Kings Contribute $1 Million To New Smeal Building

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- Penn State alumnus Jeffery L. King (B.S. 1967) and his wife Cynthia have made a $1 million gift toward the construction of the new Smeal College of Business building on the University Park campus. The "Jeffery L. and Cynthia King Marketing Suite" will be named in their honor. Groundbreaking for the building is scheduled for September 2003.

The new facility, which will be located at the corner of Park Avenue and Shortlidge Road, will be 210,000 square-feet, the largest academic building on campus. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the project will cost $68 million, with Penn State committing $39 million in general funds, and $29 million to be raised from private support. Penn State’s Board of Trustees officially approved the project in March.

“Jeff and Cindy continue to be very generous benefactors to Penn State,” said President Graham B. Spanier. “Contributions like theirs helped to make our recent Grand Destiny Campaign such a resounding success.”

Added Judy Olian, Dean of the Smeal College, “With their gift, Jeff and Cindy are helping to build a state-of-the-art business facility in which learning and research about business will thrive. Their particular interest is in teaching and advancing marketing, and we will be privileged to name the new marketing suite in their honor.”

Jeffery King is Co-Founder of National Properties, Inc., a real-estate investment, property management, and development business based in the Great Valley Corporate Park area of Malvern, Pa. The Kings have made other philanthropic contributions to the Smeal College in the past, first with the Jeff and Cindy King MBA Fellowship in 1990, and then with the Jeffery L. and Cindy M. King Faculty Fellowship in 2000. The Kings were inducted into the Mount Nittany Society in the spring of 2001.

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