Philip Bills Infrastructure Fund Established to Recognize Longtime Donor

Philip Bills holding a certificate surrounded by Patti Grimes, Nancy Shevock, and President Mark Brainard

More than 20 years ago, Philip Bills established the Bills Family Scholarship Endowment at Delaware Tech to offer financial assistance to students who were orphaned or who came from a single-parent home.

Since then, Bills has supported a number of other projects to improve student-focused areas at the College's Owens Campus, as well as underserved youth through summer camp programs. In recognition of his longtime support and generosity, the Board of Trustees this month established the Philip Bills Infrastructure Fund within the College's Educational Foundation to recognize his two decades of support for Delaware Tech and its students.

"We greatly appreciate Mr. Bills' philanthropy, as well as his concern for our students who have experienced difficult circumstances in their lives," said Delaware Tech President Mark T. Brainard. "His generous donations have helped us to achieve our College mission of keeping students at the center of everything we do."

Bills was only 10 years old when his father died at the age of 47, and his mother then worked various jobs to keep her family together and send Bills and his sister to college, even though she did not have a college degree herself. In addition to the scholarship endowment he established at Delaware Tech, Bills also established scholarships at New Mexico State University (his alma mater) and Cornell University (his father's alma mater) as a way to say thank you to his parents for being exemplary role models in his life.

"I wanted to establish this scholarship at the local community college so that I could meet the student recipients and to participate in college activities," said Bills, who retired to Rehoboth Beach in the late '90s. "I see this scholarship as a way to extend my mother's life through the lives of the students at Delaware Tech who are touched by it."

Years later, at a time when Delaware Tech was actively advocating for increased capital funding from the state to address more than $100 million in deferred maintenance projects, Bills decided to designate his gifts in ways that helped to improve areas at the Owens Campus. Capital improvement projects funded through his generosity include:

Landscaping of the Child Development Center
Renovation of the Student Services Center patio
Renovations to the Carter Partnership Center lecture hall
Installation of a generator to provide auxiliary power for the Carter Partnership Center
Renovation of the Communications classroom
Installation of new bleachers and a press box for the baseball field
Renovation of the Arts & Science Center outdoor courtyard

The Philip Bills Infrastructure Fund will be promoted by the College to raise additional private-donor support for important deferred maintenance projects at all campuses.

PHOTO:
Pictured from left to right: Patti Grimes, Board of Trustees vice chair; Philip Bills; Nancy Shevock, Board of Trustees chair; President Mark T. Brainard