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Irene and Stan Kita

Irene and Stan Kita

Irene and Stan Kita

For Stan Kita, Esq. ’62 and his wife Irene, remembering Drexel in the form of a charitable gift annuity (CGA) was an easy decision — one that reaps emotional as well as financial benefits.

“Envision a balanced seesaw with baskets on both ends,” Stan wisely states. “The more I put in a basket in terms of time, my treasure or my joy, the more the other is filled with health, wealth and happiness.”

The Kitas have many reasons for giving back to Drexel University, including having met through Drexel and sustaining a happy marriage that has lasted 52 years and counting. Through Drexel, Stan built connections that led to a prosperous career in engineering and then law. He is now senior counsel at Howson and Howson, a 161-year-old intellectual property firm he moved from Philadelphia to Blue Bell, PA to care for his aging parents. In almost 50 years of practice, Stan has obtained and maintained more than 1,200 federally registered trademarks and patents, including the iconic Slinky.

Irene has had a rewarding career in Pennsylvania education over 40 years, working as a reading specialist for more than 32 years, and is deeply committed to education.

Together, they have saved and been careful with their finances, finding themselves in a position to give back to Drexel. “Why not give back to the place that gave us what we needed to cope successfully in this life?” says Stan. Their gifts will help numerous students by providing necessary equipment for Drexel’s College of Engineering.

“We’re giving it to kids who earned it; you don’t stay at Drexel too long without working hard at it,” says Stan, having learned from direct experience.

Stan looks back on his Drexel co-ops as experiential learning opportunities that, combined with hard work, provided a springboard for his career success. His first co-op was at Hunter Spring (now Ametek), a spring and metals company located in New Jersey. The opportunity provided his initial challenges in engineering and was a place he was able to return to after graduation. His co-workers there were almost all Drexel graduates, and Stan received a healthy starting salary as an engineer. Stan’s second co-op, at General Electric, was conveniently located and offered an excellent experience in an entirely different industry — residential heating. Stan’s third and final co-op was at National Air-Burner Oil Company in Northeast Philadelphia which produced industrial boilers for large-scale facilities, including ships, where they’d burn thousands of gallons of fuel an hour. His work there inspired Stan’s senior thesis on the atomization of liquid fuel. Hands-on experiences at multiple co-ops working with industry-leading equipment helped Stan develop a tactile approach to understanding the thousands of products that have passed through his office for patents and trademarks.

Drexel is grateful that Stan and Irene have remembered their Drexel experiences so fondly and are now choosing to benefit themselves and future Drexel students through charitable gift annuities.

“Returns are currently good, the initial tax deduction is good. Economically, it’s almost a no-brainer,” Stan says. “It’s just a good deal.”

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