By Robyn Murray
Don Chamberlain was never the best student.
“By the time I got out of high school,” he said, “I was so fed up with school.”
A Burnett Society member, Don grew up near Chadron, Nebraska, where his family ran a dairy farm. He attended Chadron Prep, the school associated with Chadron State College, and Chadron High School. Though he had little interest in attending college, his mother insisted he enroll in Chadron State.
“That year was a disaster,” Don said. “I dropped out to work as a mechanic, but after a couple of years of that, I realized that laying under a car with snow dripping in my face might not be the best career choice. So, I returned to Chadron State to repair my record.”
With an improved academic record and a recommendation from a University of Nebraska regent, Don ended up studying mechanical engineering at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
“That was what got me where I am today,” Don said, adding modestly: “Not that that’s the top of the world or anything, but it clearly helped.”
Don graduated from UNL in 1969 and went on to a varied career as a plant engineer at a gypsum plant and as a manufacturing engineer at Amdahl Corporation, an early competitor of IBM that later became a subsidiary of Fujitsu. Don later built his own company selling aquatic products online.
Last August, Don was invited back to campus to visit Kiewit Hall, the new home of the College of Engineering that opened in January 2024 and has become a landmark of innovation on campus.
“I was flabbergasted because of all of the hands-on type of learning that they’re now advocating; that made me very happy,” he said. “Those are the sorts of classes which unfortunately weren’t often available in my college career that I really enjoyed, like the computer programming course that developed my interest in the computer industry.”
Don decided to make a planned gift to support future engineers at UNL, hoping they might remember him as a supporter of their engineering ambitions.
“I’m really impressed with what I saw at Kiewit Hall and the whole direction of the engineering college,” Don said. “I just hope they carry on the good work.”
Fun fact: Don Chamberlain is one of the founders of the Zoo Bar in Lincoln. He purchased the bar with two friends in 1971. The Zoo Bar became one of Nebraska’s most popular blues venues.
“I was flabbergasted because of all of the hands-on type of learning that they’re now advocating; that made me very happy.”
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