Above: (l-r) Associate Professor Scott Olson, Brian Porter and department head Benito Mariñas
The Terracon Foundation announced a $100,000 grant to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (CEE at Illinois) for a new geotechnical laboratory planned as part of the CEE Modernization Plan Phase II now underway.
The hands-on instructional laboratory honors those who built the geotechnical engineering program at the university, including Karl von Terzaghi, Ralph B. Peck and Don U. Deere. The Terracon Foundation made the grant in honor of company founder and University of Illinois alumnus Gerald Olson, who was inspired to pursue the field of geotechnical engineering after attending an impactful lecture by Karl Terzaghi.
The Terracon Foundation has been making grants to individual CEE students for more than 25 years. This is the first year a grant is being awarded to a capital campaign for CEE engineering education facilities at the University of Illinois.
“We are deeply grateful to Terracon for all their support over the years, but especially for this latest gift to the CEE Modernization Project," said Benito Mariñas, professor and department head of CEE at Illinois. "Their generous gift in support of the Geotechnical Engineering Instructional Laboratory honoring some of the great geotechnical engineers of the department’s history – Karl Terzaghi, Ralph Peck and Don Deere – will inspire and benefit students for generations to come.”
Terracon is an employee-owned engineering consulting firm with more than 4,000 employees providing environmental, facilities, geotechnical, and materials services from more than 140 offices with services in all 50 states. Terracon currently ranks 24th on Engineering News-Record’s list of Top 500 Design Firms. For additional information about Terracon, visit www.terracon.com.