UA alum pledges $7.8 million gift

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

A California man has pledged a gift of $7.8 million upon death to benefit the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s College of Engineering, the university announced Monday.

Robert H. Biggadike, who earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from UA in 1958, went on to a lengthy career in the aerospace industry, working as a control-systems engineer for companies including General Dynamics Corp. and Boeing Co.

Now in his late 70s, according to the university, Biggadike asked for the estate gift to establish an endowment for teaching in his name.

Biggadike is a native of Newport and lives in West Covina, Calif.

It’s not his first gift to UA; in 1983, he established a scholarship endowment in the memory of his father to support juniors and seniors studying mechanical engineering.

Arkansas, Pages 16 on 04/01/2014