The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will dedicate the Min H. Kao Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 14.
Min Kao—UT alumnus, donor and chairman and CEO of Garmin, Ltd.—will attend. Kao is expected to be joined by Gov. Bill Haslam, Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek, President Joe DiPietro and other state and local officials.
All University of Tennessee faculty, staff, students, alumni and supporters are invited to attend. Kao and other speakers will be available for interviews immediately following the dedication.
The event will be held at the Min H. Kao building on 1520 Middle Drive—located on the corner of the Hill at the 11th Street and Cumberland Avenue intersection.
Parking will be provided at the 11th Street garage, directly across the street from the new facility, at the corner of 11th Street and Cumberland Avenue.
Min Kao and his wife, Mrs. Fan Kao, donated $12.5 million to the building project which was, at the time, the largest single gift for a new building in the university’s history. The state committed $25 million, marking one of the first such matching arrangements for a new academic building in Tennessee.
The Min Kao building, which is built to LEED standards, provides space for the college’s growing enrollment and streamlines six buildings that formerly housed the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The 150,000-square-foot building also houses the Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT), a new, one-of-a-kind, smart grid research center funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
Construction began in May 2007. It welcomed students for the spring semester, which began in January.