Top Tech Rivals Giving Millions to a UCI School
Top executives at two major high-tech rivals in Orange County will announce a shared donation of $5 million to $10 million to boost the quality of UC Irvine’s engineering school, The Times learned Friday.
The gift from Dwight Decker, chairman of Conexant Systems Inc., and Henry Samueli, co-founder of Broadcom Corp., signals recognition that the region’s economic future rests on the availability of highly skilled information technology workers.
The donation, to be announced at a UCI ceremony June 19 with Gov. Gray Davis, is aimed at improving the engineering faculty and increasing graduate-level opportunities for research in high-speed and wireless Internet communications, for which both companies make products.
Decker, who has headed Conexant since it was spun off from Rockwell International Corp. in January 1999, said in an interview last month that having a “world-class university nearby is absolutely critical” to the region’s growth.
And he called for greater cooperation among companies in Orange County to address the region’s needs.
“We need a community of companies that shape our industry in order to make this area a magnet for talent,” he said last month. “I think we’re not a magnet for talent yet.”
Officials from both companies, including Decker, declined to elaborate on the gift or their plans for the new programs that will be developed at the school. But a UCI spokeswoman acknowledged the donation.
“Yes, we’re getting a gift,” said Jill Hamm, communications director for UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering. “We’re making that announcement on the 19th.”
The gift also symbolizes the first effort by the two rivals to cooperate. As neighbors--Conexant in Newport Beach and Broadcom in Irvine--the two corporations have increasingly competed for talent, recognition and prominence in the region.
Their corporate cultures could hardly be more different. Even as a child of the once mighty aerospace industry, Conexant maintains the posture and polish of a longtime survivor. Broadcom, which went public two years ago, has the brass and flash of a young upstart.
Last month, the two became direct rivals when Broadcom said it would enter the crowded fiber optics market, where Conexant is an established player.
“I think it is very good to see them come together for a mutually beneficial cause, which is work-force development for the technology industry,” said Phil Beaudoin, executive director for the American Electronics Assn. of Orange County.
Feeding, and Feeding From, Big Universities
Area technology companies must develop more engineering talent if the local high-tech sector is to reach its potential, said Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman University’s Anderson Center for Economic Research.
So “it makes quite a bit of sense,” he said, for Broadcom and Conexant to work together.
Samueli, for whom the school was named in December, has a history of major gifts to both UCI and UCLA, where he was a faculty member on leave when he founded Broadcom with one of his former students, Henry T. Nicholas III.
In December, Samueli and his wife, Susan, gave $20 million to UCI’s engineering school--a record for the university--and $30 million to UCLA’s engineering school, the second-largest single cash gift to that university. Those donations are being used mainly to offer scholarships to undergraduates, fellowships to graduate students and endowed chairs to faculty members.
Broadcom competes for top graduates at both schools. Over the past five years, the company has lured 80% of the electrical engineering graduates of UCLA’s integrated circuits group. Broadcom’s success has made Samueli a multibillionaire.
Decker and Samueli, both registered Republicans, will lure the Democratic governor to the state’s bastion of conservative Republicanism with a $2,500-a-person fund-raiser on the morning of June 19, said people who have been briefed on the event.
Observers of the local technology and political scenes said it is not surprising that Samueli and Decker are trying to increase their industry’s standing with Davis.
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s Democratic or Republican,” said Chip Parker, president of TechCoast.com in Irvine, a group that seeks to study and encourage the growth of Southern California’s technology economy.
The governor’s education initiatives “are the most important thing in the market right now,” he said. “We have interviewed CEOs up and down the coast, and their No. 1 need is to have an educated work force for future jobs.”
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
