PORT ANGELES — What’s in a name? Just a cool yet warmhearted $600,000 for the Olympic Medical Center Foundation.
That’s how much three benefactors pledged Wednesday to the hospital’s charitable support organization over the next 20 years.
What they’ll get are naming rights to the Olympic Medical Cancer Center and its two wings in Sequim.
The center will be known as the Thomas Family Sequim Cancer Center.
Its branches will be named the Littlejohn Radiology Oncology Wing and the Primo Construction Medical Oncology Wing.
Rand and Darlene Thomas own the Thomas Building Center.
Bill and Esther Littlejohn own Olympic Ambulance Service, Sherwood Assisted Living and the Fifth Avenue and Sherwood Village retirement centers.
Greg and Chuck Parrish and Jim Bartee own Primo Construction Co.,
All the businesses are located in Sequim, and their owners live there.
The Thomases donated $300,000; the Littlejohns and Primo, $150,000 each.
All the money will go for facilities and equipment, said Bruce Skinner, foundation director, none for administration.
Skinner also said the Primo gift was independent of the company’s role as general contractor for an addition to the cancer center and for an Ancillary Services Building, both under construction at the Sequim Medical Park, 844 N. Fifth Ave.
“They’re truly making this as a community gift,” he said of Bartee and the Parrishes.
The sale of the rights to name the building and its wings started about a year ago, Skinner said.
“It was first Rand Thomas who came forward,” he said.
“He believes that a strong hospital is good for the community and good for business.”
All the donors already were major donors to the Olympic Medical Center Foundation through its annual Duck Derby, the Festival of Trees in December and the Team OMC group of runners.
Bill Littlejohn, whose father was a Sequim physician, served as an OMC commissioner.
Rand Thomas is a cancer survivor whose father died of cancer, Skinner said.
“Out of all the buildings, he really had an interest in the cancer center,” Skinner said.
The families will begin making annual payments on their pledges in 2007.