BEAUMONT, Texas — Valero is making a big investment in the community after giving Lamar University a $500K check.
At a press conference today Lamar President, Dr. Jaime Taylor, thanked Valero for the donation as well as their 30 year partnership with the university.
Dr. Taylor says that the money will go towards Lamar's Department of Chemical Engineering, specifically the Valero Reaction Engineering Lab.
This lab will include state of the art equipment that resembles a functioning plant, and will help give students the practical skills they need to enter the workforce according to Dr. Taylor.
"One of the labs is gonna be a process control lab, where they are basically controlling a large facility. So when they walk out the door, when they graduate, they are gonna hit the ground running they're already gonna have experience working on that equipment," said Dr. Taylor.
The lab looks to be another big piece to an ever-growing Lamar chemical engineering program who's graduates, according to Dr. Taylor, make more money than students from M.I.T and Stanford.
Valero says that they are proud to award the money to the university.