Baltimore-headquartered Whiting-Turner Contracting Company has pledged $300,000 to the city’s Morgan State University (MSU) to help construction management and engineering students stick with their degrees amid the Covid-19 pandemic to secure its pipeline of talented professionals.
Twenty-four graduates from MSU’s School of Architecture and Planning, and School of Engineering, currently work at Whiting-Turner’s 50 offices across the US, and the company doesn’t want financial hardship to derail future employees’ studies.
The commitment entails $100,000 a year over the next three years to the university, which ranks number one in bachelor’s degrees awarded to African Americans in construction management, and second nationally in awarding civil engineering degrees to African Americans.
"It’s not every day that you get a call from one of Maryland’s leading construction executives recognising the top-notch talent your institution produces and offering to help financially to keep that talent in development, but that is exactly what Tim Regan and Whiting-Turner did," said MSU president David K. Wilson.Â
He added: "As a result of this generous commitment from Whiting-Turner, a number of Morgan students will be able to stay in school and continue their education to complete their degrees and become employees in the construction industry."
MSU said the donation is the first contribution of this size to the university.
Baltimore native Tim Regan is Whiting-Turner’s president and chief executive. News that some students were being forced to stop their matriculation because of financial hardship reached him from a Whiting-Turner senior vice president who sits on the advisory board of MSU’s School of Architecture and Planning.
"Nothing could be more important to the future of our company than supporting the pipeline for extraordinary talent that we see from great schools like Morgan," he said. "I know from personal experience that getting support at those crucial and difficult points can be the difference between success and failure, between rising up and falling back."
Whiting-Turner’s nearly $9bn in revenues in 2020 came from projects in higher education, healthcare, science and technology, and government work.
The company has built some of Baltimore’s best-known landmarks including the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens.
Image: Whiting-Turner president Tim Regan, left, with Whiting-Turner project engineer and MSU civil engineering graduate (2019), Imani Williams (Courtesy of the MSU press office)
