An agreement was reached after the British Defence Secretary Tom King assured his West German counterpart Gerhard Stoltenberg that the British government would underwrite the project and allow GEC to acquire Ferranti Defence Systems from its troubled parent.
Thanks to a commitment from Cablevision to underwrite all of The Lustgarten Foundation's administrative expenses, 100% of every donation received goes directly to pancreatic cancer research.
In 1959, as a first year student at the University of Toronto, Makarchuk offered to underwrite a Canadian intercollegiate hockey championship between the University of Toronto Varsity Blues men's ice hockey team and University of Saskatchewan Huskies as there was no national playoff between eastern and western Canadian regional hockey champions.