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Engineering Facilities and Laboratories

The David L. Hirschfeld Department of Engineering received a $4.5 million gift from an anonymous donor in 2014, which supported the construction of the Hunter Strain Engineering Laboratory facility. The state-of-the-art facility had its first lab classes in the Fall 2017 semester.

The building is named after San Angelo citizen, Hunter “Bud” Strain, a close friend to the anonymous donor. Bud Strain graduated as a civil engineer in 1949 from Rice University and worked with his father and brothers at their family-owned Strain Bros., a highway construction firm. Bud joined the Army Engineers in 1953 serving during the Korean War until 1955 before returning to the family business. Bud earned high respect throughout the industry for his knowledge in road construction, and he was elected the vice president of the Texas Highway-Heavy Branch of AGC in 1966.

The lab building itself occupies over 8,000 square feet and houses a hydraulics lab, geotechnical lab, construction materials lab, engineering mechanics lab, and student team projects lab. Laboratory equipment for these individual labs is funded from the generous donation, the Texas Tech University System, and the US Department of Education.

The Hunter Strain Engineering Laboratory greatly enhances Angelo State University’s offering of hands-on learning and undergraduate research opportunities to its engineering students, which strongly supports the David L. Hirschfeld Department of Engineering’s vision of emerging as a premiere civil engineering program in Texas.