Devlin Hall

Ground was broken on November 4, 1988, at the Devlin Hall building site, signaling a new era for the Center for Entrepreneurship. Fran Jabara, founder of the Center, was thrilled when Tom Devlin, one of his former students, made a substantial gift to build a center for entrepreneurship. "Our dream is to build a world class center," said Jabara, "and this building is an important part of that plan."

With the cutting of the dedication ribbon on March 30, 1990, Wichita State University became one of the first in the world to dedicate a building solely to entrepreneurship education. "This is not just a building of bricks, mortar and glass but a birthing place of ideas, hopes and dreams," noted Andrew Amend, then president of the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE).

The Devlins

On April 8, 1987, Myra and Tom Devlin, an entrepreneur and former Wichita State student, pledged $5 million to Wichita State, designating $1 million for the construction of a center for entrepreneurship. At the time the Devlins' gift was announced, it was the largest single contribution in the University's history and one of the largest ever made to any Kansas university. According to the Wichita Eagle, "Tom Devlin's story is one of Wichita's success stories; a Cinderella story of the business world, of a small company going national, through a combination of hard work and the ability to attract and keep good employees." The Devlin's took $15,000 from Tom's mother and six other investors and turned it into Rent-A-Center, a national furniture rental chain which he sold in 1987 for $594 million.