Stevens Institute Gets $10M Gift From Hoboken Alum… Again

HOBOKEN, NJ — Stevens Institute of Technology alumnus Greg Gianforte recently made history at his alma mater when he made a $10 million donation to fund a state-of-the-art interdisciplinary educational and research facility, university officials said.

Tech industry pros might recognize Gianforte as the founder of RightNow Technologies, the cloud-based customer service and support solutions company he sold to Oracle for $1.8 billion.

Gianforte’s staggering largesse to his alma mater is impressive, but what’s even more impressive is that he’s done it before. In 2012, The Gianforte Family Foundation – which includes Greg’s wife Susan – donated $10 million to the university for the same project.

Their combined $20 million gifts represent the largest gift to a single project in university history, administrators said.

“I and the entire Stevens community are so grateful for their leadership, commitment, and extraordinary generosity,” Stevens Institute President Nariman Farvardin said.

The new 89,950 square-foot, two-building facility which will be completed in 2019, and will provide academic space and research laboratories to further advance research and education in areas of significant societal need, such as healthcare and medicine, sustainable energy, financial systems defense and security and STEM education, Stevens administrators said.

Located on the northeast and southeast corners of Hudson and Sixth Street, the Gianforte Academic Center will add 17 smart classrooms, six advanced labs and 45 faculty offices. It will also house the university’s Department of Computer Science, an array of laboratories in healthcare technology including the Semcer Tissue Engineering Lab, a Digital Learning Lab and the Prototyping Manufacturing Facility, university officials said.

“The incredible ascent that Stevens has experienced over the last five years is truly remarkable,” Gianforte said. “We consider this additional gift as an investment in an organization that is making a difference - for its graduates who go on to launch and lead companies, for an economy that is driven by technological innovation and for a society that benefits from the research taking place at Stevens. Susan and I are pleased that our gift will be a catalyst for Stevens and the important work the university is doing.”

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According to school officials, Gianforte earned his B.E. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Computer Science from Stevens in 1983. After graduation, Greg was elected as a young alumni trustee to the Board of Trustees. He has also been a member of the Edwin A. Stevens Society, the leadership giving society at Stevens, every year since graduation.

Gianforte currently serves on the board of several companies and foundations and he is the managing director of the Bozeman Technology Incubator and chairman of Petra Academy. He and his wife Susan founded the Gianforte Family Foundation in 2005.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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