Jeffrey D. Clark, an alumnus of Utah State University and his wife, Bonnie, made a gift of $6 million to set up the Jeffrey D. Clark Center for Entrepreneurship in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at USU.

The endowment will be allocated to programs encouraging entrepreneurial success as well as will be used to fund headquarters offices in soon-to-be-built Huntsman Hall. The university officials said that the school will have to collect an additional $4 million to complete funding for the center.

"This gift from Jeff and Bonnie and their active involvement with our entrepreneurship programs will move us ahead significantly," Dean Douglas D. Anderson told Miami Herald. "Now we can provide ever-more concrete, effective assistance to budding entrepreneurs who have great ideas they want to develop."

Clark lauded the leadership at both the university and the business school.

"I feel like if in our entrepreneurship center we can help teach leadership and the value of making a difference in the lives of others, that we will have a magic formula, a secret sauce, if you will," Clark said in the official statement.

Clark, a 1982 graduate of Utah State with a degree in accounting, co-founded Genesee Partners in 1985. It was one of the first 'fund of hedge funds' in the United States. He later went on to establish his own firm, Praesideo Asset Management, in 1991.

"One thing I can tell you about my friend Jeff Clark is that he is a man of his word," Anderson said in an official statement. "He cares deeply about making a difference in the world. He cares deeply about his alma mater at Utah State University and he cares deeply about our students. Jeff and Bonnie share a vision with us of what our students are capable of accomplishing. Today they are making an extraordinary financial investment in that vision but it is important to say that not only are we grateful for the financial means the Clarks are donating but also for the name that comes with it."

Topics Entrepreneur, Business, Alumnus