After Barbara Jean Bruin’s mother passed away, the Collins College faculty member and her husband, Marcel, realized they needed a plan for their own assets.

“You could die perfectly healthy, and you should plan for what to do with your resources. If you have a passion, I believe you should give back to that passion,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that if something happens to me or Marcel that everything we have worked for wasn’t for nothing.” Read more...

Lance Calvert, '69, business, knows a thing or two about business success. As the first 7-Eleven employee given the chance to franchise his own store, Calvert has more than 41 years of experience with the convenience store giant and owns two 7-Eleven stores in Las Vegas.

Today, however, Calvert likes to focus on the rewards of his career success -- namely, the joy of giving back. Read more...

Cyber defense education at Cal Poly Pomona has received a significant boost with a gift of nearly $350,000 from Southern California Edison, World Wide Technology and Cisco to establish the SCE Virtual Information Assurance Laboratory. The facility, coupled with a classroom in the new College of Business Administration complex, will significantly expand cyber security education and collaboration with academic and industry partners.

"This lab will give faculty and students hands-on access to cutting-edge virtualization technology," says Mahvash Yazdi, senior vice president for information technology and business integration and CIO at Southern California Edison. "As technology advances, so do our risk areas, which is why it is critical to educate the next generation of cyber security professionals. The challenge is to prepare students to anticipate threats and to solve problems that don't exist today." Read more...

Architecture alumna Juliana Terian, co-founder of Nouvelle View and former chairman of Rallye Automotive Group (NY), has pledged $2.5 million to the College of Environmental Design. It is the single largest cash gift in the history of the college and the sixth highest in Cal Poly Pomona history.

"My undergraduate years at Cal Poly Pomona opened my eyes to the creative possibilities of architecture, art, and design in ways that changed my life," Mrs. Terian said. "While a student at Cal Poly I received a $400 scholarship from the Women's Architectural League which was a distinctive honor and the most important attainment for me at the time, both monetarily and scholastically. It made a strong and lasting impression on me and has shaped the way I view the role of philanthropy in education." Read more...

From conducting research in France to serving as the associate editor of a scientific journal to updating his successful marine biology textbook, Peter Castro, professor emeritus of biological sciences, has had a very busy retirement. Since he stepped down from full-time teaching in 2003, Castro has been as active -- perhaps more so -- in research and writing.

He frequently travels internationally to present his findings, further his research or serve as a visiting scholar. In March, he spoke at a conference in Brazil on the symbiotic relationship between crabs and reef corals. This spring, he is in Paris working on deep-water crabs recently collected in Madagascar, New Guinea and French Polynesia. Read more...

Cal Poly Pomona reached a historic milestone on March 28 when it surpassed $100 million in donations and pledges just 18 months into the public phase of its ambitious comprehensive fundraising campaign.

"To generate this level of support in this economic environment is truly amazing," said university President Michael Ortiz. "It speaks to our well-deserved reputation as a place of academic excellence, as well as to the passion of our friends and alumni who believe in our mission to educate tomorrow's leaders." Read more...