Lexmark pledges $250,000 for engineering scholarship endowment

Paul J. Curlander

Lexmark International has pledged $250,000 to endow a scholarship fund for CU-Boulder engineering students, and to honor the career of Paul J. Curlander (’74), who retired this spring as Lexmark chairman and CEO.

The scholarship supports students who participate in CU’s Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity (BOLD) center, who are majoring in chemical engineering and who reside in Colorado or surrounding states.

Through the fund, coupled with student employment opportunities, Lexmark intends to grow a partnership between its Boulder research and development facility – which specializes in the development of electrophotographic imaging technology – and the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU-Boulder.

After receiving his CU-Boulder bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Curlander joined IBM as an electrical engineer in 1974. Curlander received a master’s degree in electrical engineering (1977) and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering (1979) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After 17 years in various positions at IBM, he joined Lexmark at its spinoff from IBM in 1991. He became Lexmark’s CEO in 1998 and Chairman of the Board in 1999, retiring in 2011.