Dr. Robert J. Piersol valued education — both for himself and others — having grown up in a home where almost everyone had advanced degrees.

Piersol once wrote that he was lucky enough to have a few careers as a design and development engineer, an economics analyst and a professor of management in the Craig School of Business at Fresno State, said Marie Crosson, his niece and executor of his estate.

“Later in his life, he noted at one of his reunions that ultimately his greatest accomplishment was being a teacher,” Crosson said.

Piersol, a Fresno State professor emeritus, left his $1.7 million estate to the Craig School to develop a scholarship program for graduate students. He died in May 2018 but knew almost two decades ago he wanted to leave whatever he had to Fresno State, Crosson said.

He could have easily left the gift to Stanford University, where he earned his Master of Business Administration, or to Harvard University, where he got a doctorate in business administration. But Piersol “wrote that he wanted to make sure his money would support students who might otherwise not be able to attend the University and gain what he thought was a great gift — a formal education,” Crosson said.

“He loved the University. He loved his students. He loved young people,” she said.

Piersol is among the 11,577 people who contributed about $27.6 million to Fresno State during the 2018-19 academic year — $20.7 million for academics and $6.9 million for athletics. That’s a 23% increase in overall giving from the year before.

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