Angela and Brad Zenger were awarded the 2022 Light the Future Award by Portland State University's College of Education.
The 2022 Light the Future Award from Portland State University’s College of Education honors Angela and Brad Zenger this year, for their generous support of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education. Dr. Amanda Sugimoto, Interim Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, shared the news during the school's annual State of the College address on campus.
“This year’s Light the Future Award honors Angela and Brad Zenger, for their generous support of the College of Education to advance equity and inclusion in Oregon STEM teacher training. Their gift helps directly by removing barriers to access for diverse future educators, who will go on to change educational outcomes in our communities,” said Dr. Sugimoto. “We are very grateful for the Zenger’s generosity, knowing how far and how great the impact will be.”
The Zengers are dedicated to helping others by advocating STEM education for underserved communities, and describe their philanthropy as underpinned by a passion to provide opportunities for students to succeed, pursue dreams and aspirations, and by action, creating the future, ideally for the good of the world.
“Access to education has changed our lives. Both Ang and I feel passionate about it,” says Mr. Zenger. He and his wife Angela, who is his creative partner in philanthropy and life, focus on STEM as a way to help others better understand the natural systems of our world and the huge challenges posed to them and by consequence to us as a species.
“Diverse, educated opinions and points of view enable and empower us to solve the world’s problems,” says Mr. Zenger, who is the co-founder and CEO of Pivotal Tools, a software company that provides analytics solutions to the Independent Grocer market. He is also on the Board of Directors of Lumen Learning, a company he was introduced to through the Oregon Venture Fund, which invests in Oregon companies.
As a student at Hillsboro High School, he was in the physics class of Dave Vernier, founder of Vernier Software, who became a major philanthropist for science education (including the Vernier Science Center at PSU). Growing up in Oregon, Brad Zenger credits his success from modest beginnings to devoted teachers who inspired him, parents who believed in him, and access to education. While attending Notre Dame to study engineering, he paid his own way through school by later serving in the U.S. Navy on a nuclear submarine. Later, he worked in Silicon Valley, returned to Oregon to co-found Pixelworks, and also lived in Japan.
“It’s curiosity that really is like a superpower. And that is what I found at the College of Education. I see the dedication of passionate faculty and the student teachers, and this represents the power to change the world. The world needs more people like that!”
The Zengers now divide their time between the countryside in the south of France and Portland.
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