BIRMINGHAM, AL — University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) today announced a $5 million gift from Mountain Brook businessman W. Cobb Hazelrig that will help build the Hazelrig-Salter Radiation Oncology Facility at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
This is one of the largest single gifts from an individual donor in UAB history.
The radiation oncology facility’s name will honor Hazelrig’s parents, J. William and Virginia, and their longtime friends, Paul and Merle Salter, both Birmingham physicians. Merle Salter, now retired, chaired the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology from 1986 to 1995.
Helping the UAB Cancer Center with its fundraising goals has become a personal matter with Hazelrig, whose family has been hit multiple times with the disease. In November, UAB announced the need to replace its 30-year-old radiation facility, located in the Lurleen B. Wallace Tumor Institute. A private $15-million fundraising effort, called “Rays of Hope,” was initiated to help cover the cost of the $28.5 million facility, which will be located on 18th Street South at 6th Avenue.
Hazelrig said, “Birmingham is where I have lived my entire life, and I consider it a privilege to be able to contribute something back to the community hat has been so special to my family. Both of my grandmothers died from cancer, and both my parents have been touched by this disease, so it’s very important to me on a personal level to be involved in providing quality care to cancer patients of this area.
“I had been thinking of how to honor my parents, and decided this gift would be a way to pay tribute to them and to Paul and Merle Salter, their lifelong friends.”
He said Merle Salter “has been with my family through all our battles against cancer. She’s the kind of friend I’d like to be.”
UAB President Carol Z. Garrison expressed the university’s gratitude to Hazelrig for “this most generous gift, which gives us enormous momentum toward completion of this important facility. We are delighted that the building will bear the names of these individuals who have meant so much to this community and to UAB.”
James A. Bonner, M.D., professor and chair of the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology, added: “This gift will serve as the cornerstone of continued efforts to fund a comfortable, attractive, and state-of-the art treatment facility. Naming the building both for a local family and for a former colleague — my predecessor as department chair — is just the right thing to do in an environment in which relationships between the university and the community are extremely vital.”
Salter joined the UAB faculty in 1967, following a residency here. Upon her retirement in 1995, the Merle Salter Endowed Chair of Radiation Oncology was established, and in 1998 Bonner became the first and only occupant of the chair.
Groundbreaking for the Hazelrig-Salter facility will take place this spring, with completion expected in 2007.The site also will include an adjacent Park of Hope for patients and families. More than 30,000 patient visits are made to UAB radiation oncology each year from across the Southeast.
UAB’s fundraising effort is being led by a steering committee that includes 18 community leaders. The UAB Cancer Center Supporters Board has earmarked funds from its annual gala, to be held February 25, for the radiation oncology project.
For more information on the fundraising initiative, call (205) 934-0930.