Hobart and William Smith Colleges

25 November 2024 • Alums DeSimone Jr. '89 Honors Parents with Endowed Scholarship

With a $1 million gift, Joe DeSimone Jr. ’89 establishes a scholarship in honor of his parents, who are also HWS alumni. 

“My parents did everything in their power to give me opportunities,” says Joe DeSimone Jr. ’89.

Even though his parents both graduated from HWS, DeSimone felt empowered to make his own decision about where to attend college. Ultimately, he enrolled at HWS because it was “where I felt like I could grow the most.”

In recognition of the support his parents gave him, and to ensure future generations have the same opportunities to succeed, DeSimone recently created the Joseph M. DeSimone Sr. ’65 and Janet Hauschildt ’65 DeSimone P'89 Endowed Scholarship Fund. Named in his parents’ honor, the $1 million endowed fund will provide scholarship support to top academic students who have financial need.

DeSimone says the fund is his way of “paying it forward” to Hobart and William Smith students.

“At HWS,” he says, “I learned tolerance for others and different perspectives.” He hopes recipients of the scholarship will benefit from the same chances he had to develop relationships with — and learn from — people from various backgrounds and worldviews.

As a student at HWS, DeSimone was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity and was a member of the baseball and football teams. After earning his B.A. in economics and political science, he drove west to Nevada, where his entrepreneurial journey began.

He found early success in real estate development. “At 28 years old, someone took a chance on me, providing me with the capital I needed to start my business,” he recalls.

That business was First Federal Realty, a commercial real estate and development company in Southern Nevada, which has thrived under DeSimone’s leadership. Despite the company’s rapid growth, it has remained a family business at heart; as he expanded into other sectors, DeSimone worked alongside his mother for many years and continues to work with his father.

DeSimone says that establishing the scholarship fund was a poignant moment for the family. As a student in the 1960s, Joe DeSimone Sr. worked as a server in Comstock Dining Hall, where he first met Janet Hauschildt. They would graduate a few years later — Hauschildt with a double major in mathematics and Russian studies, DeSimone Sr. with an economics degree — but not before marrying during their junior year.

Sharing the news about the scholarship with his father “brought us back to our shared roots,” DeSimone says.

During a recent visit to campus, DeSimone spoke with students as part of the “Career Chat” series through the Salisbury Center for Career, Professional and Experiential Education, offering insights from his career journey in real estate, casino and hotel ownership, and other entrepreneurial endeavors. He also took the opportunity to tour campus, where he came across a photo of his father in the Captain’s Gallery at Bristol Gymnasium.

Being back on campus, he says, “felt like home.”

An engaged member of the Henderson, Nv., community, DeSimone serves on the board at the UNLV Foundation. Previously, he served on the board of directors for the Down Syndrome Organization of Southern Nevada, chairing its board from 2005 to 2008. In 2000 and again in 2009, he was recognized by the City of Henderson with the annual Economic Development Award. He also received the Private Sector Person of the Year Award from the Henderson Chamber of Commerce in 2023. A member of HWS' Wheeler Society, DeSimone served as a mentor for The Pitch Contest during the 2015-16 academic year.

In the above photograph, Joe is joined by his children Emilia and Justin.