EECS Graduate Brian McClendon Makes Transformative Gift to KU Engineering
Brian McClendon, a distinguished graduate of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and an adjunct professor for the department, together with his wife Beth Ellyn McClendon, have made a $4 million gift to KU Engineering.
The generous contribution is dedicated to boosting student recruitment and retention, ensuring a strong future for the college and its programs.
McClendon's career exemplifies the innovation the gift aims to foster. In 2001, he co-founded Keyhole, which was later acquired by Google and released as Google Earth. He led Google’s geospatial division for 10 years, through the development of Google Maps, Street View, Google Earth and Google Earth Engine. He then worked at Uber for two years as vice president of mapping, and he is now CTO at Niantic, which is building next-generation mapping technology for robotics and augmented reality glasses.