Fairfield County Business Journal 121916

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2 | ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE December 19, 2016 | VOL. 52, No. 51

YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS

7 | DRIVEN TO DELIVER westfaironline.com

Peers see McMahon as strong SBA chief BY PHIL HALL phall@westfairinc.com

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path,” Halas said. The university in that first phase raised contributions of about $115 million from major donors. Among the donations, former university trustee William Egan and his wife, Jacalyn, donated $10 million, the funding cornerstone for a $31 million renovation project at the university’s nursing school, which has been renamed the Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies in honor of Egan’s mother. Work on that project is expected to be completed next fall. The university also plans to expand enrollment in its student nursing classes to 200 students, up from 100 to 125 students, to meet the continued rising demand for those workers. In addition, a newly renovated Leslie C. Quick Jr. Recreation Complex — the “RecPlex”— was unveiled on Sept. 2. The

any Americans likely first became familiar with Linda McMahon through the exaggerated television persona of a corporate virago that stirred tumult and ill will in the musclebound soap opera storylines of World Wrestling Entertainment broadcasts. Closer to home, and far closer to reality, McMahon is recognized as a vibrant thought leader in Connecticut’s business community through her work as CEO of Women’s Leadership LIVE, a nonprofit encouraging female entrepreneurial endeavors. Now she is in line for a new role that taps into her business experience while potentially giving her a very different public forum than her earlier WWE work: President-elect Donald Trump has picked her to run the U.S. Small Business Administration. The cabinet-level agency operates on an approximately $10 billion budget and approved more than 70,000 government-backed private-sector loans last year. Trump and McMahon are longtime friends, with Trump making raucous appearances on WWE telecasts that included a moment when he shaved the skull of McMahon’s husband Vince, who succeed her as WWE CEO when she stepped down. Apparently there was no real harm done, as the McMahons donated $5 million to the Trump Foundation during the same period. And although McMahon initially backed Chris Christie’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, she switched to Trump and

» Fairfield University, page 6

» Linda McMahon, page 6

Donors rise to the challenge An architect’s rendering of the $31 million school of nursing and health studies under construction at Fairfield University.

FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY NEAR $160M TARGET BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com

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airfield Rising, the largest capital fundraising campaign in Fairfield University’s history, is on schedule to hit its target of $160 million, which will be used to fund both the construction of new facilities and renovations and improvements to several others as part of the school’s new master plan. “We’re at about $137 million now,” said

Wally Halas, vice president for university advancement, “which puts us in a good position to meet, or even exceed, our targeted ending date of June 30, 2017.” That 2017 marks the university’s 75th anniversary is, he added, “a nice part of it.” The campaign began in 2012 with a silent phase, when lead gifts, which typically can represent up to 20 percent of a campaign’s goal, are sought. “That’s when we did our homework and got what commitments we could to know whether we were on a good


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