Shell Oil Company Donates $3.5 Million to LSU for Coastal Studies and Business Recovery

Shell Oil Company announced a donation of $3.5 million to LSU at a press conference Nov. 10. LSU officials received a commemorative check from Shell at the event. Pictured left to right are: Sean O’Keefe, LSU Chancellor; David Sexton, President of Shell Oil Products U.S.; and William Jenkins, LSU System President.
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November 10, 2006 — Shell Oil Company will donate $3.5 million over a three-year period to leverage Louisiana State University’s scientific and academic expertise in support of Louisiana’s environmental and business recovery efforts under way since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The donation is the largest one-time cash pledge from an energy company in LSU’s history, and is the first major corporate donation made since the “Forever LSU” campaign was officially announced in June this year.

“This donation is an important step in what has been a long and mutually productive relationship between LSU and Shell,” said LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe. “We are proud of this great partnership and dedicated to taking our collaboration to new heights with this most generous gift.”

“Shell is dedicated to the Louisiana communities where we live and work,” said David Sexton, President of Shell Oil Products U.S. “We hope this grant will benefit the state long-term – particularly with regard to environmental restoration and business revitalization.”

Approximately $3 million of the gift will create a state-of-the-art coastal ecosystem research project in the Breton Sound area along the Mississippi River delta immediately south of Plaquemines Parish, as well as a $1.2 million endowed chair. The Louisiana Board of Regents is expected to supplement the chair with an additional $800,000, giving the Shell gift $4.3 million in total impact. The initiative will be managed by LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment, or SCE, under the leadership of Dean Edward Laws and Professor Robert Twilley, who was recently named associate vice chancellor for research and economic development.

The research data acquired at the Breton Sound facility will be evaluated at the SCE’s existing “Shell Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory,” also financed by the company via $700,000 in previous donations. The significance of the Breton Sound research project was summarized by LSU Interim Provost Harold Silverman: “Shell’s funding of a comprehensive and systemic study of a large and important portion of coastal Louisiana should provide long-term benefits to the state based on exceptional interdisciplinary science aimed at understanding restoration mechanisms.”

The remaining $500,000 of the donation will be utilized by LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business to provide critically needed business counseling and related assistance for women- and minority-owned businesses in several Louisiana parishes hardest hit by the 2005 hurricanes. Under the direction of Dean Robert Sumichrast, the counseling and training will be provided by Ourso College faculty and graduate students via a new “mobile classroom,” an 18-wheel truck retrofitted with the latest educational technologies.

“The $3.5 million donation signifies an important expansion in an LSU/Shell relationship that has been steadily improving over the past several years, due to a number of factors, including a highly responsive campus workforce development team and an outstanding, multidisciplinary academic and research effort that is positioning LSU as a global leader in coastal and environmental studies,” said Jeff Hale, senior director of corporate and foundation relations with the LSU Foundation.

Additional History of the LSU/Shell Partnership

In the spring of 2005, a team of Shell research scientists conducted a first-of-its-kind tour of LSU’s engineering, geoscience, SCE and high-performance computing programs and centers, which brought about new research and development partnerships, including an outstanding, cutting-edge environmental modeling lab. A year later, in the immediate aftermath of the fall 2005 hurricanes, Shell announced its decision to keep its business operations fully functional in the state and made a $250,000 donation to bolster LSU’s responsiveness to Louisiana’s economic and environmental recovery efforts. By August of this year, the university had earned the distinction as Shell’s top recruiting school in the United States. Shell’s annual giving has grown from $275,000 in calendar year 2002 to nearly $4 million in 2006. For additional information contact Jeff Hale at 225-578-5499 or jeff@lsufoundation.org.