New Gift from Bren to UC Santa Barbara Brings Total to $20 Million

07/29/04   |   Santa Barbara News-Press

Philanthropist gives $5 M more to UCSB
Gifts to university now total $20 million.

Philanthropist and Orange County businessman Donald Bren has given $5 million to UCSB — bringing his total contributions to the university to $20 million.

Following his earlier $15 million pledge, Mr. Bren’s latest gift went to the graduate program that in 1997 was named in honor of him: the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management.

Mr. Bren is the chairman of The Irvine Co. He was not available for comment Wednesday, but company spokeswoman Jennifer Hieger said: “He’s very proud of the work the school has done. It’s truly a trail-blazing approach.”

This latest contribution “will help attract and retain the very best professors in this critically important field,” Mr. Bren said in a prepared statement.

UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang said in a prepared statement that Mr. Bren’s “vision for developing a peerless, world-leading institution . . . has been a tremendous source of inspiration and leadership for the Bren School.”

His continued support of the program “will certainly add to its momentum and its visibility,” Mr. Yang added. “We are extremely grateful.”

RAFAEL MALDONADO / NEWS-PRESS PHOTO Donald Bren has given $5 million to UCSB's Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, housed in this $26 million building that's one of the "greenest" in the UC system.
RAFAEL MALDONADO / NEWS-PRESS PHOTO
Donald Bren has given $5 million to UCSB’s Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, housed in this $26 million building that’s one of the “greenest” in the UC system.

The Irvine Co. is a real estate investment firm that employs about 2,000 people and is best known for creating sustainable communities at The Irvine Ranch in Orange County. This year, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $4 billion. Mr. Bren has contributed more than $60 million to the UC system, mainly to the Santa Barbara and Irvine campuses, and his generosity was recognized last month when he was presented with a University of California Presidential Medal.

Ms. Hieger described Mr. Bren as “a student of the environment.”

An avid outdoorsman, “he has a deep appreciation for nature and for man’s connection to it,” she said. “He certainly believes that finding solutions to environmental problems requires input from multiple disciplines.”

The Bren School emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating natural and social sciences, business and law to train students in research and environmental management so they can help solve the environmental problems of the 21st century.

After the school was founded in 1991, Mr. Bren “saw terrific potential and an opportunity to enrich and expand the concept,” Ms. Hieger said.

Funds from the Bren Foundation are supporting nine faculty chairs at the Bren School: one for the dean, two in environmental law, two in corporate environmental management and several interdisciplinary professorships. Mr. Bren’s contribution will also support a program that brings internationally recognized scholars to the school for teaching and research.

“I strongly believe that the quality of education and research that any institution provides is squarely rooted in the excellence of its faculty,” Mr. Bren said.

Mr. Bren’s contribution will also fund fellowships for master’s students.

The school — which has more than 100 students working on master’s and doctoral degrees — is now housed in Donald Bren Hall, one of the “greenest,” or environmentally friendly, buildings in the UC system.

Dennis Aigner, dean of the school, said in a statement that it aims to “produce leaders who will teach and inspire us. . . . This new commitment serves to strengthen both our resolve and our ability to provide such people with the very best training in an exceptional learning and research environment.”

By Anna Davidson, News Press Staff Writer

University of California Awards its Highest Honor to Bren

06/10/04   |   Los Angeles Times

A Big Name on UCI Campus

Irvine Co. Chief Executive Donald Bren is honored Wednesday at UC Irvine’s School of Information and Computer Sciences. Bren donated $20 million to the university, endowing more permanent chairs than anyone in the campus’ history. In recognition of this contributions, UCI awarded Bren the University of California Presidential Medal, the university’s highest honor.

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Los Angeles Times

Bren’s Gifts to UCI Reach $43 Million; Computer Science School to Bear His Name

06/03/04   |   Daily Pilot

Buildings filling to the Bren at UC Irvine
Chairman of the Irvine Co. who has given the school about $43 million sees yet another site take his name

By Marisa O’Neil, Daily Pilot — June 3, 2004

UC IRVINE — A big donation and a passed bond initiative are giving the nationally ranked School of Information and Computer Science a new name: The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences.

University officials announced on Wednesday that the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences will break ground on a new building Wednesday and recognize its benefactor. Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co., donated $20 million to the school in December. Until Wednesday, it was an anonymous gift.

“Providing the gift in December allowed the school to begin recruiting [faculty] immediately, at an important juncture,” said Irvine Co. spokeswoman Jennifer Hieger. “[Bren] wanted the focus to remain on the school and its building momentum, knowing he would be recognized down the road.

“Bren’s $20 million tied the largest donation ever received by UCI. In 1999, Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli and his wife, Susan, donated the university’s other $20-million gift, to what is now known as the Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
Since 1984, Bren has donated about $43 million to the university, Hieger said.

He chose the School of Information and Computer Science, upgraded from a department to its own school in 2002, because of its accomplishments and vision, Hieger said.

