Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), previously branded as the 'William H. Gates Foundation', is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It was launched in 2000, and is said to be the largest private foundation in the United States, holding $50.7 billion in assets. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the US, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees: Bill and Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett. Other
USS Thomas S. Gates put into Gibraltar on 10 October, she turned over with guided missile cruiser on 16 October before sailing to Bermuda, arriving there 25 October 1997. That same day, just after embarking crew relatives for a Tiger cruise home, the cruiser responded to a distress call, recovering two crewmen from the drifting sailboat "Glou Glou". "Thomas S. Gates" arrived home at Norfolk on 27 October 1997. On 25 September 1999, "Thomas S. Gates" responded to a call for assistance from the United States Coast Guard vessel , then in the process of conducting boarding operations of the suspect merchant vessel "Love".