Men’s Crew Alumni, Parents, & Friends Rise to Challenge; $40,000 Target Met at Year’s End

By Gene Kininmonth

In November our men’s crew was gifted with a wonderful opportunity by two of our already generous donors, Andy Westhem ‘55 of San Diego and Jack Schumacher ‘54 of Brentwood, CA. As many of you may already know from reading past editions of The Trojan Navy, Andy Westhem donated the necessary funds to allow the program to purchase an eight-man shell over the summer. Jack Schumacher, as chairman of our Crew Steering Committee, has supported the men’s crew with hours of his personal time as well as financially over the years.

More recently, these two members of the ‘Crew of 1954’ presented our alumni, friends and parents of the men’s crew with a $20,000 Challenge Grant. These two former crewmates challenged our supporters to make donations to the crew before the end of the year and they pledged to match every gift up to $20,000 with a donation of their own.

The Challenge was met and our rowing program netted $40,000 in this year-end fundraising campaign.

Annual giving is an important part of the future success of any program. We have made impressive progress in this regard recently and I hope we can maintain the momentum of the program both on and off the water as we continue to build toward our goal of becoming a nationally ranked Top 10 collegiate rowing program.