Donation to benefit the university’s College of Engineering.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: FM Global, a US-based company that specializes in providing comprehensive insurance products and exceptional property loss prevention engineering services, has pledged to donate $1 million to support the construction of the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) proposed College of Engineering facility.
The gift was contingent on passage of the $125 million higher education facilities bond referendum that will appeared as Question 4 on the November 4 ballot in Rhode Island, which did go through comfortably with voter endorsement, according to a report in GoLocalProv.
“I am tremendously grateful to FM Global and CEO Shivan Subramaniam for their generosity in support of this critical project,” said URI President David M. Dooley, in a statement. “This new building will elevate the already impressive record of teaching, learning and research that takes place at the College of Engineering, and provide extraordinary dividends to the economy and to a wide range of businesses throughout our state.”
Subramaniam, chairman and CEO of FM Global, said in a statement: “The future of Rhode Island is knowledge-based. Rhode Island must invest in higher education and encourage public/private partnerships with state schools to create the skilled workforce a knowledge-based economy demands. Investing in URI’s College of Engineering will help grow the supply of much needed, well-trained, engineers that will benefit our state.”
The gift from FM Global follows several other corporate contributions to the project, including $2 million from Toray Plastics (America), $400,000 from the Taco White Family Foundation, and many smaller contributions, bringing the total of private contributions to the project to more than $8 million, said the GoLocalProv.
FM Global was founded in 1835 by Zachariah Allen.
FM Global has a long history of collaboration with the University of Rhode Island and the College of Engineering, the report said. The company hires 10 to 15 URI interns per year in a variety of areas, many of who receive full-time job offers following their internships, and among those about four or five are in engineering. It has also collaborated on several research projects with the College of Engineering, including the development of new techniques to predict the strength of steel when subjected to heat from fire hazards. And it has contributed more than $125,000 to the University through the company’s matching gift program.
(This story was revised on November 26, 2014).