Foundation Spotlight
Building the base
Generous corporate support helped the College strengthen important programs in energy and information technology.
The Advanced Transportation Energy Center at NC State, which is developing technology for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, is one of many programs that corporate partners have supported.
Corporate partners gave the College’s energy and information technology efforts huge boosts in 2008, providing support for energy initiatives, professorships and scholarships, outreach efforts and hi-tech equipment.
The gifts from Duke Energy, Progress Energy, IBM, Cisco and other partners further the College’s goal of becoming the top public engineering school in the country. The investments help the College attract top faculty and students and support breakthrough technology initiatives such as the Advanced Transportation Energy Center (ATEC) and the Virtual Computing Laboratory (VCL).
“These investments in energy and information technology help us continue to educate the future engineering workforce in areas of critical importance to the economic development of North Carolina and the competitiveness of our nation,” said Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering. “Such generous gifts boost the capacity of our faculty and graduate students to conduct groundbreaking research that will create the kinds of innovation that drive progress.”
The contributions came from a number of longstanding partners who have shaped the College in many ways.
Duke Energy’s support included $1.25 million to establish professorships in nuclear engineering and in the burgeoning power program in electrical and computer engineering; an endowment to support K-12 outreach efforts around energy; and funds to renovate two engineering conference rooms. The Charlotte-based electric power company has also made a five-year $1.25 million commitment to ATEC and a gift of $160,000 in support of scholarships and academic programming.
Progress Energy also provided $1.25 million to ATEC, which is developing technologies to bring more plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles to American roads. The energy company, which is based in Raleigh, also made a contribution in 2008 that included new funding for scholarships and faculty fellowships in the College’s electric power program, as well as continuing support for the nuclear engineering program. In 2006, the company made a $1.2 million gift that included funds for professorships in the departments of nuclear and electrical and computer engineering, plus an endowment for unrestricted support for the College.
“We at Progress Energy value our close partnership with the College of Engineering at NC State University,” said Lee Mazzocchi, chief procurement officer at Progress Energy and a 1990 NC State civil engineering graduate. “We employ a large number of engineering graduates from NC State, so the school is an important part of our workforce development strategy. Much of the current research by faculty in the power program will have a direct impact on the evolving future of the utility industry.”
Another longstanding contributor is IBM, the global technology company that donated equipment valued at $1.2 million in 2007 to the VCL, a groundbreaking initiative that is working to bring cloud computing to universities, community colleges and K-12 schools across the state. In 2008, IBM made $399,000 in donations that included awards to support research initiatives of our computer science and electrical and computer engineering faculty.
“The research being done by NC State professors is world class and addresses the real-world challenges faced by industry — which in fact represent some of the most theoretically difficult research problems that exist,” said Andy Rindos, head of the RTP Center for Advanced Studies at IBM. “And as we know, these are the same problems that impact the quality of our everyday lives. These awards are therefore proof of the esteem with which IBM regards the NC State faculty.”
Cisco’s donation of a TelePresence videoconferencing system to NC State, a gift valued at $650,000, was part of a larger initiative by the company to link researchers with their counterparts at other universities. The global networking company also provided more than $128,000 in research awards in 2008.
“We can’t thank our corporate partners enough for the recent support they’ve provided,” said Ben Hughes, executive director of the NC State Engineering Foundation. “The College is fortunate to enjoy these longstanding relationships with companies who continue to provide career opportunities for our students, and so recognize the top-notch quality of NC State engineering education and research.”