The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee celebrates the grand opening of its Lubar Entrepreneurship Center and Welcome Center on Wednesday, May 8, beginning at 4:30 p.m. Remarks by UWM Chancellor Mark E. Mone, LEC Director Brian Thompson and members of the Lubar family begin at 5:15 p.m., after which a four-foot-high lightbulb sculpture will be lit.
The two-story campus facility, at the corner of Kenwood Boulevard and Maryland Avenue, serves as both UWM’s public “front door” and a new address for transforming the region’s economy.
Guests can tour classrooms, gathering spots for speakers and “innovation labs,” where students prototype products and software.
Also going on in the building during the grand opening is the UWM Innovators Expo, which showcases accomplishments by student entrepreneurs and innovators, student organizations and partnered affiliates during the past year.
Festivities will end at 7:55 p.m. when the entire occupancy of the building will join in tossing a fleet of paper airplanes into the air.
Funding for the building was launched with a $10 million donation from Lubar & Co. founder Sheldon Lubar and his wife, Marianne, in 2015. Since then, the UW System has contributed $10 million, and additional gifts have come from the Kelben Foundation, established by Mary and Ted Kellner; from Milwaukee entrepreneur Jerry Jendusa; UWM alum Avi Shaked and wife Babs Waldman; We Energies; and American Family Insurance. Read the full story here.
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