$100K Donation Added to UA Beavers Scholarship Endowment

During the 64th annual Golden Beaver Awards Dinner on Jan. 11, UA alumnus Mike Hoover announced a $100,000 donation from the Beavers Charitable Trust to the UA Beavers Scholarship Endowment.

Hoover, who received his Bachelor of Science in 1983, started as a laborer with Sundt Construction Inc. as a teenager, and has risen to CEO. Sundt has built or renovated over 60 buildings and facilities on the UA campus. Hoover just finished his term as president of the Beavers.

The UA Beavers Scholarship Endowment began in 1998 when the Beavers Charitable Trust provided $10,000 in scholarship money for UA students pursuing careers in heavy construction, such as building highways, bridges, dams, airports, rail, ports and industrial facilities.

In recognition of the growing Construction Engineering Management, or CEM, focus in CAEM, the Beavers Charitable Trust added $50,000 to this endowment last year, joined by a $25,000 donation from Sundt. This brings the UA Beavers Scholarship Endowment to $175,000, which will generate approximately $7,000 in scholarship money each year.

"Industry partnerships are the heartbeat of Construction Engineering Management at the UA,” said Dean Papajohn, associate professor of practice for CAEM’s Construction Engineering Management focus. “This is phenomenal to be able to offer significant scholarships from the Beavers endowment to students preparing for careers in heavy construction. We are grateful for the amazing encouragement and support that the Beavers and Sundt are providing our students and program."

The Beavers was founded in 1955 “to promote goodwill, friendliness and consideration within the heavy engineering construction industry; to give recognition to those men and women who have demonstrated particular skill, responsibility and integrity; and to encourage and support entry of promising young individuals into heavy engineering construction.” The UA Beavers Scholarship Endowment is carrying the mission of the Beavers into the future.

This is the second scholarship gift to the department in recent months. Terracon awarded CAEM a $10,000 grant in December to support geotechnical graduate students and future professional engineers.