Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), an early donor to the Northwestern University Transportation Center's "Building for the Future" campaign, is joining other supporters in celebrating the dedication this month of the center's new 20,000-square-foot headquarters building.
A conference room in the building will be named in honor of NOL, which gave $100,000 to the center's campaign. Approximately $75,000 went toward the building, while $25,000 was designated for research fellowships at the center.
For several years, Singapore-based NOL has sent its staff members to executive seminars and courses at the center. NOL is currently a member of the center's Business Advisory Committee, and has contributed to the center's operating budget since 1992.
NOL's relationship with Northwestern, in fact, reflects the company's value for higher education around the world. In the past decade, NOL has also sent promising staff members to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Stanford University and institutions in the U.K., France and Singapore. NOL has additionally underwritten advanced transportation-and-logistics research at MIT, and has sponsored undergraduate scholarship programs at universities in Singapore, China, India and the Philippines.
The new headquarters is centrally located on Northwestern's lakeside campus, near the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the University Library, which includes a premier collection of transportation- and logistics-related materials in its Transportation Library. The headquarters building has been named Chambers Hall, in honor of the late Jerry Chambers, a former member of the center's Business Advisory Committee and the founder and president of Clipper Exxpress.
"This building will inspire a heightened spirit of innovation in transportation-and-logistics research and education at Northwestern, as well as a renewed commitment to excellence and service to the industry and the public," said center director Aaron Gellman.