Tony Dodero
College educators, high-tech computer aficionados, politicians and
businessmen toasted the Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren Wednesday for
his considerable financial help and long-term vision to fortify the
future of the university's cutting-edge computer science school.
Bren, who was revealed recently to be the benefactor of a
previously anonymous $20-million gift last December, and who makes
few public appearances, was the honored guest at an elaborate
groundbreaking ceremony that featured a parade of alumni from the
computer science school, credited with masterminding everything from
the early days of three-dimensional, computer-aided design to
creating Internet domain names.
Bren noted that the idea for the endowment was spawned 20 years
ago in a meeting with former UCI Chancellor Jack Peltason in
Washington, D.C.
"He said something that I will never forget," Bren said. "He said
'At the end of the day, the key to a university's standing, its
reputation, its educational excellence and the quality of its
research is rooted in the excellence of its faculty.'"
Bren called the University of California "the most important
institution in California," and pointed out that the Irvine Co. began
its relationship with higher education with a large endowment to the
state in 1959.
"Our company feels very much a part of the UCI campus," he said.
In addition to honoring Bren, whose name will adorn the new School
of Information and Computer Sciences, Wednesday's event was a
celebration of the appointment of the school's first dean, Debra
Richardson, as well as the start of construction on the new building
that will house the school. That building, to be named Bren Hall,
will be six stories with 138,000 square feet of research and
classroom facilities when its completed in 2006.
But more than just welcoming the physical building that will be
home to the school, university officials noted that the money from
Bren will enable them to hire top-flight educators and continue to
build the reputation of the nationally ranked computer science school
that has already produced a bevy of celebrity-like computer
scientists.
Among the noted alumni on hand Wednesday were Patrick Hanratty,
considered the father of computer-aided design or CAD; Paul
Mockapetris, creator of the Domain Name System widely used on the
Internet; Roy Fielding, the architect of the Internet's Hypertext
Transfer Protocol or HTTP; Adam Bonner, the co-founder with fellow
UCI grad Victor Liu of Network Synthesis computing systems; and
