With President Clough at the wheel and campaign leaders John Staton, Barrett Carson and Pete Silas hanging on, Tech bursts through its $500 million goal and races for a $600 million challenge.

The Campaign for Georgia Tech's new goal means the drive must raise an average $2.5 million a week every week until the campaign ends Dec. 31.

Georgia Tech Foundation trustees, emboldened by recommendations from President Wayne Clough and Campaign chairman Pete Silas, former chairman of Phillips Petroleum, voted to increase the campaign target by $100 million at their December meeting.

"Campaign funds to date have had an enormously positive effect on Georgia Tech, and the new goal will allow us to reach even further toward our high aspirations," Clough said. "It will position the Institute within the blue-chip universities as a serious player. The challenge is considerable, but I am confident we will make it."

Silas said he is grateful to Georgia Tech supporters for shattering earlier goals–and for not being complacent.

"I would hate to see us rest on our laurels at this stage of the campaign," Silas said. "Rather than relax and applaud ourselves for surpassing our $500 million goal–an outstanding achievement to be sure–we're taking on a challenge. Increasing our goal to $600 million further secures Tech's future as one of the top engineering schools in this nation."

Silas said Clough's leadership provides the vision "to challenge all of us to commit to having a successful campaign."

"Georgia Tech is striving for greatness, and greatness seldom comes without defying risks," Silas said. "If you don't reach, you don't make it. I feel confident we're going to get there."

John Staton, president of the Georgia Tech Foundation, said he is sure the campaign will succeed.

"Reaching our new goal is not going to be easy," Staton said. "It's going to take everyone's involvement and support. It will be a challenge, but knowing that no one at Georgia Tech ever avoided a challenge, I know we will be successful."

If campaign support continues as it has during the past four-and-a-half years, the campaign will reach $568 million–$32 million short of its goal, according to Barrett Carson, vice president for Development.

"We're in uncharted territory," Carson said. "We have never maintained a $2.5 million a week average in our history. For the last six months, we'll be working without a net."

But Carson said he is not wringing his hands.

"We are literally placing a very significant wager that Georgia Tech alumni, in the final stage of the campaign, will push this over the top," Carson said. "This is a very significant stretch for an institution of our size. But there is no question in my mind–I lose no sleep over it–that it is going to happen."

Since going public in 1996 with its $400 million goal, the campaign has enjoyed stunning success. Carson said there was such "an outpouring of generosity" that a year ago the campaign increased the goal to $500 million.

The campaign also has benefited from an exceptionally good economy and the strongest stock market ever, Carson observed.

"We're in an extended bull market," he said. "The technology sector is leading much of that charge and Georgia Tech alumni are leading and helping shape that entire industry. Georgia Tech faculty are creating breakthrough technologies. Georgia Tech students are heavily sought by industry recruiters.

"We're at the right place at the right time. We are reaping the benefits of that."

Carson said the state of Georgia has become "a generous supporter, but no state can support an Institution with the aspirations of Georgia Tech." The campaign is leveraging state dollars by raising private money to vault Georgia Tech to world-class stature, he said.

The purpose of the campaign, Carson said, is "to create a better institution of higher learning–to attract and retain eminent teacher–scholars in the classroom and laboratories; to attract and support world-class students locally, regionally, nationally and throughout the world; and to build the finest facilities. Fund-raising is simply a means to that end."

Facing the final year of the Roll Out Campaign, Barrett Carson expressed his pleasure that the campaign has remained true to its purpose through its first two years. "We came upon the concept of Roll Out as a response to a charge by our volunteer leadership to make sure this was a campaign in which all members of the Georgia Tech family felt involved," said Carson, vice president of development for Georgia Tech.

"Many campaigns of the magnitude of ours give short shrift to all but the most wealthy, and that just doesn't sit right by any of us. We wanted to make sure we had a campaign that informed and involved all alumni and friends–regardless of their capability and inclination to participate. This says that everyone is important and everyone is worthy of our best foot forward. It is a shame not to share the vision and progress of Georgia Tech with as many people as we possibly can."

To make sure the campaign message reached as many alumni as possible, campaign organizers used a site-selection process that is "one part science, one part art," Carson said.

