$30 million: Record private gift to CSU

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State University’s College of Natural Resources received the single largest private donation in university history, President Larry Penley announced today.
Edward Warner, a distinguished alumnus of the College of Natural Resources, will donate a total of $30 million — including a new donation of $26 million and past gifts of more than $4 million.
In honor of the donation, the college will be named the Warner College of Natural Resources, becoming the first named college at CSU.
The donation will be used to create a conservation institute based in the Warner College that will offer science-based education and research through private and public partnerships. The donation will also be used to hire a scholar to fill an endowed chair and serve as the director for the conservation institute.
Additionally, an endowment will be created in geosciences to fund technical and faculty support.
“Ed Warner’s very generous support is an investment in the future of Colorado State that will elevate the Warner College of Natural Resources’ national stature in innovative and ground-breaking research, teaching and outreach activities,” Penley said in a statement.
Prior to this unprecedented donation, Warner created two endowed chairs in the geosciences department, funded graduate teaching assistantships and research assistantships and helped to fund a spatial analysis laboratory.
“I don’t look at it as altruism,” Warner said. “I look upon it as a great investment. I see great value in the College of Natural Resources and Colorado State University as a fantastic research and educational institution.”
Prior to this donation, the largest in CSU history was $20.1 million in 2003 from the Bohemian Foundation. Of that donation, $15.2 million funded enhancements at Hughes Stadium and $4.9 million went to the University Center for the Arts in the College of Liberal Arts.
“This is a phenomenal gift from a phenomenal human being,” natural resources Dean Joyce Berry said of Warner’s donation. “A gift of this magnitude has the power to revolutionize the future of natural resources and environmental education, research and outreach.”
Warner graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geology from CSU in 1968. He went on to earn his master’s degree in geology from UCLA in 1971.
Warner worked at Shell Oil Co. and Amoco Production Co. after graduation. At Amoco, he originated a method for recovering coal bed methane.
He founded his own firm, Expedition Oil Co., in Denver in 1982. In 1992 he began developing a small gas field in cooperation with McMurry Oil Co. of Casper, Wyo. The field, now known at the Jonah Field turned out to be about 10 times larger than Warner originally thought. The gas holdings of the field could be worth more than $60 billion in its lifetime.

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