Jim Swenson's love of science and technology sparked a career and led him to found Details Inc.
BUILDING ON A LEGACY OF INNOVATION BY DENNIS ARP
The Swenson Family Hall of Engineering honors the generosity of Jim Swenson and ensures opportunities for student success. Halfway through Jim Swenson’s senior year, his college dream was in jeopardy. It was 1958, and he had run out of money for tuition. Luckily, Bob Banks at First National Bank of Wisconsin was there to provide assistance. The two met at Banks’ office, and Swenson left with a $900 personal loan, plus a simple entreaty – someday repay the favor to help someone else. “Make a promise. Deliver on a promise. That’s what was reinforced to me,” Swenson says in the biography “Opening Doors: Jim Swenson’s Life of Grit, Gratitude and Giving,” written by his son-in-law, author Christopher Lentz. “Mr. Banks planted the seed for what would become the Swenson Family Foundation and
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE
our Swenson Scholars scholarship program. He taught me how important it is for one hand to reach forward and one hand to reach back in an unbroken chain.” Now that chain of generosity will extend deep into the future, touching the lives of countless Chapman University students, thanks to a $5 million gift by the Swenson Family Foundation. The gift, announced Thursday, Sept. 24, names the Swenson Family Hall of Engineering in Chapman’s Keck Center for Science and Engineering.
NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART ENGINEERING HALL WILL OPEN IN FALL 2021 When the gift opens the doors to the engineering hall – planned for fall 2021 – Chapman will fully realize the largest and most ambitious project in its history. The 140,000-square-foot building first opened in fall 2018, with the science wing inaugurating the opportunity for students to learn and grow in the state-of-the-art facility. As the Swenson Family Hall of Engineering continues its buildout in preparation for the 2021 opening, students in the 2-year-old Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler School of Engineering excitedly await the chance to transfer their
