EUGENE—The University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business has received two private gifts totaling $2.25 million for the campaign to help support a new teaching facility.

Matthew Katzer and Barbara Dawson of Portland have donated $1.25 million for computer labs, software and a technology endowment fund. Katzer and Dawson spent 18 and 21 years, respectively, in management positions at Intel Corporation. Katzer earned an executive master of business administration degree from the UO in 1989.

Gerry and Marilyn Cameron of Vancouver, Wash. have pledged $1 million through the Cameron Foundation to name a financial learning center. Gerry Cameron attended the University of Oregon for two years as a student in U.S. Bank's work/college program. He worked his way up U.S. Bank's corporate ladder, and served as chairman and chief executive officer from 1994 until his retirement in 1998.

Phil Romero, dean of the Lundquist College of Business, says the two contributions add valuable momentum to the college's Building Excellence Campaign to raise funding for the proposed $40 million facility. Additional funding is expected to come from state bonding support.

"We are now well past the half-way point in the campaign to build a facility that will complete our transformation into a world-class West Coast business school," Romero says.

The most recent expansion of UO's business college facilities was made in 1950, when 42 faculty and graduate teaching assistants served 942 business students.

"What was ample space 45 years ago is inadequate to serve the needs of our 2000 students and 96 full- and part-time faculty in the new century," Romero says.

The new facility will be named for Charles and Gwen Lillis of Engelwood, Colo., who gave $12 million to the campaign--the second largest private donation ever made to the UO. Charles Lillis is the former chairman of MediaOne Group, and earned a Ph.D. from the UO College of Business in 1972.

The Lillis Business Complex will add as much as 145,000 square feet of new construction to 55,000 square feet of renovated space in Gilbert Hall. The facility will feature six learning centers that cluster faculty offices, student study areas and resource centers around each academic department, as well as the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center.

Designs for the new facility also include a 300-seat auditorium and a 120-seat lecture hall. Internet access will be available throughout the building, and a distance learning classroom with video teleconferencing capabilities will be included. A 3,000-square-foot Career Services Center will provide computer stations for job searching, a work area for researching companies, and a resource and information room containing essential information on hundreds of corporations and industries.

To obtain details on the Building Excellence Campaign, call Chris Murray at the Lundquist College of Business, (541) 346-3401.

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