Largest donation in Western Tech history, as $10 million project is announced

The largest single gift in the history of Western Technical College was announced Tuesday with the family behind Ashley Furniture joining the La Crosse school in developing a Center of Innovation.

Donors Ron and Joyce Wanek joined with officials from Western on Tuesday to announce the roughly $10 million project — about $7 million from the Wankes themselves.

Western president Roger Stanford hopes that the Innovation facility will be beneficial to students, and to employers looking for well-trained workers.

“They’re looking for labor, they’re looking for places people can live, but they always tour the education facilities, and they want to know that you’re training the force that they need, and we believe we will be cutting edge in that workplace,” said Stanford at a ceremony outside an existing business building on the Western campus. That facility will be overhauled, and is expected to reopen as the Wanek Center in June of next year.

Ron Wanek says the new Center will be aimed at training workers in high-tech skills.

Some of what students will learn can be combined into a concept Wanek calls “mechatronics.”

“Today you have mechanics, and you have people that know electronics,” he said. “Mechatronics is where they know them both. The equipment is very sophisticated today, and when you go look at a piece of equipment, you can’t just look at the electronics or the mechanical. You’ve got to know it all.”

While the majority of the $10 million investment is being donated by the Waneks, Western Tech will supply the rest.

The Center of Innovation will replace the existing Business Education building at WTC.