Where Red Means Go

Scarlet Pride Abounds at the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship Groundbreaking

By Marcia Faye

In the tech community, cycling has trumped golfing as a social pastime conducive to swapping ideas, making deals, and pitching the next Big Thing. Several years ago an “on wheels” conversation on a northern Illinois road between avid cyclists and technophiles Ed Kaplan (ME ’65) and Joel D. Krauss (MATH ’71) became the vision for the first new academic building on the Illinois Tech Mies Campus in 40 years: the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship. Nearly 775 people, many wearing scarlet ties, caps, shirts, dresses, or shoes, attended the Kaplan Institute groundbreaking on August 25 in the Hermann Hall Expo Center. Kaplan, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Tech President Alan W. Cramb, Provost Frances Bronet, architect John Ronan, Student Government Association President Hamze Sukkar (CE 4th year), and other dignitaries spoke about the significance of the Kaplan Institute. After the speeches guests went outside to Morton Park, the future site of the new building, to turn over golden shovels of earth moistened by earlier rains. Construction is expected to begin in March 2017 with an anticipated completion by late 2018.

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Members of the Illinois Institute of Technology Board of Trustees join President Alan W. Cramb under the flags in Hermann Hall.
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Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Former President John L. Anderson [left] with President Cramb
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President Cramb [left] with Ed Kaplan (ME ’65) [in cap], his wife, Carol, and son Marty
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Board Chairman Bud Wendorf (ME ’71) presents a token of appreciation to Ed Kaplan (ME ’65)
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Hamze Sukkar (CE 4th year), SGA president, with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
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Dignitaries and other guests officially broke ground for the Kaplan Institute.
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Kaplan Institute website: web.iit.edu/provost/kaplan-institute/about