USC Gets $10-Million Gift for Engineering School

One of Southern California’s leading contractors, whose “love affair” with USC began as a schoolboy attending football games, is donating $10 million to construct a new building for the School of Engineering.

In recognition of the gift, which will be officially announced today, USC plans to name the four-story building after Ronald N. Tutor, a politically well-connected contractor whose projects include construction of the Los Angeles Metro Rail, repaving the Ventura Freeway and rebuilding the Memorial Coliseum after the Northridge earthquake.

His Sylmar-based construction firm, Tutor-Saliba, also erected a 10-story building on the USC campus--used by the psychology and chemistry departments--as well as a recent addition to Heritage Hall, the school’s shrine to its athletic glory.

“I went to USC football games with my godfather at age 10 or 11, which started the love affair,” said Tutor, 57, of Woodland Hills, who went on to study engineering at USC and graduated from its business school in 1963. Tutor, whose daughters, Tracy and Kristin, now attend the university, has been an athletics booster, engineering school advisor and fund-raiser.

He said the dean of the engineering school, Leonard Silverman, “has been talking to me about this building for six or seven years and . . . ultimately prevailed.”

Silverman, in turn, said the university “greatly appreciated” Tutor’s gift at a time when it is seeking to improve engineering instruction and research.

The gift also comes amid USC’s seven-year campaign to raise $1 billion by 2000. So far, the university has raised more than $800 million.

Tutor said he has handed over $1.5 million and will pay the rest in installments over the next 24 months. “It’s all part of the tax game,” he explained.