Charitable Trust

Trustees of the Beavers Charitable Trust
Lynn E. Barr, Pendleton Group LLC, Chairman
Ronald M. Fedrick, Nova Group, Inc., Vice Chairman
Sam E. Baker, Jr., Oles Morrison Rinker & Baker LLP
Thomas R. Draeger
John R. Lamberson, Lamberson Consulting LLC
Ralph G. Larison, Herzog Contracting Corp.

Peter O. Shea Jr., J. F. Shea Co., Inc., Ex-Officio
Wilford W. Clyde, Clyde Companies. Ex-Officio

Founded in 1977
The Beavers Charitable Trust is a non-profit organization first established in August 1977 through the foresight of the Board of Directors of the Beavers Inc. The Beavers established the Trust with a donation of $50,000 dollars. The first Trustees of the Beavers Charitable Trust were John P. Stoult, J. L. Feller, Lawrence R. Tollenaere, and James E. Dunn. Since that eventful era, the corpus of the Beavers Charitable Trust has grown, through the efforts of many generous donors, to over $8 million dollars.  In 2010 the Trust will generate $450,000 in scholarship grants.  A pledge form is available at the bottom of this page if you would like to participate either with a one-time gift or multi-year pledge.

Exclusively for the Construction Industry
The Beavers Charitable Trust is home for hundreds of donors who have chosen this tax-favored means of charitable giving. Their gifts have created a permanent endowment that forever enables the Beavers Charitable Trust to make grants and scholarships to schools and universities.

The Beavers Charitable Trust devotes its proceeds for the exclusive purpose of assisting students entering the heavy construction industry. The funds from which the Beavers Charitable Trust distributes grants and scholarships, are derived solely from interest, dividends and equity appreciation earned from contributions made to the trust estate by the members of the Beavers. Those contributions are made either directly from the members or from surplus funds from the activities of the Beavers organization.

Industry's On-going Need for Highly Skilled New People
In today's highly competitive world, the modern construction company cannot afford less than the best and brightest personnel. Often, it is not only a case of staying competitive, but of survival.

Look over your personnel records for the last several years. If you grant an honest appraisal, you will probably find the average age of your employees is getting older every year. Unfortunately that is typical of the construction industry.

There are a lot of reasons for this aging of the industry: Poor business climate, industry down-sizing, unstable, mobile workforce, etc. But a far more insidious reason is that too many young people do not view the heavy construction business as a viable alternative for career development. That spells trouble for the long-term survival of the industry.

From the student's perspective, cutbacks in education funding for construction management and civil engineering programs, have forced departments to reduce the number of classes offered making it more competitive, extending the time to graduate, and of course making it all more expensive. Add to that the strong appeal of other industries, and you begin to see a disturbing trend.

Click the link below for more information:
Listing of schools
Guidelines for Recipients of Scholarships
Pledge Form for Contributions