William Polk Carey (May 11, 1930 – January 2, 2012) was an American philanthropist and businessman. He was the founder of W. P. Carey & Co., the corporate real estate financing firm headquartered in New York City and donated the funds to establish the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University, the Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland, and the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
As a young man Carey attended elementary school at Calvert School and left Roland Park's Gilman School to go to the Pomfret School in Connecticut, then attended Princeton University. He left Princeton for supposedly missing chapel, and went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania, before establishing himself in New Jersey working in his step-father's car dealership. Carey resided in New York City and Rensselaerville, New York. Carey was a notable alumnus of The Delta Phi Fraternity and was an active member in the University of Pennsylvania chapter. Carey was an active member of the University Club in NYC. He was also Governor General of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in New York State.
Carey announced December 5, 2006 his donation of $50 million to The Johns Hopkins University. He was a trustee emeritus at Hopkins and donated the money through his W.P. Carey Foundation. The gift is the largest to Hopkins in support of business education and is now called the Carey Business School. The Hopkins business school will be named after William Carey's great-great-great-grandfather, James Carey. The school offers full- and part-time MBA programs, as well as specialized master's degree programs in finance, marketing, information systems, health care management, and enterprise risk management. The school's Master of Science in Real Estate program was one of the first in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. corridor.