Gift from Haskell Trust provides flexible funding to HMS at a critical time 

Allan C. Haskell forged a career defined by innovation and adaptability. Born in 1885 in Lowell, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard College in 1908. He then applied his engineering skills in New York, working initially with the Metropolitan Street Railway Company and later with the Construction Service Company, a consulting engineering firm. Haskell’s curiosity and expertise ultimately led him to co-found the Codex Book Company, which pioneered new ways to visualize and manage information in business, notably through the innovative use of charts.

Today, decades after his passing, Haskell’s legacy helps to chart a healthier future, thanks to a recent bequest of more than $13 million from the Allan C. Haskell Trust to Harvard Medical School. This unrestricted gift provides vital, flexible funding that Dean George Q. Daley, AB ’86, MD ’91, PhD, can use to address the School’s most pressing priorities, ensuring progress is not stalled by financial barriers.

Discover how flexible gifts power breakthroughs at HMS

“Flexible gifts to Harvard Medical School are more important than ever before,” says Daley. “During a time when federal funding for science and scholarship has faced drastic cuts, philanthropy enables us to further our work of improving health and well-being for all.” 

Haskell’s gift, which has wide-ranging effects, will strengthen need-based financial aid, catalyze breakthrough scientific research, sustain the core facilities that make cutting-edge discovery possible, and support postdoctoral fellows and graduate students—the next generation of leaders in science and medicine. These impacts help HMS remain at the forefront of biomedical discovery and education, even amid financial uncertainties and a changing research landscape. 

Throughout his career, Haskell demonstrated a keen talent not just for technical mastery but for creative problem-solving. At the Construction Service Company, he was inspired by his chief engineer’s fascination with graphic methods of computation. Their shared and growing interest in these methods eventually led them to found the Codex Book Company, which produced and marketed specialized chart sheets and technical publications to help business leaders make informed decisions and plan strategically.

At Codex, he continually responded to the evolving needs of business, publishing nearly 200 types of chart sheets and authoring works such as “How to Make and Use Graphic Charts” and “Graphic Charts in Business.” When his Codex co-founder passed away in 1928, Haskell took the helm and led the company forward.

Reflecting on his journey to Codex—including a 10-month stint during World War I as an efficiency engineer at the Union Carbide Company of Niagara Falls, supporting the production of ferroalloys for the war effort—he once wrote, “Even though it has led down a bypath of the engineering road, I have enjoyed it immensely.”