Gleason, James, Janis, Tracy
The Gleason Family Foundation, and leaders in the battle for school choice
Gleason, James
Mr. Gleason is the Chairman of Gleason Corporation, a privately held machine tool manufacturing company with 2,400 employees in 25 different countries, founded by his great-grandfather in 1865. Mr. Gleason served as CEO of the Corporation from 1981 until 2002 when he stepped down from that position, remaining active as Chairman of the Board. Mr. Gleason served as Chairman of the Association for Manufacturing Technology and as a Director of the American Gear Manufacturers Association. Within the Rochester community he has served as a Director and Chairman of the Rochester Metro Chamber of Commerce and as Chairman of the Rochester Business Alliance. He is an Honorary Trustee of the Rochester Institute of Technology as well as a Life Trustee of the University of Rochester. He was a former President of the Board of Trustees of The Allendale Columbia School and of the Board of True North Rochester Preparatory Charter School where he remains a Trustee. Mr. Gleason holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Rochester.
Gleason, Janis
Janis F. Gleason is the Vice President of the Gleason Foundation, a charitable family foundation based in Kentfield, California. Mrs. Gleason has served as President of the Board of the Rochester Garden Club and of Writers and Books, a Rochester Literary Center, and as Chairman of the Parent’s Council of The Allendale Columbia School. She is the author of The Life and Letters of Kate Gleason, a biography of the first female engineering student at Cornell University and her husband’s great-aunt, who served as Secretary-Treasurer and Chief Sales Engineer for the Gleason Corporation in the latter years of the Nineteenth and early years of the Twentieth Centuries. Mrs. Gleason attended the University of Arizona and the University of Rochester. Mr. and Mrs. Gleason reside in Greenbrae, California and in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and have two daughters.
Gleason, Tracy
Tracy Gleason is the President and CEO of the Gleason Family Foundation which is currently based in Kentfield, California. Her father, James, is the Foundation’s Chairman and her mother, Janis, its Vice President and Secretary Treasurer. Tracy grew up in Rochester, New York, the former headquarters of the Gleason Family Foundation. Her family settled there in the mid 1800’s, and in 1865 her great, great grandfather, William Gleason, an Irish immigrant, started the machine tool company, The Gleason Works (now Gleason Corporation). This company was the source of the wealth for the family foundation which had its beginnings in the 1950’s.
Tracy graduated from Princeton University in 1984 with a BA in French History. She moved to Northern California in 1988 where she worked as a corporate sales manager in the hospitality industry, then in the medical device industry where she focused on sales and marketing as well as training physicians in new products and surgical procedures.
Ms. Gleason joined the Board of the Gleason Family Foundation in 1995 and became its President in 2000. In 2007 she married Jeffery Robinson. Jeff is now a Director of the Foundation. Tracy and Jeff live in Marin County, California.
