Vivint CEO and his family donate $35 million to new Primary Children’s Hospital

Intermountain Healthcare announced Monday that it has received a second enormous donation for its new Primary Children Hospital, which is under construction in Lehi. Todd and Andie Pedersen — the founder and CEO of Vivint Smart Home and his wife — are giving $35 million to the project.

The patient tower at the rising complex will be named in their honor, part of the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Campus. Gail Miller announced in January 2020 that her family would donate $50 million to the hospital.

“Like Gail Miller and her family, Andie and Todd Pedersen are embracing this vision for improving the future of our children,” said Katy Welkie, CEO of Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital and vice president of Intermountain Children’s Health. “They want something that will have a real, lasting and life-giving impact on kids for decades to come.”

The facility is scheduled to open in 2024, and, according to Welkie, “we are well past our halfway point of construction.”

At ceremonies announcing the donation, Todd Pedersen said, “This is something that’s important to us. … We’ve had so many friends and immediate family that have benefited from the services of Intermountain Healthcare generally, and specifically with Primary Children’s. So it’s, like, how can’t we do this? We must do this.”

The Pedersens went to Miller’s home to discuss the project with her, and committed to the $35 million donation after the meeting. “I had been saying to our family that we needed to find something that we could do as a charity and something that gave us purpose,” Andie Pedersen said. “We all felt like this should come before anything else in our life.”

Miller joined in thanking the Pedersens for their donation, and said, “One of my family’s guiding principles is to go about doing good until there’s too much good in the world. …That’s a lofty goal and probably unattainable. But there is no harm in trying. So we think this hospital is one of those doing good things.”

The Pedersen family sat down to discuss “what we want to do as a family,” Todd Pedersen said, “not just now, but forever — kind of like the Miller family. I mean, we’re not thinking as big as do good until there’s no more good that can be done — but we need to raise our vision a little bit.”

And he called upon others to step up and contribute to the new Intermountain facility. “And, by the way, it doesn’t require millions of dollars to donate and participate,” Todd Pedersen said. “It can be hundreds of dollars. It can be $10. … It can be your time.”