Story ID: 
Ricci Family Furthers Innovation Development at ERAU
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: Donations will sponsor two new faculty positions at the university
Word Count: 281
Business aviation mogul Kenn Ricci and his wife Pamela have established a pair of endowments at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), with the contributions funding two faculty chairs aimed at fostering innovation.
Ricci, the principal of Directional Aviation Capital—which lists aviation companies such as Flexjet, Sentient Jet, 4Air, Nextant Aviation, Everest Fuel, Sirio, and Tuvoli among its brands—joined the university’s board of trustees last year.
“We want to encourage bold thinking about the growth and advancement of aviation,” said Ricci, who has spent his entire career in the aviation industry and has championed evolving developments such as supersonic and laminar-flow technologies. “In creating these two chairs—the Ricci Family and the Flexjet Chair for Aviation, Aerospace, or Space Innovation—we are supporting the kind of educators who will instill an ethos of problem-solving in their students, which inevitably will lead to innovation.”
The gifts to ERAU will add two faculty positions, and like most endowed chairs in higher education, they will be awarded to industry leaders in their fields and will provide a stipend to the faculty member, as well as funds to conduct research. The goal is to attract top talent and drive student innovation at the university.
“On behalf of the entire Embry-Riddle community, I express our deepest gratitude to Trustee Ricci and Pamela Ricci for their remarkable gift and steadfast support,” said ERAU president P. Barry Butler. “The creation of these endowed chairs marks a transformative moment for our university, enabling us to bolster research and development, support our world-class facility, and further enhance Embry-Riddle’s reputation as a global leader in aviation and aerospace education.”