Like other banks, PNC has specialists who help wealthy people increase their assets.

The Thinkers
This monthly series will highlight people from Western Pennsylvania who are on the forefront of new ideas in their fields.

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Tony Tye, Post-Gazette R. Bruce Bickel Name: R. Bruce Bickel Age: 63 Position: Senior vice-president and managing director of PNC Wealth Management's Private Foundation Management Services. Residence: Scott Education: U.S. Naval Academy, bachelor's in electrical engineering, 1966; master's in divinity, 1984, and Ph.D. in theology, 1986, Luther Rice Seminary. Previous positions: U.S. Navy, fighter pilot; vice president, Fellowship of Christian Athletes; senior pastor, churches in Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago; director, charitable and endowments division, PNC. Publications: "Light and Heat: The Puritan View of the Pulpit," 1999. The Series Click here to view other installments in this continuing series.

They also have R. Bruce Bickel. His job is to help them give them away.

Dr. Bickel, a former U.S. Naval Academy quarterback and Vietnam fighter pilot, is managing director of PNC's Private Foundation Management Services.

In that role, he oversees 16 family foundations around the nation and one corporate foundation, for the natural gas company Equitable Resources. Their assets range from $1 million to $110 million.

Dr. Bickel's job, which he has had for the past six years, has given him a unique view of some of the issues and trends in charitable giving in the United States.

Studies have shown, for instance, that people involved in churches, synagogues and mosques are the most likely to donate to charitable causes, and his experience affirms that.

Of the 16 family foundations he oversees, 14 "have some religious or faith-based orientation," he said.

It's a perspective he is well equipped to appreciate. An ordained Baptist minister, Dr. Bickel has a Ph.D. in theology from Luther Rice Seminary in Lithonia, Ga., and served as senior pastor at congregations in Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago before joining PNC in the late 1980s.

Even in the midst of his family foundation work, he served recently as interim preaching minister at Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in McCandless.

His faith has shaped his views on wealth, giving and the unusual course his own life has taken.

"There are 1,206 verses in scripture that tell you how to manage your money," he said. "And if one of the gifts of the church is the gift of giving, that means somebody also has the gift of earning."

When he was in first grade, he said, "I wanted to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." That idea took root because his father, who was chief federal probation officer of West Virginia, had an office right next to the Navy recruiting station.

He pursued that dream all the way through the Naval Academy, where he played backup to Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach before becoming first-string quarterback in his senior year, and on into service as a Navy pilot in Vietnam.

But then, in a mission over the A Shau Valley in Cambodia, his plane was shot down and he was injured so badly he couldn't move.

"After I crashed, all I could do was see who got there first. It took the enemy two hours to get to me and I got rescued in an hour and 59 minutes. As soon as they lifted me off in the helicopter, the enemy overran the position. It was literally a matter of one minute."

He suffered several broken bones. Over the years, he has had surgery to repair his left arm and shoulder from elbow to neck, his right knee, his right wrist and his left foot.

His injuries meant he could no longer be a Navy pilot, because the G forces of flying meant "I might literally just come apart during flight."

Even though it derailed his life plans, Dr. Bickel felt God's presence not only in the midst of that ordeal, but in what happened next.

"I said, 'Well the Lord's moving my life in a different direction, so I need to get out of bed and get on with it.' I was not a victim. This was just one of the things that has made me the person that I am."

After he left the Navy, he became vice president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. That and his pastoral work paved the way for what he does now.

Dr. Bickel came to Pittsburgh in 1988 to help take care of his aging parents, who were showing signs of Alzheimer's. There were no church pastorates available, but friends he had played football against from the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University told him that PNC was looking for someone to manage a new charitable endowments division.

"The risk PNC took was that I had no banking experience. But I did have experience in leadership and management in the nonprofit world.

"You don't want me managing your money. I'm no good at it. But you do want me to help give it away."

Most of the family foundations he manages, which he doesn't name for privacy reasons, were started after people experienced a sudden infusion of wealth, usually from a bequest or the sale of a business.

They range from foundations that have a singular focus to those that hand out money for all five charitable purposes authorized in federal law: the arts, health, education, religion and social services.

In one case, a woman who had been a history teacher received a large bequest and joined with a friend who was a lawyer to set up a foundation devoted exclusively to improving education on Native American reservations.

To manage that foundation, Dr. Bickel goes each year to a different state, rents a car and visits each American Indian reservation to observe the schools.

On the other end of the scale, a New Jersey family foundation gives money to a wide array of causes, specializing in the arts, religious education and health care and social services for the elderly.

In both those cases, Dr. Bickel said, his job is to help the families define their values, decide what kind of projects they want to fund, and then "take away all the hassles."

"That means we do everything for them except make the [giving] decisions. So we answer all the phone calls, we design their stationery, design their applications, do the on-site visits, do the due diligence, do the grant reviews ... all of that."

Most of these private foundations are not set up primarily for tax benefits, he said. Affluent families could get much greater tax deductions by donating money directly each year.

Instead, the families are looking to leave a legacy, and most of them follow the federal minimum spending guidelines of 5 percent of assets each year so that they can maintain their mission for future generations.

Most of PNC's family foundations were established by baby boomers, Dr. Bickel said, so many of those families are now preparing children who are in their 20s and 30s to take over the charities.

Others are starting much younger.

He helped one Pittsburgh family foundation involve their young children in projects they were interested in. The family provided money for homeless services after their elementary age son was affected by the plight of panhandlers, and made donations to arts education because their daughter was interested in that subject.

Dr. Bickel said he was happy to see investment guru Warren Buffett's recent decision to give away most of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- for two reasons.

"First, here's a man of extreme wealth who says somebody else can [manage my charitable giving] better than me.

"Second, I think it also got people's attention who say, 'I may not be a Warren Buffet, but I've got some extra money here -- I wonder what I could do even at my level?' "