Aviation School Receives Single-Largest Gift in History

• The $25 million pledge will be used to create a new center for aviation technology at Embry Riddle’s Research Park
• Embry-Riddle’s Research Park has directly created more than 120 jobs with an average salary of more than $78,000

Philanthropists Cici and Hyatt Brown have pledged $25 million to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – matching $25 million in support approved by Florida legislators and pending approval by Governor Ron DeSantis – to help the university create a new business makerspace focused on high-paying jobs for Floridians.

The pledge from Cici and Hyatt Brown represents the single largest gift in the history of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which was established in 1926. The pledge will be used to build the new Cici and Hyatt Brown Center for Aerospace Technology, which will build upon Embry-Riddle’s five-year-old Research Park by promoting even more innovation, creating high-quality jobs, and bolstering Florida’s advanced technology workforce.

Encompassing a total of 105,000 square feet, the Center for Aerospace Technology will include a 65,000-square-foot building and 40,000 square feet of research-quality hangar space. The building will include makerspace as well as room for entrepreneurial activity. Plans for the new center are now under development. The university expects to break ground in summer 2022. Additional timeline details will be released as information becomes available.

“The creative ecosystem of Embry-Riddle’s Research Park stimulates transformative ideas, which drive economic progress and generate lucrative career opportunities,” said the university’s Board of Trustees Chairman Mori Hosseini. “The new center, made possible by Cici and Hyatt Brown and the State of Florida, will take Embry-Riddle’s already successful economic development efforts to a whole new level.”

In 2021, Embry-Riddle’s Research Park generated $137 million in total economic impact in Florida – up nearly 50% compared with 2019 — an independent economic assessment concluded. Through its mission of education, Embry-Riddle is also building Florida’s workforce capacity in critical sectors, including aviation, aerospace, and STEM-related fields. Since the 2017 opening of the Research Park’s cornerstone facility, the “MicaPlex” (John Mica Engineering and Aerospace Innovation Complex), Embry-Riddle’s Research Park has directly created more than 120 jobs with an average salary of more than $78,000, thanks to some two-dozen affiliated companies. Since those jobs, in turn, support additional business enterprise, Embry-Riddle’s Research Park actually supports a total of 700 jobs, both directly and indirectly.