Conrad Prebys

Prebys graduated with distinction from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in business.

Prebys was born in South Bend, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University. He moved to San Diego in 1965 and co-founded Progress Construction. He bought out his partner in 1980. Over the years, Prebys shifted his focus from construction to property ownership. As of 2015 he owned 81 properties in the greater San Diego area and had an estimated net worth of approximately US$1 billion.

In December 2004, just prior to Christmas (his favorite time of year); Conrad Prebys made his first philanthropic gift of $1 million to build the Conrad Prebys Clubhouse in Santee and transform the Boys & Girls Clubs of East County into a premier youth-serving organization. His financial support of the organization enabled the organization to grow in quality and scope of service for the next twenty plus years. Thanks to his largess, more children are coming to state-of-the-art facilities in some of East County's neediest neighborhoods. The result is a population of children who are positively motivated, physically fit and receiving better grades at school.

Prebys gave his all-time largest gift of $100 million to the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in June 2015, to support its 10-year strategic vision to develop and implement innovative medical treatments that can have lasting, positive effects on the field of healthcare. The gift resulted in the renaming of the institute, which is now known as the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. In October 2015, Prebys donated $20 million to the Indiana University Kelley School of Business to fund the construction of a new campus amphitheater and the Kelley School of Business Conrad Prebys Career Services Center, which began construction in summer 2015. He visited the campus shortly after the gift was made public, where he was greeted with a warm welcome by students, faculty, and Kelley School of Business dean Idie Kesner. Many of the school's students created posters and cards to thank Prebys for his generosity and philanthropic vision for the forthcoming career services center that will bear his name.

In June 2015 Prebys was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from San Diego State University's College of Business Administration.