Giving Where The Energy Is

        When it comes to supporting Western Washington University, Dave Mann’s philosophy is simple: His money follows the students’ energy.

      “I’m finding where the excitement is and funding that excitement,” he says.

      That would explain why Mann, a 1982 graduate of the Department of Accounting, contributes to so many different programs at Western.

      “It’s more fun to learn what’s happening in the other colleges,” says Mann, a member of the WWU Foundation Board of Directors. “If you know what’s there and see the excitement of the students in what they’re doing, it makes it easier to give.” For example, when Mann and his wife, Ann Thomson Mann, spent some time with students in the Vehicle Research Institute, they were hooked.

      “They were just so darned excited about what they were doing,” Ann Mann says. “They are just wanting to make a difference.”

      Mann graduated from Western and, after earning his master’s degree from the University of Washington, spent a distinguished career in the business sector.

      After his retirement from biotechnology giant Amgen, Mann began to think of ways to give back to Western. “I love the place,” he says. “That’s the part of the equation that people need to remember when they graduate. They’re alumni, and they will be that forever.” Among the first gifts the Manns gave to Western was to Woodring College of Education, where they fund the Mann Challenge Scholarship.

“I just really believe that through trying to make better teachers, we can make a better society,” Dave Mann says. “Support at the university level is support at the secondary school level.”

Mann also gives significant support to his college, the College of Business and Economics. He helped found the CBE Think Tank, which helps students connect with professionals in the greater Seattle area. Dave and Ann also have donated $25,000 to ensure that 524 spring 2008 graduates get a free WWU license plate.

      “The difference between an average public-funded university and an exceptional public-funded university is the ability of the alumni to contribute talent and money,” Dave Mann says. “We want to be part of helping the school be exceptional.”

A Million Dollar Thank You Card

  ---What kind of person gives away a million dollars?

      In the case of Jack Bowman, the answer is simple: someone who cares deeply about his alma mater and wants to see it continue to succeed.

      Bowman and his wife, JoAnn, recently donated $1 million to the Western Washington University Foundation to help establish the University’s Leadership Advantage program. It was the single-largest check ever written to the University by a living donor and was the couple’s tribute to President Karen W. Morse for her 15 years of service to the University.

      “I owe Western so much,” says Bowman (’54). “My education prepared me for life, and I’ve had a good one — so now I want to give something back.”

      Bowman, a Music major, began his career as a music teacher, first in Forks and then in Lynden. But the Fairhaven native said he couldn’t support his family as a music teacher, so he and his young wife, who had just finished her sophomore year at Western, packed up and moved to Long Beach, Calif., where he took a job as a pharmaceutical salesman. It would prove to be a wise decision. Nearly 40 years later, Bowman retired as the head of Johnson & Johnson’s worldwide pharmaceutical and diagnostic divisions.

      “Even as a music major at Western, I was given such a good, well-rounded education grounded in the liberal arts that I knew I had an interest and an aptitude in science, and my professors pushed me in that way,” he says. “They saw I was interested, and so by the time I graduated, I really had done quite a bit of work in science, which turned out to be perfect for the field I was entering.”

      His career spanned the United States and Europe; he worked at postings from Georgia and New Jersey to a year in Switzerland.

      “When it was finally time to retire, we knew we’d be coming home, though,” he says. “This is where our family is.”

      Family indeed — both in Bellingham and at Western. It’s easy to see why Jack feels that he has a strong tie to the University; at last count, 24 members of his immediate family had degrees from WWU.

      “Both of my bothers and I met our wives at Western, too,” Jack says with a smile.

      From his perch high above Hale’s Passage on the mountainous spine of Lummi Island, Jack looks down at the adjoining lot and shouts some good-natured banter to one of his brothers. The house of another brother is visible just down the hill, and Jack waves his arms, pointing north and south, “I’ve got a son down there, two nieces over there, a grandson down there …” This part of the island seems to be inhabited solely by Bowmans.

      “We were away for 40 years, but we’re back for good now,” he says.

      Part of settling into their retirement has been becoming more involved with Western.

      “We established the Bowman Family Trust with the Foundation a few years ago and had been putting fairly sizable gifts into that,” says Jack. “And we were always really happy with the way our donations were used. For example, when we found out that WWU didn’t have a pep band for sporting events, we made sure our donations went to getting those instruments. I was in the pep band at Western, and loved it. I wanted to make sure today’s students had that same opportunity.”

      But the donation made by the Bowmans to the Leadership Advantage program was a step up, although one they had been planning on.

      “We knew when the time came to do something more meaningful, we would do that. And writing this check as a way of thanking Karen (Morse) for everything she’s done for the University and its students seemed like the right thing at the right time. Karen said Leadership Advantage was the program she wanted the funds to go to, and that sounded perfect to us,” he says. “We have no shortage of bright students at Western, but this program will help generate a new generation of students who won’t just be ready to follow, they’ll be ready to lead.”

      A stand crowded with banjos and ukuleles sits next a grand piano in the Bowmans’ living room, another link to Bowman’s past at Western.

      “I don’t play as much as I used to,” he says. “But like everything else I learned in college, Western did a good job of teaching me music, too.”