Wendy Schmidt Gives VSTget Big to Protect the Ocean and Fight Climate Change

A s a child, Wendy Schmidt didn’t think about how the ocean intersected with human life. It was a nice place to go swimming, but it was mostly a murky, unknowable realm that didn’t have much to do with her day-to-day life. That outlook changed 15 years ago when the billionaire philanthropist started sailing and then learned to scuba dive. Now an avid competitive sailor, she knows the ocean is much more than a playground. The health of the world’s oceans looms large in Schmidt’s thinking about the planet’s future and in her giving.