State College businessman Charles “Skip” Smith was instrumental in the creation of the Arboretum at Penn State with a $10 million leadership donation in 2007. Now a major gift from his estate will help to ensure it thrives into the future.
Smith, who died in December 2024, bequeathed $25 million to support the Arboretum’s growth, along with educational and research initiatives, the university announced this week.
The gift allocates $10 million to the Arboretum’s permanent endowment, which supports its daily operations, $5 million to deferred maintenance and to begin implementing the Arboretum’s 2026 Master Plan Revision and $1 million as matching funds for future philanthropy and the creation of new endowments. The remainder will be allocated in consultation with the Smith family, according to the university.
“Skip’s estate gift is a tremendous capstone to his extraordinary legacy of giving to the Arboretum,” Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said in statement. “Across the years, his generosity seeded a dazzling variety of gardens and plantings and empowered horticultural experts with the resources to maintain and enhance the Arboretum for future generations. I am deeply grateful to Skip and the entire Smith family for not only championing the idea of the Arboretum but also for leveraging their philanthropy across the years to turn it into a powerful space for pursuing knowledge, building community and enjoying quiet moments of tranquility.”
The bequest brings Smith’s total giving to the Arboretum to about $43 million.
A State College native and 1951 Penn State graduate, Smith was a 1948 graduate of Penn State with a degree in electrical engineering. He founded State College Television Co., later State College Audio-Visual Supply, in 1954 on South Allen Street and became one of the first retailers of televisions in the Centre Region.
His foundational gift to the establishment of The Arboretum enabled the construction of the centerpiece H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens, named in honor of his father, a 1918 Penn State architectural engineering graduate, and also paying tribute to his mother, Kathryn Bower Smith, and his first wife, Joan Milius Smith, with whom he had three sons and who died at a young age.
“Our father was a very modest person who avoided the limelight,” Skip Smith’s son David said in a statement. “His father was an outdoorsman who passed along to him an appreciation of nature. As a strong supporter of Penn State, Dad was also aware of Penn State’s vision for an arboretum. Thus, he was able to both honor his father and provide Penn State with a way to allow thousands of people to experience and appreciate the variety and beauty of plant life as he did.”
Smith further gave significant support to the Children’s Garden and the Pollinator and Bird Garden, and endowed the Arboretum’s director position. His last gift to the Arboretum before his death was $1 million to create the Charles H. “Skip” Smith Soaring Waters Fountain Garden, which will create a reimagined garden wrapping around the Margery Enes Smith Soaring Waters feature and recreate the area between it and the Marsh Meadow Boardwalk.
“The Arboretum has grown and matured into exactly what our father envisioned — an environment where visitors can learn about plants and trees, and a place where anyone can go to relax and enjoy what they don’t usually have time to appreciate in their everyday lives — the amazing world of nature,” Skip Smith’s son John said in a statement.
Since Skip Smith’s initial gift, the Arboretum now encompasses 370 acres, including fields and woodlands that are being restored, used for research or developed as educational and recreational project sites, with many additional acres of cultivated gardens planned, according to the university. It has more than 2,700 recorded plant species and data has been collected on over 180,000 individual plants, with about one out of every six a part of Penn State research.
The Arboretum welcomes more than 250,000 visitors a year.
“We’re a growing destination for the entire region, offering festivals, community events, educational programming from pre-K to gray, and simple serenity experienced between classes or family commitments, Casey Sclar, the H.O. Smith Director of the Arboretum, said in a statement. “We feel a tremendous debt of gratitude to Skip’s visionary leadership. Through his estate commitment, Skip’s impact empowers us to see even deeper roots grow for the Arboretum’s future.”
