VCU news

By Pamela DiSalvo Lepley
Division of University Relations

Virginia Commonwealth University today announced a $1.5 million gift from Dominion, bringing the company's total commitment to the university's schools of Business and Engineering to $2 million.

"Dominion's generous gift places them among the top corporate donors to the university," said VCU President Eugene P. Trani. "The company's investment will help yield a well-trained and motivated labor pool of engineering and business graduates who have great technical skills, conduct research and development and understand business and marketing."

Dominion, headquartered in Richmond, is among the top energy producers in the United States and is ranked 123^rd on the Fortune 500 list.

"Dominion has committed these funds to help VCU strengthen its business and engineering schools and bring more educational wealth in both of those fields to our region," said Thomas F. Farrell II, Dominion president and CEO.

"Each year the Dominion Foundation contributes more than $10 million to nonprofit organizations to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve," said William C. Hall, Jr., president of the Dominion Foundation and Dominion's vice president-Corporate Communications & Community Affairs. "This is an investment in tomorrow's workforce."

Before pledging $1.5 million to the campaigns for the business and engineering schools, Dominion had committed $500,000 to the university. The total $2 million gift will be split evenly and is designated for the two schools' fundraising campaigns which include support for professorships, scholarships and the construction of a new School of Business and expansion of the School of Engineering on the Monroe Park Campus Addition.

Construction on the business and engineering facilities is expected to be completed in November 2007. 

Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with a portfolio of about 28,000 megawatts of generation, about 6.6 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas reserves and 7,800 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline. Dominion also operates one of the nation's largest underground natural gas storage systems with about 950 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 11 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at http://www.dom.com.