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New Alumni Center Opens Its Doors At Coast Guard Academy
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/r...4-CCCCDC3D79D6



By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 10/9/2005

New London — U.S. Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association officials hope a new, $4.5 million, 18,000-square-foot Alumni Center will spark new donations by helping develop pride in the academy, and based on the plaques hanging throughout the building, it seems to have succeeded.

The Class of 1967 has funded the Samuel Skrigan Memorial Bar (Skrigan operated a restaurant and lounge that was frequented by cadets in the 1950s and '60s). The Class of '60 donated an eagle sculpture with a six-foot wingspan in a rock garden. A balcony overlooking the river is a gift of the Class of '78.

There are also a number of individual gifts, such as several pieces of handmade furniture, including a large bookcase decorated with eagles, from Harvey Orr, '63, who runs a business in Portsmouth, Va.

And some alumni donated valuable services, such as Tom Mills, '70, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who got language inserted in an appropriations bill that would allow the Coast Guard to sign a 20-year lease for the land under the Alumni Center.

“We also had a couple of alumni who really went out and looked for artifacts and furniture” such as the seven-foot ship's wheel turned into a glass-top table on the second floor, said retired Capt. John C. Maxham, the association's vice president for development.

Ralph and Merry Eustis and Joe and Alice Coburn, Massachusetts residents from the class of '55, were honored as “Distinguished Volunteers of 2005” for their efforts, Maxham said.

The association expects to move into the new building on Oct. 20, but it has already been pressed into service for the Class of '55 50-year reunion dinner on homecoming weekend last month and a couple of other events, Maxham said.

Maxham said the association, which raises about $1.5 million a year for programs at the academy from its offices in Waesche Hall, has never had its own offices where alumni can stop in for a cup of coffee during a campus visit or rent a hall for a wedding or other event at their alma mater.

He said the hope is also that all the space will be used by the academy community as well. For instance, retired Adm. James Loy, the first occupant of the Dr. James Tyler endowed chair in Leadership, will conduct sessions with students in the building, and classes are invited to use the banquet space for special functions.

The association began talking about developing its own building in 1986, but until 2001 did not begin a serious fund-raising effort. Since then, it has raised about $5.2 million for the center — that will leave about $700,000 for an endowment to pay for maintenance of the building.

Designed by Lindsay Liebig Roche in New London and built by Wolman Homes of Waterford, the three-story masonry building blends in well with the existing architecture on campus. It features a banquet hall on the first floor with full kitchen and bar, restrooms and coat rooms, and an entryway where the names of major donors will be displayed.

On the second floor will be office space and room to host visiting alumni, as well as a conference room for board of directors' meetings. In addition, there will be an area where artifacts of academy history, from its establishment in 1876 on the cutter Dobbins, to the present day will be on display.

“Ultimately, if the museum is moved off the campus and over to Fort Trumbull, we want a place here with a collection of academy heritage,” Maxham said.

There is about 4,500 feet of space on the third floor that will be unfinished for now, which will allow for expansion in the future, although the association is searching for a tenant in the near term.

“We're kind of following the example of West Point, which put up an alumni center in the 1990s, and got the alumni very energized,” Maxham said. “West Point's advice to us was to build it as big as we can, because after about 10 years they had outgrown their building.”