspired him and he wants to support the faculty in the hope that they will continue to inspire young people.

“With a degree in liberal arts, and specifically history, I felt like in many ways I was prepared for anything,” said McCausland, an avid golfer and sailor who is a parent of two and grandparent of seven. “It helped me decide what I wanted to do, and so I’m a big fan of the liberal arts.”

He said he specifically likes that the school, while having many different views among faculty and students, doesn’t “try to shut down other people and exclude people. … It’s a place where all views are tolerated and accepted.”

USC president Michael Amiridis said the McCausland gift “marks a new beginning” for the university’s largest college.

“The broad reach of this investment in the arts, humanities, and sciences will expand opportunities for USC students and impact the state of South Carolina for generations to come,” he said.

McCausland recalled going to the campus for the first time when a high school friend, a tennis standout, was awarded a scholarship and asked him to come along for a visit. He had been starting to think about college and his father, who attended a college in Virginia, encouraged him to go south, he said.

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“I liked it immediately,” he said. “So I applied and I went there.”

He met his wife, who graduated from Tufts University, on Nantucket and then went to law school at Boston University to be near her. The couple moved back to the Philadelphia area, where he initially worked as a lawyer, and raised their children, Elizabeth and Christopher, in Chestnut Hill.

In 1982, McCausland bought a small industrial and medical gas company in Connecticut that eventually became a public company known as Airgas Inc. As president and CEO, he grew it into the fifth-largest industrial and medical gas company in the world and the nation’s biggest distributor of industrial, medical, and specialty gases — such as nitrogen used in food packaging to protect freshness — through about 400 acquisitions.

» READ MORE: Airgas founder loses seat on board; company vows court fight

McCausland, who became known for wearing bow ties — “that’s all I wear,” he said during the interview — steered the company through a high-profile hostile takeover battle from 2009 to 2011 and in 2012 stepped aside as CEO and became executive chairman of the company. His defense of the company during the merger attempt is featured in the book Merger Masters.

He also served on local boards, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Independence Seaport Museum, and the Fox Chase Cancer Center. Bonnie McCausland worked as an occupational therapist and started businesses in needlepoint and interior design.

In 2009, the couple bought Erdenheim Farm — which dates to the 1680s and was once owned by William Penn — to save it from development. McCausland said the 475-acre farm was about to go to a real estate broker, who would have turned it into 400 homes.

“Bonnie and I just felt like that was a terrible thing,” he said.

The couple has restored more than 50 buildings on the property, which is home to more than 500 animals including cattle, sheep, donkeys, goats, chickens, and horses. It produces beef, lamb, eggs, honey, fruit, and produce.

The farm also raises Thoroughbred racing horses.

“It’s an incredible place,” said McCausland, who still lives for more than a third of the year on the farm. “We’re glad we did it, and so is everyone else, I think.”

About 30 people work on the farm and at the foundation; some of them live there, he said.

The couple was recognized in 2022 with the Shirley Hanson Founder’s Award, given by the Chestnut Hill Conservancy.

“For all who live and work in neighboring communities like Chestnut Hill, Erdenheim Farm heightens our feeling of well-being,” Hanson wrote in a piece for the Chestnut Hill Local. “It inspires us to greater preservation and conservation activity.”

The McCauslands through their foundation, which is based at the farm, also donate to public and private K-12 schools and after-school programs in the Philadelphia area and Florida, aimed at helping “vulnerable youth get a good education,” McCausland said.

The couple moved to Florida in 2015, but still spend time on the farm, where their daughter also lives.

McCausland and his wife traveled to the university for the gift announcement Wednesday. He said Tuesday that he looked forward to visiting the Horseshoe, the U-shaped campus center where the ceremony was being held, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

He also enjoys watching the school’s basketball teams, he said, noting that former Temple University coach Dawn Staley coaches the women’s team and led them to national championships three times.

“You know, I’m proud to be a Gamecock,” he said, referring to the school’s mascot.