Lydig construction announced a $250,000 donation to the Central Washington University foundation on Monday, March 19. Lydig Construction, a general contractor and construction management company headquartered in Spokane, has constructed many of the buildings that make up the Ellensburg campus.

A few of these buildings include: Black Hall, McIntyre Music Building, SURC and Science II. Lydig also is currently contributing to the Samuelson STEM Center project.

The donation is split into two parts with $50,000 going towards the Lydig Endowment, which supports students in CWU’s Construction Management and Safety and Health Management programs. The program graduates an average of 32 students each year and according to CEO of Lydig Construction Larry Schwartz, in the past some students have accepted work for Lydig after graduating.

“[CWU] is proud of our long partnership with Lydig Construction,” Sathyanarayanan (Sathy) Rajendran, safety and health management program coordinator and chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering Technology, said in a press release.

“The company’s expertise is beneficial to construction management students as they prepare for jobs in the industry,” Rajendran said. “I want to thank Lydig for their generosity, which will help us continue to provide high quality and industry-ready construction management graduates.”

The remaining $200,000 will be for naming rights to the planetarium in the Science II building, which serves as a classroom and multimedia presentation space. The new title will be The Lydig Construction Planetarium.

This $200,000 is recognized as a donation to the College of Sciences.

“This landmark naming gift is proof of the company’s commitment to Washington and will allow [CWU] to further our mission to prepare students to lead enlightened, responsible, and productive lives,” said Tim Englund, dean of the College of Sciences, in a press release.

The College of Sciences will receive the $200,000 donation in $20,000 increments over a 10 year period. Englund said that this donation as a whole will go towards matching funds for other donations for the college.

“It’ll be as we go, but I can expect that’ll be the entire gift,” Englund said. “I don’t think we’ll have a problem matching other funds with these funds.”