Planned Gifts

James Trainham and Linda Diane Waters

designate major bequest to the College

James (Jim) Trainham (B.S. ’73, Ph.D. ’79, ChemE) describes his time at the College of Chemistry as really special. When he was an undergraduate, he was mentored by a former Chair of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) Department, Professor Don Hansen. “He was a spectacular teacher,” Jim states. “I took a course from him and did well. I told him that I wanted to go on to graduate school to get a Ph.D. His response was that was a wonderful idea, but I should plan to do undergraduate research first. That’s when I was first introduced to Professor John Newman (Ph.D. ’63, ChemE). John, as it turns out, was renowned for his battery and electrochemical engineering research. He was the best research advisor for me. We have been friends for fifty years and still collaborate.”

After Jim finished his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering, he went on to a year of research (M.S.) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison but he had already decided he wanted to come back and work with Professor Newman. “In my opinion the Berkeley faculty were spectacular. They were just wonderful to the students. It was a great experience. I thoroughly loved the place. That’s why over the years I’ve consistently contributed to the department and why Linda and I decided to establish the graduate fellowship program here.”

He continues, “We both have academic backgrounds. (Linda has degrees in nursing, and measurement and statistics. She is currently vice president at Prometric, a global leader in test development and delivery. Before that, she was Asst. Dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Delaware.) We appreciate what it means to be students and faculty members as we have done both. When we looked at what we thought was important about giving back to the College, we realized one of the things that has concerned us over the years is that funding situations for research have become so directed that there’s not much freedom for doing anything new. That’s really why we chose to put our money in the direction that we did.” Jim and Linda have designated a multimillion dollar bequest to the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering that will create an endowed fund to support chemical engineering graduate student fellowships.

“The other donation we have made to the College has been to give the CBE Department Chair a little bit of slush fund money over time so that they have some freedom to be able to do things when they need to. I know what it’s like. I was in corporate management for a long time. It’s always nice to have a little bit of flexibility in your spending. Jim has given back in other ways to both Berkeley and the College. He spent more than 20 years on the College’s Advisory Board and has also served on the UC Berkeley Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

He comments, “I think the main reason that a place like Berkeley is so important to the world of technology is that it has tremendous people on its faculty and its staff, and it attracts wonderful students. And we need to keep that going. And the more we can give that independence back to the faculty and students through giving, the better the resulting technology will be. It’s hard to be creative when you’re constrained.”

ABOUT DR. TRAINHAM’S CAREER

Dr. Trainham has received multiple awards and honors including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997. His research interests focus on renewable energy, synthetic fuels including hydrogen production, energy storage, electrochemical engineering, and techno-economics of energy alternatives. Currently he is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida (UF). Before joining UF, he spent most of his professional career in industry including: two startup companies developing new greener process technologies; was vice president, distinguished fellow and director of the Research Triangle Solar Fuels Institute at RTI International; served as global vice president of Science and Technology at PPG Industries; and had a 25-year career at the DuPont Company.