Stanford Dedicates Spilker Engineering and Applied Sciences Building

President Hennessy, Jerry Yang and 200 others toast GPS pioneer and wife for lifetime achievements and gift that will fund a state-of-the-art research environment and two professorships in the School of Engineering.

In the golden sun of a pristine Stanford afternoon, James J. Spilker, Jr. stepped to the podium before the building that bears the names of he and his wife, Anna Marie. It was a capstone moment for two lives that began humbly, one in the working class streets Philadelphia and the other in post-war refugee camps of Germany, but which reached great heights.

“Anna Marie and I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to this university. If it weren't for my education at Stanford, I wouldn't be standing here today,” Spilker said to an audience of some 200 friends, colleagues and university leaders gathered in the courtyard.

They were there to dedicate The James and Anna Marie Spilker Engineering and Applied Sciences Building, the third of four new buildings that comprise the university’s state-of-the-art Science and Engineering Quad (SEQ). Together, the Spilkers have pledged $31 million to Stanford University for the building and to endow two professorships in the School of Engineering.

James and Anna Marie Spilker with Stanford President John Hennessy in front of the James and Anna Marie Spilker Engineering and Applied Sciences Building, May 13, 2013. (Photo: Steve Castillo)

“This building not only fulfills our architectural dream of restoring Frederick Olmsted's incredible original plan for Stanford,” said Stanford President John Hennessy in introducing Spilker, “but it will enable the kind of curiosity-driven science and engineering that will help Stanford maintain its technical leadership.”

“For those of us who participated from the beginning in the planning process, we have been eagerly awaiting the completion of this quad and today we're celebrating this magnificent Spilker Engineering and Applied Sciences Building,” said Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo! and vice chair of the Stanford University Board of Trustees, in his opening remarks. The names of Yang and his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, appear on the first of the SEQ’s four structures.

World-class facilities

The 100,000-square-foot Spilker Building houses the Edward L. Ginzton independent laboratory as well as the offices of the Department of Applied Physics. The shared facilities in the building, including the powerful Titan microscope, feature some of the most advanced nanoscale observation, patterning and characterization equipment available today. The Spilker Building will be among the top technical facilities in the nation, if not the world.

Much of its facilities are installed underground for stringent control of vibration, light and cleanliness necessary for nanoscale research. Applications of that research range from new drugs and novel semiconductors to improved communications networks and water purification systems.

“It is a great building. It's the right size to foster a coherent intellectual community. It's big enough to be the home for a large number of very interesting researchers. But it's also small enough that it really feels like a single connected space,” said Hideo Mabuchi, Chair of the Department of Applied Physics whose office is in the Spilker Building.

Two remarkable lives

James Spilker is a triple-degree alumnus of the Stanford School of Engineering and a consulting professor. He is an expert in satellite communications and was a key figure in the development of the global positioning system. He has founded three companies. The best known was Stanford Telecommunications, which he built from three people to over 1,300 without aid of venture capital. At Stanford he helped found the Center for Position, Navigation and Time with Brad Parkinson, the man widely considered to be the driving force behind the creation of GPS.

Anna Marie Spilker was a successful real estate broker and investor, as well as the founder and president of New Pacific Investments. She received her bachelor’s degree in economics in 1968 at the University of California-Santa Cruz and her MBA from California State University-East Bay in 1977.

“It is fitting that this building bears the Spilker name. Jim embodies the Stanford spirit. He's an innovator and an entrepreneur. He's paired deep technical expertise with a hunger to invent and discover,” Hennessy said.

Looking ahead

In his remarks, Spilker touched not so much on the building itself but the work that will take place with in its walls. He harkened back to his early days in Philadelphia and his wife’s childhood as the daughter of Hungarian refugees living in camps in the days after World War II. The Spilkers’ hardscrabble upbringing instilled in each a profound work ethic as well as a deep appreciation for the value of education.

“For the 21^st Century, Ann Marie and I are concerned about the education of our nation's youth. Most new technology is going to require a much greater depth in science, math, and engineering then ever before. This gift and this building is an effort to ensure that one of America’s great research institutions retains the leadership it has enjoyed for decades," Spilker said.

Taking stock of Stanford’s outstanding facilities and faculty, Spilker said that today’s students have many exciting opportunities before them. “I believe there's a great opportunity for many of those students and faculty to accomplish great things," Spilker said.

Andrew Myers is associate director of communications for the Stanford University School of Engineering.

Last modified Tue, 18 Jun, 2013 at 14:53