Bill Lemman in 2006.Chart a course for growth
W.T. “Bill” Lemman’s ties to PSU trace back to the school’s very origins when he was a student at the Vanport Extension Center (VEC). After obtaining a degree from the University of Oregon in Business Administration, he returned to Vanport as its assistant business manager in 1950. Over the next six years, Lemman saw VEC move into the former Lincoln High School on the South Park Blocks and earn status as the four-year-degree granting institution, Portland State College (PSC).
Lemman worked at Oregon State University for a few years and returned to PSC in 1959, eventually becoming vice president for business and finance for the growing institution.
“The college struggled to find space. We were buying these old houses as we could, around campus,” Lemman remembered. “We weren’t thinking ‘university’ at that point, we’d just become a college.”
Pivotal Developments
PSC had a long-range campus plan designed that radiated through the South Park Blocks. At that time, however, federal designation permitted an urban renewal agency to acquire and clear dilapidated properties and have them converted to commercial or residential uses only.
Lemman and his colleagues made presentations at the local and federal levels to permit the sale of urban renewal land from dilapidated properties to colleges, universities and hospitals. In addition, he was instrumental in attaining the needed $5 million match, which the college did not have, from the state’s Ways and Means Committee. In the end, the project concept was approved for nearly 30 acres, and that original scope remains Portland State University’s campus boundaries today.
“Everything that grew from that, piece by piece and time over time,” Lemman said. “Others could have done it, but I happened to be the one who was here. I was lucky.”
Loyal Viking
Lemman’s illustrious career in higher education included being vice chancellor of the Oregon University System for over 15 years, including acting as interim chancellor from 1987 to 1988 and interim president of Oregon Institute of Technology from 1990 to 1991. Even though he was away for 15 years, he remained a loyal Viking at heart.
“I was part of the beginning of it, and it’s like family,” he said.
Lemman is proud to have witnessed PSU’s evolution into the city’s University District – an integral part of what makes downtown Portland vibrant.
In recognition of his dedication and contributions, PSU granted Lemman an honorary doctor of humane letters in 2004.