Cal State San Bernardino’s School of Entrepreneurship has a new name and will bear the name of Inland Empire real estate developer Randall W. Lewis.
The university’s Board of Trustees approved changing the name of the CSUSB School of Entrepreneurship and Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship to the Randall W. Lewis School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Randall W. Lewis Center for Entrepreneurship at its May 21 meeting. The school and center are part of CSUSB’s Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration.
Lewis, the executive vice president of marketing for the Lewis Group of Companies, gave the school of entrepreneurship and the center $6 million. The funds — in the form of an endowed gift and irrevocable gift from his estate — will be used to expand the work of the school and center, both at the university and regionally, according to a news release issued by the university on Friday, May 23. The Lewis Center operates three resource centers in Palm Desert, San Bernardino and Temecula.
“Through his nearly 50-year career in the real estate industry as well as through his extensive community leadership and service, Randall Lewis has become a well-known and widely respected business leader and philanthropist,” CSUSB President Tomás D. Morales said, according to the university’s news release. “His ongoing support of the students and programs at CSUSB is literally transforming lives. And now, through this gift, our student-entrepreneurs will have both an inspiration for their own achievements along with the security of knowing their study will be sustained well into the future.”
Lewis now has a string of university centers named after him across the Inland Empire.
In 2020, Claremont McKenna College’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship was renamed in his honor. Lewis is a 1973 graduate of Claremont McKenna and donated $3.75 million to the college in connection with the renaming.
And in 2021, the University of La Verne established the Randall Lewis Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Social Impact in connection with a $2 million donation by Lewis.
“I’ve always believed that the best investments we can make are in people and ideas,” Lewis said in the CSUSB news release. “Supporting the School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Cal State San Bernardino is an opportunity to help empower the next generation of creative thinkers and doers — individuals who will shape the future of our region and beyond. I’m honored to be part of a university that is committed to access, equity, and the entrepreneurial spirit.”
The Upland-based Lewis Group, which was started by his parents in 1955, is a privately held real estate development company focusing on mixed-use planned communities and residential housing in California and Nevada. It also builds and operates rental properties, commercial and industrial properties.
Lewis was previously given an honorary doctorate of human letters from CSUSB in 2021.
