Bill Gates Vision 2030. In 2009, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and donated some of his Microsoft stock in 1994 to create the "William H. Gates Foundation." In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations and Gates donated stock valued at $5 billion to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was identified by the Funds for NGOs company in 2013, as the world's wealthiest charitable foundation, with
USS Thomas S. Gates USS Thomas S. Gates USS "Thomas S. Gates" (CG-51) was a flight-I that was used by the United States Navy. The warship was named after Thomas S. Gates, Secretary of Defense in the last years of the Eisenhower Administration (1959–1961). In a break from normal naming conventions for the "Ticonderoga" class cruisers, "Thomas S. Gates" is the only vessel of the class to be named after a person; all of the other cruisers are named after notable events in American military history. "Thomas S. Gates" was laid down 31 August 1984, at Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, and sponsored by