Thanks to strong connections with the Baltimore business community, UMBC has exceeded its first-ever capital campaign goal and ended the five-year Campaign for UMBC by raising more than $66 million—including an $18 million endowment, up from less than $3 million.

With a small and relatively young alumni base and little tradition of giving, UMBC set the bar high when it embarked on a $50 million quest. But President Freeman Hrabowski started the momentum, recruiting “a host of movers and shakers” to the President’s Board of Visitors, thus expanding UMBC’s circle of supporters.

Among those who shared the vision of UMBC’s future were Earl Linehan, president of Woodbrook Capital, Inc., and George Sherman, then the president and CEO of Danaher Corporation and now chairman of the board of directors of the Campbell Soup Company. Neither had any existing connections to UMBC but became co-chairs of the campaign.

“I am not an alumnus, but I knew that UMBC was on a path to becoming a great institution, and I wanted to be a part of its drive for success by helping it to secure endowment funds for scholarships, fellowships, and costly technology, which are vital to the success of students today and tomorrow,” Linehan says.

Linehan and his wife, Darielle, were among the campaign’s leaders, giving $1 million to support the Earl and Darielle Linehan Artist Scholars Program, merit scholarships for talented undergraduates majoring in visual and performing arts with a strong record of academic achievement.

George and Betsy Sherman’s campaign gift established a $500,000 endowment for high-achieving engineering and computer science students who demonstrate a commitment to the advancement of minorities in these fields. Their most recent gift to the University, made after the campaign ended, is a $1 million commitment that will create the Sherman Family Teacher Scholars Program to attract outstanding students to the profession.