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PROVO — Celanese Corp. CEO David Weidman and his wife, Rachel, donated $10 million to endow a center to help engineering students at BYU face the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
Alan Parkinson, dean of BYU’s Fulton College of Engineering and Technology, announced the creation of the BYU Weidman Center for Global Leadership Thursday. He told the engineering students — who had gathered in the de Jong Concert Hall to hear the announcement — that the objective of the center is to develop tomorrow’s technical leaders.
"But it is not just economic reasons alone that the center has been formed," Parkinson said. "The challenges facing humankind in energy, sustainability, security, water resources and infrastructure all require leaders with deep technical skills who can work across national boundaries.
"We believe BYU students are uniquely positioned to contribute."
Speaking as a graduate of BYU, as a chemical engineer, and as a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, David Weidman said the world is dramatically different now than it was when he began his professional journey back in the late '70s and early '80s.
“We live today in a world that is one world, not many countries,” he said. “It is one preferred-brand based on the vote of the customer, not one brand that is supplied by a state or governing body, and a world where the competition is dramatically different than it had historically been. It can come from any place in the world.”
He said the center will change how technology and engineering is taught to be the perfect match for the requirements of this world.
