Howard Sloane

Howard G (Peter) Sloane (born December, 1950) is an American philanthropist and the Chairman and CEO of The Heckscher Foundation for Children, a New York based private foundation established in 1921 by German-born industrialist, financier and philanthropist August Heckscher. In 1997, Sloane took over the affairs of the Heckscher Foundation when its assets consisted largely of encumbered real estate which limited its ability to make meaningful gifts. He restructured and developed the Foundation into a significant funder of innovative education, job training, recreation and the arts programs with assets of over 300 million dollars. Under Sloane's leadership, the modern day Foundation underwrites projects with potential for catalytic impact when combined with public funds or other donors, and operates its own strategic philanthropy programs to promote the welfare of children and youth in New York City.

Sloane was born in California and grew up in New York. He attended the University of Glasgow in 1970-1971, completed his undergraduate degree at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1972 and graduated from Suffolk University Law School in 1976 after a year spent at NYU Law School.

He is the maternal grandson of Arthur and Ruth (Shear) Smadbeck, who as fellow philanthropists and friends of August Heckscher ran the Heckscher Foundation after the Great Depression of the 1930s resulted in the deterioration of the Foundation's assets to the point of near collapse. Arthur Smadbeck was a real estate developer who was a president of the New York Coliseum, which was built from 1954 to 1956 by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority under city planner Robert Moses, who was a friend of Smadbeck. The complex was demolished in 2000 to make way for the Time Warner Center. Smadbeck and his brother Warren were known as "The Henry Fords of Real Estate" because of their style of making vacation land and home ownership possible for the average person, and for their ownership of Havana, Cuba hotel properties during the Fulgencio Batista era, including the Hotel Presidente. The Smadbeck brothers were participants in development of Putnam Lake, New York, Fire Island Pines, New York and Lake Caramel, New York.

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