FOUNDATIONS
A good friend retires
Ben Hughes, executive director of the NC State Engineering Foundation, is retiring in September 2011 after an 18-year career with the College.
Hughes has presided over the most successful fundraising period in the College’s history, growing its overall endowment from about $10 million in 1993, his first year with the College, to $76.3 million in 2011. The number of professorships and scholarships increased fourfold, and endowments for programmatic activities jumped nearly 600 percent.
“I can’t emphasize enough how important Ben has been to the success of this College over the past 18 years,” said Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering. “He’s been the cornerstone of our development efforts and has established wonderful relationships with our alumni and friends. He is a very special person, and we are all going to miss him dearly.”
Hughes graduated from Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1970. He eventually joined the development office at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he rose through the ranks and became the university’s director of major gifts.
NC State fundraising efforts were in their infancy when Hughes joined the Foundation in the early 1990s, and he knew the College needed a much larger endowment to keep pace with its competitors.
Supporters appreciated his friendly, businesslike manner, and the gifts rolled in. Among the many highlights was the $10 million gift from alumnus and Foundation board member Ed Fitts in 2005 to endow the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
In retirement, Hughes plans to volunteer with his church, tend to his garden, and get involved with the arts. He is quick to deflect credit from himself, saying the work of the Engineering Foundation board and staff, as well as Dean Martin-Vega and Dean Emeritus Nino Masnari, has been critical to the College’s fundraising success, particularly its efforts reaching out to alumni.
“When you see people who have not had much involvement with the College, and they say, ‘I’m glad you’re coming to see me and I want to get involved,’” Hughes said, “that’s really the most personally rewarding part of this job.” 