After receiving $50 million over the past 25 years from the Foster Foundation, the University of Washington Business School has been renamed the Michael G. Foster School of Business.

The Foster Foundation recently pledged $10 million to the business school building fund in memory of Michael Foster, who died in 2003 and was an entrepreneur who attended the UW school of business. Foster's parents, Albert O. and Evelyn W. Foster who started the foundation with Michael in 1984, also went to the university.

"Their belief [is] in the power of education to transform lives and give students the opportunity to constantly evolving demands of business education, and I am thrilled it will forever bear the name of Michael Foster," said UW President Mark Emmert.

Michael Foster's Seattle-based brokerage firm, Foster & Marshall, became one of the largest regional brokerages in the nation and was bought by Shearson/American Express for $76 million in 1982. He then went on to form Foster, Paulsell & Baker in 1985.

"Mike Foster was a genuine Northwest businessman," said Jill Goodsell, executive director of The Foster Foundation. "He had an uncanny way of enriching the lives within his realm, an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word."

In 1990, the Foster Foundation gave more than $3 million to help build a new business library, the Foster Business Library, which was also named in honor of Albert O. and Evelyn W. Foster.

The business school is UW's fourth largest school with about 2,100 students enrolled. It is also the third school to bear the name of a person, along with the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, after the late Washington Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, after former Gov. Dan Evans.

"This is truly a transformational gift," said Jim Jiambalvo, the business school's dean, "the additional funds mean that we will be able to attract and retain outstanding faculty and offer more scholarships."

As part of the UW's Creating Futures campaign, the business school has raised more than $155 million since it began raising funds in 2000, of this $62 million will be put towards the school's new facilities.

The Creating Futures campaign's goal is to raise $2.5 billion by its June 2008 ending date.

[Reach reporter Shanelle Smith at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]