GRAND RAPIDS, MI Peter Secchia, a longtime businessman and philanthropist whose generous giving with wife, Joan, has left a lasting imprint along the Medical Mile and across the community, says they will keep making a difference.

On Friday, Nov. 1, Michigan State University announced that the Secchias donated $5 million to the Grand Rapids Research Center. The gift the couples second - completes the $30 million campaign for the $88 million building that opened in September 2017 on the Medical Mile.

Secchia said it was the right thing to do to donate the funds needed to meet the campaign shortfall, so there was no lingering debt as they move to the next endeavor the Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Building. The facility is slated to open beside the research center in 2021.

This is an exciting moment in Grand Rapids history, said Secchia, reflecting on the growth of Michigan States presence in the city with the medical school and the growing research center campus.

I am still raising money and am still going forward to build the final part of the innovation park. Now, we are building the new building for creative and new medicine.

Secchia spoke with excitement Friday about the new types of cancer therapy that researchers will be engaged in at the innovation building. He said Grand Rapids has some of the worlds top researchers already working at MSU on projects in cooperation with Spectrum Health and the Van Andel Institute, their research partners.

In the future, he said plans include a third building on the Grand Rapids Research Center site, located at 15 Michigan St. NE, as well as a parking garage.

Just up the hill sits MSUs $90 million Secchia Center Grand Rapids headquarters for the College of Human Medicine that opened in 2010.

I am proud to have my name on that complex because it is just the beginning of what is turning out to be an unbelievable economic impact on the Medical Mile, said Secchia, the former CEO and chairman of the board at Universal Forest Products, Inc., who served as U.S. Ambassador to Italy from 1989 to 1993.

Twenty years ago, he said, he wanted to get MSUs medical school in Grand Rapids. He said it took him seven years to get the necessary votes and fundraising began soon afterwards for the building.

Secchia said the last gift of his dear friend, the late Richard DeVos, Amway co-founder and philanthropist, included a provision it be named for Secchia because DeVos knew how hard he had worked on the project.

It is crazy when you think about the medical school coming here, he said, noting people said it couldnt be done, but it happened.

Everyone was shocked. They needed to come here because we had people here who wanted to have a medical school and would be proud of it and support it.

The Secchias first gift to the Grand Rapids Research Center was a combined gift of $15 million with Richard and Helen DeVos, which launched the capital campaign for the construction of the building. Prior to that, the couples announced a $20 million combined gift to construct the MSU College of Human Medicine.

Years ago, Secchia said it was DeVos who talked about charitable giving in a speech, after first taking care of your family and employees. He said once he did that, he decided to start helping people and giving to worthy causes and initiatives.

My wife and I have been side by side taking care of all these different people and things, he said.

For example, the Peter and Joan Secchia CarePartners Program, launched in 2015, was established to help families with children who have complex health situations as they navigate their way through the health care system. The program targets families of children with three or more specialists and is offered at no cost.

Secchia said MSU is a land-grant university and they promote taking care of other people and advancing the common good.

"I accepted that as my world and I enjoy it,'' he said.

Peter Secchia is a 1963 graduate of MSUs Eli Broad College of Business, and Joan Secchia is a 1964 graduate of the College of Education.

Prior to Fridays donation, the Secchias donated a grouping of sculptures to MSU as part of their Community Legends program. The sculptures, unveiled Sept. 27, honor three female scientists from Grand Rapids who discovered the pertussis vaccine and are displayed outside the Grand Rapids Research Center building.

Grand Rapids is often highlighted for the consistency and scope of its philanthropic giving.

We learned we had to pay back, Secchia said.

You can wait until you die and pay back when you are in a coffin, but you can be part of it if you do it now. Do it now and create your own legacy and be proud.

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Peter Secchia reflects on MSU Grand Rapids Research Center, medical school and philanthropy - MLive.com