What’s in a name? In the case of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, 25 years of excellence.
At the turn of the 21st century, Auburn alumnus Sam Ginn, ’59 industrial engineering, was leading one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. He, more than anyone else, knew the wireless industry needed more engineers. All types of engineers; system, design, research, you name it.
And he wanted Auburn to lead that charge.
Larry Benefield, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Auburn in 1966 and 1972, respectively, was serving as dean of engineering at the time. He understood Ginn’s ambition for Auburn.
He had those same aspirations, but cuts in state funding were making it difficult.
Ginn asked Benefield if he gave the college $25 million, would Benefield go out and raise double the amount? Without hesitation, Benefield said yes, but only if Ginn would accompany him.
Together, they traveled the country, visiting alumni and foundations and changing the philanthropic culture at Auburn forever.
“Sam’s gift was like the booster on a Saturn V rocket — it lifted our entire fundraising effort to a level we had never seen before,” Benefield said. “It really ignited the ‘give-back’ culture among Auburn grads that has done nothing but grow and strengthen over time.”
Auburn University President Chris Roberts, who served as dean of engineering from 2012-22, was chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering when Benefield announced the gift to the engineering faculty.
It’s a moment he’ll never forget.
“Sam’s investment challenged us to work at the cutting edge,” Roberts said. “Wireless was going to change everything, and here’s the man at the forefront telling Auburn, ‘I believe in you. I believe in your students.’ That vote of confidence — that we could really provide solutions at that level — I thought was incredibly inspiring.”
THE IMPACT
During the Benefield years, Auburn Engineering saw a significant period of growth as a result of Ginn’s gift, drawing national attention and achieving the highest rankings in the college’s history at the time.
Many other alumni and friends of the college took notice and began making significant investments themselves.
Under Benefield’s leadership, the college completed a $154 million facilities enhancement program, including construction of the Shelby Center, Wiggins Hall and the Woltosz Laboratories.
He also oversaw the launch of the nation’s first undergraduate degree in wireless engineering, the opening of Auburn’s MRI Center and the establishment of a research center in Huntsville.
Roberts, Benefield’s successor, then nearly doubled the college’s enrollment and achieved record-breaking research expenditures and awards. His faculty hiring initiative, starting in 2015, added more than 100 new faculty members to the college. He oversaw the construction of the Brown-Kopel Center, the renovation of the former Textile Building into the Gavin Laboratory, the renovation of Broun Hall, construction of the Advanced Structural Engineering Laboratory and the purchase of the Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus in Huntsville.
Mario Eden, the current dean of engineering, has taken the baton and is running with it. In just two years as dean, the college has already set a record for research awards, contracts and grants funding — nearly $120 million in FY24 — in addition to record enrollment, rising rankings, growth in Huntsville, Orange Beach and Washington D.C., and much more.
Looking to the next 25 years
In August, the college kicked off the year-long celebration of being named the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. This included a gala event in September on the Gavin Garden where hundreds of alumni, faculty, staff and friends gathered to commemorate the investment that inspired it all. All three deans of the past 25 years spoke during the event, in addition to remarks by Ginn.
“Donors get a lot of publicity, but I just want you to know that it’s the deans and the staffs who get the work done,” Ginn said. “For the past 25 years, we’ve had three deans here. First, Larry, then Chris and now Mario. They’ve been doing a great job. And, today, we are just in a great position.”
The new challenge, Eden said during the event, is to make the college even greater.
“As we reflect on our past, we also must look to the future,” Eden said. “I have no doubt that the next 25, 50 and 100 years will hold even more greatness for us as we take our rightful place among the best engineering institutions in the nation.”
Just months before the 25th anniversary celebration, Ginn made another investment that will put the college on an even higher trajectory. The Ginn Family Foundation committed $30 million to the college to establish a new scholarship program, marking the largest single commitment to scholarships in Auburn University history.
The new Ginn Scholarship Program is designed to provide scholarship awards annually covering tuition, fees, room and board for up to five years. To qualify for this merit-based scholarship, Ginn Scholars must demonstrate need, graduate from a Title I high school in the state of Alabama and be admitted into the College of Engineering. Candidates must also have exercised leadership skills in school and community activities and have values that align with those espoused in the Auburn Creed.
“When I was accepted into Auburn, the affordability issue was front and center, but a college education was important to my parents. Once at Auburn, I participated in ROTC, waited tables and worked in a clothing store just to get by. But I was never ashamed of that. In fact, it instilled that ‘hard work’ mentality that is grounded in the Auburn Creed,” Ginn said. “My hope is that this program will lessen the financial burden of a higher education and help families in our state. There are so many students with strong family value systems, and they deserve an opportunity to focus on their studies instead of focusing on their financial situation.”
Kentlei Rogers is one of those students. The biosystems engineering freshman from Geraldine, one of the 10 inaugural Ginn Scholars, was at a baseball game when the call came. When she hung up, she started crying. She called her parents. They cried, too. “Mr. Ginn,” Rogers said, “changed my life.”
Brody Rall is another one of those students. He first realized his life had changed when he checked his e-bill after his high school graduation rehearsal. Instead of $32,000, it said $0.00.
“I was like, ‘This has to be a mistake,’” he exclaimed. His mom reached out to Auburn. It wasn’t a mistake. No loans. No burdens. The freedom to focus completely on class, on becoming an Auburn engineer — and what an Auburn engineer can become.
“There was always pressure to really take advantage of college even before I found out about the scholarship,” Rall said. “I needed to make it count, because we would have gone into debt.”
“Now,” he said, “it’s almost like even bigger things are going to be expected.”
ABOUT SAM GINN
A native of Anniston, Ginn is a 1959 graduate of Auburn’s College of Engineering with a degree in industrial engineering. Following his service with the Army Signal Corps, he built a 31-year career with AT&T and its affiliates. He chose to leave his position as CEO of Pacific Telesis, an AT&T affiliate with 90,000 employees, and assume the role of CEO of a spin-off focused on the company’s wireless assets, including 300 employees. By assembling a workforce comprised of those willing to make a career change and new hires to the industry, Ginn helped build what became the largest cellular company in the world — AirTouch — with operations across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Eastern Europe.
In 1999, the company was sold for $65 billion to Vodafone. Many of the original 300 employees, including those in entry-level positions such as mail delivery, became millionaires at the time of the sale. After the sale of AirTouch, Ginn was involved at the senior level of several start-ups, including being one of the early founders of Ondot Systems, a company formed to prevent credit card fraud. After five years, it was acquired by Fiserv Inc., with a seven-time return to its investors.
Ginn has served on 11 corporate boards, including Chevron, Safeway, Hewlett-Packard, Pacific Telesis, AirTouch, and Vodafone. He has also served as chairman of the California Business-Higher Education Forum, the California Business Roundtable, and the Committee on Jobs and the Economy. He is an overseer at the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto, as well as a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University’s School of Business. He also served on Auburn University’s Board of Trustees from 2005-13.
For his professional achievements, Ginn was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from Auburn University in 1998. He is also a member of the Wireless Hall of Fame, the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame, and the Alabama Business Hall of Fame.
