From Philadelphia to Jupiter, theirs was a 65-year love story. Leonard Abramson—or Len, as he prefers to be called—first met Madlyn Kornberg when he was a college student studying pharmacology. His roommate had taken Madlyn to the prom but declared her and Len a great match.

“He introduced us, and he was right,” Len says.

Like Len, Madlyn was an only child born in Philadelphia. A dentist’s daughter, she attended the private Philadelphia High School for Girls and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Len graduated with a pharmacy degree from University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and earned a master’s in public administration from Pennsylvania State University.

He was 24 and she was 21 when they wed in August 1957.

“I married up,” says Len, 88, who drove a taxi to pay for his expenses during pharmacy school. “Marriage to Madlyn was the defining moment of my life because I wanted to prove to her that I could be worthy of her. That’s why I became as successful as I became.”

Madlyn taught at public schools, while Len pioneered a path in medical management. After working as a pharmaceutical salesman for a year, retail pharmacist for seven years, and vice president of corporate development for five years at a small public hospital firm, he launched one of the first health management organizations, U.S. Healthcare, in 1975. Known for doorless offices at its headquarters, it proved to be a successful formulary: Aetna bought the company for $8.9 billion in 1996.

Len chokes up when speaking of his beloved wife, who died from stroke complications in April 2020. He uses the term “we” for his present and future.

“She’s been gone over a year and it still hurts to talk about her,” says Len, who’d lived with her in Jupiter for 30 years.

In Madlyn’s honor, Len recently donated $10 million to establish an endowed chair of cardiac surgery at Jupiter Medical Center. He says, “I knew she’d like that.” This wasn’t his first gift to the center, “and I don’t expect it to be my last,” says the JMC Foundation board member of more than two decades. “I’m very impressed with their leadership, and I’d like to help the hospital grow.”

To recognize his generous gift, the new main entrance to the hospital has been named Madlyn K. Abramson Plaza, with a water fountain in her honor—befitting, since water drew the boaters to Jupiter 30 years ago.

Their 14,600-square-foot home on Admiral’s Cove sits on the Intracoastal Waterway, where Len docks his 40-foot, four-engine boat, Appleseed, named after a successful program Len created at U.S. Healthcare. A second boat, a 42-foot sloop, Madlen, a mashup of their two names, awaits at his second home in Camden, Maine.

“I golf, I sail, I go deep-sea fishing with my grandchildren, and many of my oil paintings hang in my children’s homes,” he says.

But don’t mistake him for being retired. The philanthropist invests in banks, residential construction, and other businesses, and he manages his family’s wealth with a staff of lawyers and accountants through The Maine Merchant Bank, which he formed in Portland, Maine.

Most importantly, Len continues the couple’s pattern of paying it forward. Over the years, they donated hundreds of millions of dollars to cancer centers and children’s hospitals to lure top scientists and free them to work exclusively on research. “Having been in the pharmaceutical industry, I’m aware of how vital research is to saving lives,” he says.

Among their gifts is more than $140 million to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where Madlyn got her bachelor’s degree in 1957 and master’s in 1960 and was treated successfully for breast cancer in 1985.

They also made sizable donations to create an endowment for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where Len served on the board for 14 years.

In 2013, the Abramsons gave $10 million to Temple University’s dental school, which was renamed after Madlyn’s father, Maurice H. Kornberg, an alumnus.

Giving back is a tradition the couple inherited from their parents. “They were of modest means but always charitable, helping those who had less,” Len says.

That is a legacy he’s passing down to their three daughters and nine grandchildren. Daughter Nancy Abramson Wolfson joined her mother in 2015 to launch Philly Fights Cancer, which has since raised more than $39 million to benefit clinical trials to power the next generation of cancer cures.

“I believe in humility, integrity, and loyalty,” Len says. “Many of my employees at U.S. Healthcare remain close friends. I’d like to be remembered as a pioneer in health management organizations and for helping finance phenomenal medical cures.”