Their $10 million gift will help WWU build new science building in Bellingham
Western Washington University is receiving its largest donation ever from two business entrepreneurs that will go a long way to bringing a new science building to campus.
Business partners Fred Kaiser and Grace Borsari are giving a $10 million gift to WWU for its new science building, which will house the electrical engineering, computer and energy programs, according to a news release. The university is currently holding a $20 million fundraising campaign to pay for about half the building. That total is expected to be matched by the Washington State legislature.
Kaiser and Borsari founded Alpha Technologies, which provides a wide range of products including backup power equipment and telecommunications. The Bellingham company, which started in 1975, employed around 331 people locally in 2018.
Alpha was sold for $750 million in 2018 to EnerSys, a global energy company based in Reading, Pennsylvania. It maintains the Bellingham office, which is near the Bellingham International Airport.
If the additional funds are raised, the building is expected to be ready in late 2022 or early 2023. Once built, the building will be known as Kaiser Borsari Hall.
Kaiser and Borsari were not available for comment, but issued a joint statement saying “It has always been our priority to invest in education as it pays the highest dividends to all stakeholders.”
Last month Western announced plans to raise $20 million for this building by September. A location for the building has not been finalized, but the campaign’s website, known as Building Washington’s Future, indicates it will be in a highly visible spot on Western’s main campus.
Kaiser and Borsari have provided many donations to the university over the past two decades, said Stephanie Bowers, president and CEO of the Western Washington University Foundation. The two have contributed more than $2 million to the foundation, including funding more than 135 scholarships and making a $1 million gift in 2013 to the Institute for Energy Studies.
Sabah Randhawa, president of Western, said it was an extraordinary commitment from Kaiser and Bosari to advance engineering and computer science education.
“It is also a great example of a public-private partnership increasingly required if we are to make substantive progress in building capacity at our public institutions,” Randhawa said in a news release.
Western is also planning construction of a state-funded Interdisciplinary Science Building this spring. The $66.5 million project is expected to be completed by late 2021.
This 50,000-square-foot building will add urgently needed lab and classroom space, according to WWU. Two labs will be dedicated to biology, three to chemistry and five will be flex space for other programs and research. It will be south of the current biology building and will have a sky bridge connecting the two.
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 10:34 AM.
