Rich Webster

You could say that healing hearts runs in Rich Webster’s family. His father, Will W. Webster Jr., was the founder of Webster Laboratories in California which engineered and manufactured cardiac catheters and related equipment. Rich began working with his dad around age nine until graduating from college and then went back to working for them at age 29, after starting his career at Morgan Stanley. More recently Biosense Webster’s president, Uri Yaron, reintroduced Rich to the American Heart Association. “I was so surprised by the breadth of the AHA and everything that they are able to do, I knew they were laser focused on heart health but didn’t realize how many ways they are helping,” he said.

Rich now serves as the Co-President and Board Member at the Helen and Will Webster Foundation, named after his parents. The foundation funded the Los Angeles Social Impact Fund in 2021 with a gift of $1 million, another gift of $1 million the following year, and $4 million in March of 2023, making the foundation the largest Social Impact Fund donor in the American Heart Association’s history. In honor and recognition of this, the Association named the Los Angeles Social Impact Fund the Helen and Will Webster Fund.

“You have to treat it like a venture fund, it’s not just starting an initiative in a city, it’s getting them to be self-sustaining. It’s all about sustainable change, and the American Heart Association has the programs and the personnel on the ground to see the problems from all angles and make an effective difference in health equity. It’s a blessing to be able to do this, it’s incredibly fulfilling to see the results of this work.”