PepsiCo Foundation Pledges $1 Million Toward Recreation Center

The gift is being made in recognition of the volunteer leadership of Hopkins alumnus Allan Huston, chief executive officer of the PepsiCo Restaurant Services Group.

"We are most grateful to Allan Huston and the PepsiCo Foundation for recognizing the need to improve recreational opportunities for our students, whose numbers and diversity are increasing each year," said William R. Brody, president of the university.

Huston, a 1966 engineering graduate, serves on the National Advisory Council for Hopkins' Whiting School of Engineering and on that school's campaign committee. He is a member of the President's Club, the university's top leadership gift club, and of the university's national alumni council. As an undergraduate at Hopkins, he played both lacrosse and basketball.

The student recreation center will include a fully equipped exercise and weight area, an aerobics/activity room and a cardiovascular area to be named the PepsiCo Fitness Center in recognition of the foundation's gift.

The new center is part of an overall expansion and improvement of athletic facilities at the Homewood campus, where most of the university's undergraduate student body studies. The current athletic center was completed in 1964, when the undergraduate student body was all-male and about one-half its present size.

The recreation center will include a field house with four basketball/tennis courts and an indoor track, the PepsiCo Fitness Center, a large multipurpose space, and a common social area. It is intended to accommodate the increased need for student recreational space, not intercollegiate athletics.

It will be built atop the Hopkins-owned Space Telescope Science Institute garage along San Martin Drive on the northwestern edge of the campus and will be connected to the main athletic center by a short covered walkway.

The recreation center, expected to cost about $12 million, previously received a leadership commitment of $1 million from Michael R. Bloomberg, president and founder of Bloomberg Financial Markets. A 1964 engineering graduate, Bloomberg is chairman of the university's board of trustees and has served as the chairman of the Johns Hopkins Initiative campaign.

The PepsiCo Foundation gift counts toward the campaign's $900 million goal. Scheduled for completion in 2000, the Johns Hopkins Initiative has raised gifts and pledges of $634.4 million, or 70 percent of the overall goal. The campaign has received commitments for $394.1 million, or 75 percent, of its $525 million goal for its areas of primary focus, endowment and facilities.

PepsiCo is a leader in the global beverage, snack food and restaurant businesses, with 1995 sales of $30 billion. Its largest operating divisions include Pepsi-Cola Co., Frito-Lay Co., Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and PepsiCo Restaurants International.

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