Welters Named New Chair of Trustees
Printer Friendly VersionJust three decades after becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college and pursue an advanced degree, Anthony Welters ’77 will become the new chair of the Law School’s Board of Trustees at its first meeting of the new academic year on October 3.
“I am honored to take the helm of this remarkable institution,” said Welters, who is currently vice chair and has been a board member since 1997. “I greatly appreciate the lessons that I have learned in leadership and philanthropy from Lester Pollack. I see this as a defining moment in the history of the Law School.” Moving forward, he said, NYU Law needs to make sure that financial barriers are not a factor in students’ attendance of or participation in the school.
Dean Richard Revesz said he is “thrilled” that Welters will assume the chairmanship. “Tony is one of our nation’s leading entrepreneurs and an inspirational philanthropist,” said Revesz, noting that Welters’s “extraordinary generosity and vision” are responsible for the AnBryce Scholarship, a 10-year-old NYU Law program that offers full scholarships and support to exceptional J.D. students who were severely economically disadvantaged and are the first in their families to pursue graduate studies. “Tony’s bold leadership of the Law School’s capital campaign will allow us to continue to set ambitious goals,” Revesz added.
Welters is executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group (UHG) in Washington, D.C., and president of UHG’s Public and Senior Markets Group, which includes the Ovations and AmeriChoice business units. Ovations is the largest U.S. company dedicated to meeting the health and well-being of people age 50 and older. Welters previously was president and chief executive officer of AmeriChoice Corporation, which he founded as Healthcare Management Alternatives in 1989 with $200,000 in seed money. Under his leadership, the company became a thriving enterprise and was acquired in 2002 by United Healthcare.
After graduating from NYU Law, Welters worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission, spent two years as the executive assistant to Senator Jacob Javits ’26 and then held various positions at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In 1995, Welters, who grew up with three brothers in a one-room tenement in Harlem, and his wife, Beatrice, launched the AnBryce Foundation. The goal: to cultivate young minds from under-resourced and challenging environments for lives of personal and professional success. They first launched Camp Dogwood Summer Academy, a residential and educational program for needy youths. The AnBryce Scholarship followed in 1998. The Welters have contributed major gifts to the Law School of $11.5 million; this year, they committed an additional $7.5 million as a matching gift to complete the needed endowment of the AnBryce Scholarship. They also funded a chaired law professorship for a faculty mentor to oversee the academic components of the program, which reached its target of 10 students per J.D. class in 2007. Additionally, they have donated another $10 million to the NYU Partners Fund.
A vice chair of NYU Law’s trustee budget and finance committee, Welters also chairs the campaign steering committee and has been instrumental in helping NYU meet its goal of $400 million. In 2004, he received the Vanderbilt Award, the highest honor bestowed upon an NYU Law graduate.
A dedicated philanthropist, Welters is vice chair of the Morehouse School of Medicine’s board of directors. He serves on the boards of the Smithsonian Institution, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans and the Healthcare Leadership Council. He has received the National Medical Fellowships Humanitarian Award, the Horatio Alger Award and the African American Chamber of Commerce Chairman’s Award.
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