Dana Point Ocean Institute Receives $9.5-Million Gift

A perennially underfunded marine institute for children in Dana Point received a huge financial lift Wednesday that will help transform it into a research campus serving 135,000 students a year from across Southern California.

The benefactors of the Ocean Institute are Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli and an anonymous donor, who together put up $9.5 million to help reshape the marine science facility. Susan Samueli said she and her husband decided to donate their share for the most basic of reasons: their children.

“This is a very hands-on environment,” Susan Samueli said. “I know, because my kids have enjoyed it.”

The gift provides a money jolt for those planning a $16.6-million education center at the marine institute, where small allocations from city government and occasional state grants are the norm.

Bill Habermehl, board chairman of the private, nonprofit institute, said the gift should allow a 32,000-square-foot facility to be completed by January 2002.

The gift pushed the institute’s fund-raising account to $11 million or about two-thirds of the $16.5 million needed for the renovation, he said.

More than 78,000 students from California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada took part in the institute’s programs last year at Dana Point Harbor, attending marine life lab studies, taking trips aboard the institute’s research vessels and spending a night on the tall ship Pilgrim.

The new center will draw visitors to the site but also allow the institute to “link thousands of others with computers so they can take virtual tours and enjoy the living ocean environment,” Habermehl said.

The Samueli Foundation gave $5.5 million to the institute, and a family that asked to remain anonymous put up another $4 million, Habermehl said.

Benefactors of Education

This is the latest gift to benefit education given by the Samueli Foundation. The donation comes just a week after Samueli and his Broadcom partner Henry T. Nicholas III were ranked at the top of the list of the county’s wealthiest residents.

On the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America, Nicholas and Samueli were ranked 18th, each reportedly worth about $10 billion. The wealth of the Broadcom executives is based on the spectacular stock gains from their Irvine-based communications chip company.

The marine institute now makes do in an 8,000-square-foot facility, and while popular with teachers and students, the organization has long received its donations in modest amounts.

In 1997, it nearly had to cancel its annual tall ship festival when it lost $6,550 in city money. The boat parade, a tradition in Dana Point, was salvaged when Toshiba donated the money at the last moment.

Two years ago, however, the marine center was one of three educational institutions picked by the state to divide $1.25 million in budget surplus money. That provided the financial bedrock for the planned education center.

The marine institute plans to break ground by late November, when the existing facility--its home for 20 years--will be demolished. Tents and portable structures will be erected in the institute’s parking lot during the renovation to continue institute programs, Helling said.

When completed, the new center will be the first marine field station designed for students studying marine science and ocean conservation.

Students will keep logbooks as they raise jellyfish, observe ocean creatures and learn the more technical side of marine science, such as how ocean buoys operate and how to use underwater equipment in a test tank.

The facility will have six buildings to house centers for ecology, research, education, technology and communication.

“We’re even building an intertidal pool within the grounds to simulate tidal action,” said Henry Helling, an institute vice president. “This will help show children and seniors who otherwise can’t walk to the shore safely the marine environment.”

The Pilgrim, a working replica of the 130-foot brig that carried author Richard Henry Dana along the California coast in the early 1800s, will remain a part of the institute’s program.

One of the concerns among the institute’s board is providing scholarships to children in inner-city or low-income school districts. Program costs for students range from $6 to $140 for a two-night science camp.

A goal of the Samueli Foundation is to ensure that more children from low-income families are able to enjoy the center regardless of ability to pay, Susan Samueli said.

Last week, the Samuelis gave $1.5 million to Chapman University to start an undergraduate program combining the studies of computer software and hardware.

In December, the foundation gave $20 million to UC Irvine’s engineering school, which was named for him, and $30 million to UCLA’s engineering school, the second-largest cash gift to the university.

In June, Samueli joined with Dwight Decker, chairman of Conexant Systems Inc., another Orange County high-tech firm, to give $6 million to UCI’s engineering school.

The Samuelis’ philanthropy has extended beyond higher education. He gave $5 million in June to Opera Pacific in Santa Ana.

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Down By the Sea

The Ocean Institute, formerly the Orange County Marine Institute, plans to break ground in late November for a $16.5 million campus at Dana Point Harbor. The 34,000-square-foot, hands-on education center is scheduled to open by January 2002, and serve up to 135,000 students a year.

Source: Ocean Institute

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times