02-20-04

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY DEDICATES GERDIN BUSINESS BUILDING

AMES, Iowa -- With hundreds of students, faculty, alumni, and friends looking on, Iowa State University today dedicatedthe Gerdin Business Building, celebrating the facility as one of the nation's most technologically sophisticatedbusiness learning environments. Among those participating in the dedication were Iowa State University PresidentGregory Geoffroy, College of Business Dean Labh Hira, Gov. Tom Vilsack, Board of Regents President Owen J. Newlin andRuss and Ann Gerdin, for whom the building is named.

"This new facility will help our College of Business make major strides in the many things Iowa State University doesto strengthen Iowa's economy, from educating students for successful careers in business to helping Iowa's businessesand industries become more competitive and profitable," President Gregory Geoffroy said.

More than 50 percent of the $25 million cost of the building was raised privately. Russ Gerdin, founder of HeartlandExpress, Inc., one of Business Week's Top 100 hot growth companies, and his wife, Ann, of Coralville, started thebuilding initiative with a $10 million gift in the fall of 1998. The 111,000 square-foot building marks the firstpermanent home for the College of Business since it was established in 1984.

"Ann and I strongly believe that education, especially of young people, is the key to improving our state and nation,"said Russ Gerdin, a graduate of Moorhead State University in Minnesota who has served on the College of Business Dean'sAdvisory Council.

Labh Hira, dean of the College of Business, said the new classroom and research facilities in the Gerdin BusinessBuilding will better prepare students for careers in business fields that are rapidly adopting new technologies.

"The new facilities will enhance our ability to provide innovative, real-world educational experiences and to discovernew ways to apply technology to current and emerging business needs," Hira said.

Serving more than 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the Gerdin Business Building offers wireless Internetaccess as well as audio-visual-equipped classrooms and state-of-the-art teaching and research laboratories.

Hira said the building and its technologies will serve as a catalyst to retain and attract some of the nation's topbusiness faculty and researchers to Iowa State.

The Gerdin Business Building also includes a Business Career Services Office that holds several interview rooms wherecorporate recruiters can interview job candidates. The facility also includes space for the Iowa Small BusinessDevelopment Center, an economic development outreach unit of ISU that had previously been housed off campus.

"We are indebted to Russ and Ann Gerdin and the many other alumni and friends of the college and to the people andleaders of Iowa for providing the resources for this important facility," Geoffroy said.

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