The University of Missouri College of Engineering received a generous gift
totaling $500,000 from Burns & McDonnell, Inc., and alumnus Ray Kowalik and
his wife, Jill, on Friday at a ceremony held at Thomas and Nell Lafferre
Hall on the MU campus.

Burns & McDonnell, a Kansas City-based engineering, architecture,
construction, environmental and consulting solutions firm, donated $400,000.
Kowalik, who earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from MU in
1985 and his master’s degree in 1999, and his family donated $100,000.
Kowalik currently serves as the executive vice president as well as
president of global practice for Burns & McDonnell.

“This gift in support of the College’s renovation serves to reinforce the
University’s commitment to science, technology, engineering and math
education in order to provide our students with the tools they need to be
successful in today’s job market,” MU Provost Garnett Stokes said.

“These combined gifts will be used in support of the current Thomas and Nell
Lafferre Hall renovation project. More specifically, an area dedicated to
student collaborations located just inside the newly renovated area on the
north side of the building will benefit from their generosity and be named
in their honor,” MU College of Engineering Interim Dean Robert Schwartz
said.

Burns & McDonnell has been a corporate partner of the University of Missouri
College of Engineering since 2011, and the company currently employs 230 MU
College of Engineering alumni. Additionally, Burns & McDonnell has been
named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for in five of the last
seven years and has landed on the Kansas City Business Journal’s Best Places
to Work in Kansas City list the last eight years.