“Though he has a background in real estate, he realizes that technological innovation is at the heart of economic health and vitality,” she said.

The donation will provide more than $18 million for 10 newly endowed faculty positions. Debra J. Richardson was officially named the school’s dean in March.

The school will be housed in a new, six-story building, to be named Bren Hall, and is scheduled for completion in 2006. About $35 million from school-improvement bonds Proposition 55 and Proposition 47 last November will go toward construction, UCI spokeswoman Michelle Williams said.

“It all came together, not quite simultaneously, but we had an amazing year — becoming a school, the bonds getting passed, getting the gift,” Richardson said. “This is really a transformational gift.

“Bren’s donation will allow the school, ranked 15th nationwide by U.S. News & World Report for computer science graduate programs, to attract senior faculty to the school, Richardson said. The school is planning to recruit faculty who will research “ubiquitous computing,” or small computers that are in everyday use for medical and other applications.

Other campus buildings with Bren’s mark are the Bren Events Center and the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, named for his late stepmother and Academy Award-winning actress.

*MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Bren’s Land Gift Preserves a ‘Treasure Trove of Biodiversity’

11/30/01   |   Los Angeles Times

Land-Gift Celebration as Big as All Outdoors
Open space: Officials, environmentalists and scientists
all hail the Irvine Co.’s decision.

Rugged canyons, centuries-old oak trees, and sweeping expanses of Chaparral and sage make up the 11,000 acres that Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren is preserving forever. It includes some of the most sensitive and biologically rich land in Southern California.

“It’s a treasure trove of biodiversity,” said Tom Scott, a natural-resources specialist with the University of California. Local elected officials, environmentalists and scientists are still celebrating Bren’s Wednesday announcement, which ensures that more than half of the 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch will remain undeveloped.

E-mails were flowing as word spread outside the state.

“Yee haw! That is fantastic news. It made my day,” wrote Paul Beier, a mountain lion expert at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, in an e-mail to local environmentalist Claire Schlotterbeck.

news_map_112901_boeck1The land is home to scores of rare indigenous species, from mountain lions to Tecate cypress trees. Environmentalists have coveted it for years.

The preserved land includes a 17-square-mile swath in the northern part of the ranch. The swath stretches from Weir Canyon to Cleveland National Forest, and includes Fremont and Blind canyons and parts of Gypsum, Silverado, Santiago and Baker canyons. Expanses of grasslands, oak groves and other vegetation are studded with striking ridgelines and unusual rock formations.

Bren also preserved the “missing link” in Laguna Laurel, a 173-acre Parcel that links Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, Crystal Cove State Park and permanent open space in Irvine. The land is part of one of the last undeveloped coastal canyons in Southern California.

This parcel, valued at $33 million 12 years ago, has been sought by preservationists since the late 1980s. Phone calls have been pouring into the Laguna Canyon Foundation, a nonprofit organization created in 1991 to preserve and enhance Laguna Canyon and the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, since Bren’s announcement at an invitation-only gathering Wednesday night.

news_map_112901_boeck21“We’ve had a lot of well-wishers congratulating us and they’re just so thrilled,” said a receptionist. “It’s been a very joyous day, very joyous.”

The North Ranch and Laguna Canyon parcels will be protected through permanent conservation easements that will be donated to the Nature Conservancy. Over the next decade, ownership of the land will be transferred to cities, the county and nonprofit groups.

But in the meantime, scientists, planners and environmentalists will Formulate immediate and long-term plans for the land. The Laguna Canyon land, for example, has been used for cattle grazing and needs restoration. Much of the land is currently off-limits to recreational users. But public access–which will vary from docent-led tours to picnicking, hiking and camping–could begin in some areas in less than two years.

The Irvine Co.–the largest landowner in Orange County–had extremely valuable development rights to build on some of the land, but company officials declined to comment on details.

On the Laguna Canyon parcel alone, the company could have built 1,500 homes The open space plan also apparently reduces the size of proposed Developments in East Orange and next to Anaheim, though details on how much are unavailable. The company has preliminary approvals to build nearly 20,000 homes on these two parcels but is expected to build far fewer.

news_map_112901_boeck3The company’s plans for a large triangular pocket of unincorporated County land known as the North Ranch Policy Area were unknown until Wednesday, when Bren announced it would be preserved.

Several possible sites where the county was considering building a jail–including two east of Orange–are now off-limits, thrilling city officials–and creating a buzz Thursday in county offices about the loss of the potential jail sites.

Activists also believe the preservation may kill a proposal to build a Road through the Cleveland National Forest to connect Orange and Riverside counties.

“It leverages protection of even more land,” said environmentalist Schlotterbeck, long a critic of Irvine Co. policy. “It was a smart thing to do and a wise thing to do. I am grateful.”

SEEMA MEHTA, TIMES STAFF WRITER