"We look to those areas where there are sufficient concentrations of alumni to warrant an event and to support the campaign, or to where the numbers might not quite warrant it, but where there is an active alumni club present," Carson said.

The spring schedule features the added dimension of two international dates–in London and France–that were made possible through interest and a compatibility of travel schedule with this spring's featured Roll Out speaker, Jean-Lou Chameau, dean of the College of Engineering.

Chameau will be speaking at his first Roll Out events, joining President Wayne Clough and Provost Michael Thomas, who have spoken at the majority of past events.

Having the opportunity to hear Tech's vision and direction as presented by these Tech leaders is something that should be available to all Tech alumni, Carson said.

"It would be a shame to focus the campaign on but a few, so what we are trying to do is to take the campaign across the state, the nation and to selected international sites. So when the campaign is over, we can say to ourselves that we have put the campaign within the reach of as many Georgia Tech alumni as was humanly feasible," he said. "Some institutions' campaigns remain totally in stealth mode. They just come and go, and most of the alumni don't even know they've passed through an area."

Although other institutions have pursued similar goals, Carson said many find the concept too expensive and lacking in immediate returns.

"In the heat of a campaign, where progress is measured simply by donors and dollars, a grassroots program often can find itself marginalized. We have instead placed it in the forefront and kept it there," Carson said. "It is an investment in our future that may not be realized in this campaign, but is a vision for the future that plants the seeds for future campaigns."

Carson has been encouraged that the Roll Outs "are every bit as enthusiastic today as they were two years ago."

William Lipscomb–Friends Roll Call chair

William E. Lipscomb Sr. was serious about his loyalty to Georgia Tech. Though he wasn't an alumnus, Lipscomb was a fervent follower of Georgia Tech football and collected a wealth of Georgia Tech memorabilia. In fact, he held legendary coach Bobby Dodd in such esteem that for years he kept an ashtray on his desk emblazoned with the credo "In Dodd We Trust."

This love for Tech was something he instilled in his son, William E. "Bill" Lipscomb Jr., chairman of the Friends Committee for the 53rd Annual Roll Call.

"I had a little joke. I used to say that if you didn't pull for Georgia Tech, you had to move out of my father's house," Lipscomb said with a laugh.

An Atlanta native, Lipscomb grew up going to Tech games with his father, a longtime season-ticket holder. "I went to Georgia State University, but through the years, I always pulled for Tech. I had good friends who went to Tech, and the young lady I married had good friends there as well," Lipscomb said.

Though Lipscomb moved out of Atlanta because of his work, transferring five times and ending up in Williamsburg, Va., he said his affection for Tech has never wavered. "My son, Joseph, lives in Virginia Beach and was born in Virginia, but I brought him up the same way," Lipscomb said.

Now, Lipscomb has a new generation to foster in the Tech tradition with the birth of his grandson, Maxwell Jacob, in October 1999.

"I have already bought him a Tech sweatshirt and a Georgia Tech tree ornament for his first Christmas," Lipscomb said.

It was through his involvement with Tech football that Lipscomb became chairman of the Friends Committee for this year's Roll Call.

"My wife, Joe Ann, and I went to the Gator Bowl in 1998, and we met a lot of people down there who were alumni and who were in the alumni club. We told them how we've always followed Tech and how we do everything we can to support Tech," Lipscomb said. "Well, one of them went back and recommended me as probably one of the best backers Tech had who had not attended the school."

Next came the call asking Lipscomb to chair the Friends Committee.

"I was honored to be asked and to be a part of this," said Lipscomb, who regularly contributes to Roll Call. "Tech is one of the mainstays of Atlanta. The school and the people who have come out of there have done such great things," Lipscomb said. "Tech is like the hometown team. I have been following Tech for over 60 years, and I have always felt very loyal and very much at home with Georgia Tech."

Lipscomb feels that there are many Tech supporters, such as himself, who have gotten so much enjoyment from Tech football and other sports over the years that they want to give something back to the school that has given so much to its community.

"I appreciate the honor of being thought of as a loyal Tech supporter, and I think anyone who feels strongly about Tech, even if they didn't go there, should try to contribute to help Tech remain what it has always been to Atlanta," Lipscomb said.