- University of Minnesota photo of the engineering building.
Robert and Jane Gore have donated $10 million for the expansion of Amundson Hall, the home of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science in the College of Science and Engineering.
This donation builds on a previous gift of $5 million received last December from Dow Chemical Co., according to the university.
Gore, who did his undergraduate work in engineering at the University of Delaware earlier donated more than $18 million for the construction of Gore Hall on the Newark campus.
Minnesota has its main campus in Minneapolis.
Robert Gore received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1963. He is the inventor of the fabric, called Gore. He is the former CEO of W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Newark, a company started by his father, with annual sales of $3 billion and 9,500 associates.
The company is well known for using an unorthodox management style that uses a team approach, with smaller manufacturing sites and fewer bosses.
Construction will begin in early 2013 on a 40,000-square-foot expansion of Amundson Hall. The addition, named the Gore Annex, will accommodate expansion of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science in response to increasing demand from students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
The Gore Annex will include two floors below ground and four floors above ground. It has been designed as a separate building with connections to the existing building on each floor to maximize space dedicated to research laboratories.
Gore Annex will also serve the growing undergraduate classes with a new 3,000-square-foot materials lab
The total cost of the project is $27.6 million, which includes the building expansion and upgrades to the current building. The project is funded by $15 million in donations, $5.6 million from the College of Science and Engineering for building projects, and $7 million in University Higher Education Asset Preservation and Restoration funds from the state for upgrades to the current Amundson Hall building, including new windows overlooking the new light-rail station and other infrastructure improvements.
The building is expected to be completed in mid-2014.
