It was announced this week that Generac Power Systems, Inc. founder Robert Kern and his wife Patricia have personally gifted $15 million to Marquette University’s College of Engineering.

The gift will help to implement an ambitious threefold plan that the College of Engineering has established to reinvent its entire program.

“In our College of Engineering, four years ago, we started to put together a plan that’s targeted to transform our students, transform our curriculum and our faculty, and finally transform our facilities … all targeted to produce a better engineering graduate for the 21st century,” said Stan Jaskolski, Opus Dean of Engineering at Marquette.

Jaskolski said details of this threefold plan were shared with the Kerns over the past six months. The couple responded positively to the ideas, offering the $15 million to support the third part of the transformation: the Discovery Learning Complex.

“They thought that what we were doing was quite innovative and almost revolutionary,” Jaskolski said.

The Kerns are no strangers to philanthropy. In addition to having previously donated to the College of Engineering, they have been critical in boosting the efforts of Project Lead the Way, a program that promotes engineering interest in middle and high school students.

Generac, the company founded by Robert Kern, is one of the major manufacturers of power engineering equipment in the country.

“They are just super engineers who are concerned with the engineering field in terms of getting young people interested and motivated in engineering,” Jaskolski said.

Engineering faculty, graduates and undergraduates alike will work and learn in the new Discovery Learning Complex. The facility will be glass-enclosed so that those passing by can witness what Jaskolski calls “engineering in action.” Within the building, laboratories will also be glass-enclosed, and spaces for multidisciplinary faculty will be located around special design centers.

The projected total cost for the facility is around $100 million, according to a release from the university, and will be built between 16th and 17th Streets on the south side of Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Milwaukee.

“There are many, many unique features of the building that we are designing into it to enhance what we call ‘discovery learning,’ learning based upon a passion the students have for knowing what’s going on, how it goes on and what’s the theory behind it,” Jaskolski said.

Engineering students themselves have been actively involved in the planning process of the Discovery Learning Complex. In a daylong conference held more than a year ago, graduate and undergraduate students came up with seven guidelines that will be integrated into the new facility, including concepts of student ownership and multidisciplinary learning.

The College of Engineering hopes to break ground for the Discovery Learning Complex sometime in the next academic year to coincide with its 100th anniversary celebration. Once completed, the facility will house the entire College of Engineering, which is currently spread over four buildings on the Marquette campus.

Jakolski said that the visionary project has resonated well with alumni and industrial friends of the university, and about two-thirds of the money needed has thus far been raised.

“Gracious gifts such as that from the Kern family just move us that much closer to making this happen,” he said.