1980 – 1997, PRESIDENT HORACE “ED” HARTSELL
From 1980-1997, 3325 Total Donors Gave 8,820 Gifts totaling $3,846,441. The average gift was $436. Among the top eleven donors, gifts totaled $1,466,713. The average gift among the top 12 donors was $8,893 with the two top donors giving six figure gifts totaling $300,000 (D.W. McMillan Trust) and $275,000 (J.H. Baroco Foundation) respectively. Gifts were primarily for scholarships, healthcare, and fund for excellence.
Following a national search, Horace “Ed” Hartsell became Pensacola Junior College’s third president in May 1980. Hartsell had previously served as president of East Arkansas Community College in Forrest City.
Doug Worley, Dean of Personnel Affairs, was selected as director of the Milton Center in 1980 and named provost later that year.
The J.H. Baroco Foundation provided the first six figure donation to support the work at PJC. They had three gifts during the 1980-1997 period that totaled $297,000 and their giving was matched at varying levels by the State of Florida. The Baroco Center for Science and Advanced Technology was dedicated in October 1990. The 125,000-square-foot center was designed to provide the latest in science, mathematics, computer science, and advanced technology programs and house a high-tech planetarium.
The $7 million, 43,000 square-foot Kugelman Center for Telecommunications opened in 1994 to house WSRE-TV, the Distance Learning program and the PJC Foundation. The 43,000 square foot facility is home to the area’s first digital television station. 1994
In 1996, the D.W. McMillan Trust pledged $300,000 that was matched to support health sciences and the construction of a new facility that would become the PJC Warrington Campus focused on the health sciences.