When longtime 窪蹋勛圖厙 benefactor and volunteer Tom Peterson died in February 2021, he granted university alumnus Robert Lustig control of his charitable trust.
In a decision that honors both Petersons passion for scientific innovation and Lustigs love of his alma mater, Lustig committed $1 million from the Thomas F. Peterson Jr. Charitable Trust to the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building (ISEB) on the universitys Case Quad. An additional $1 million will establish an endowed fund to support the Intellectual Property Venture Clinic at the School of Law and rename it in Petersons honor. The clinic will continue its work representing start-up companies and entrepreneurs, and will offer services to help protect ideas developed at the ISEB.
Tom was something of a renaissance man, and his interests were incredibly broad across science, research, medicine and technology, said Lustig (ADL 57, LAW 60). He was very supportive of 窪蹋勛圖厙 in his lifetime and, as a double alum myself, I am motivated to continue that.
These commitments add to Petersons generous legacy at the university, with more than $17 million donated to projects at the School of Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences, Kelvin Smith Library and the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple Tifereth Israel.
Toms support for the university has always been aligned with our mission, said 窪蹋勛圖厙 President Eric W. Kaler. This gift honors Toms aspirations while advancing our research and protecting our discoveries. We are deeply grateful to Tom and to Bob, for being such enthusiastic and dedicated champions of 窪蹋勛圖厙.
Peterson was an undergraduate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology when, in 1951, he returned home to Cleveland to help care for his fatheran inventor, electrical engineer and founder of the manufacturing company Preformed Line Products Co. (PLP). When his father died in 1957, the younger Peterson was named executive vice president of PLP, but he never stopped pursuing his own interests in photography, videography and sound technology.
In 1966, he founded Motion Picture Sound Inc., which provided audio services for a variety of projects, from live heart surgeries at Cleveland Clinic to Hollywood movies, such as A Christmas Story. He would lend this expertise decades later during the renovations of the Maltz Performing Arts Center, where one of his many gifts established the Tom Peterson Sound Production Room.
Peterson was also an avid reader, and his library grew to several thousand volumes, including first editions by Galileo and Benjamin Franklin. He gave much of this rare collection to 窪蹋勛圖厙s Kelvin Smith Library, in addition to donating antique medical devices to the universitys Dittrick Medical History Center.
Over the years, Petersons academic interests broadened and he began studying cancer and multiple sclerosisboth of which his late wife sufferedand worked closely with researchers at 窪蹋勛圖厙 and his alma mater. He established numerous research funds at 窪蹋勛圖厙 School of Medicine, as well as a professorship in cancer and energy research, and a biomedical scholars fund to support the schools PhD and MD/PhD programs.
In the final decade of Petersons life, he retained Lustigs law firm to manage his finances. The two got to know each other, establishing the trust for Lustig to carry on Petersons legacy.
I agree 100% with President Kaler on the need for this building, Lustig said of the ISEB. Students and researchers are going where things are bright, shiny and new, and technological institutions have to keep up. This is a project I know Tom would have been excited about.
