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CSUF Breaks Ground on $33M Landmark Hall

A $100,000 annual prize for the world’s best ideas on leadership is being established at California State University, Fullerton.

“It will be the equivalent of the Nobel prize for leadership,” said Terry Giles, a 1970 graduate of the university and a major donor.

“By doing so, we will attract the top tier to our campus to give a 45-minute lecture to our students.”

The announcement was made at the groundbreaking of the $33 million Landmark Hall, which will house the Giles-O’Malley Center for Leadership and the Erhard Institute for Leadership Studies. The building is scheduled to open in 2026.

The groundbreaking follows an effort started about 14 years ago by Giles and Anil Puri, then the dean of the business school, to start a leadership program.

They recruited Dr. Jay Barbuto, who has published more than 100 journal articles on leadership and has consulted for Fortune 100 companies.

Barbuto built the leadership center that nowadays provides scholarships, produces a TV show called “The Leadership Voice,” gives annual leadership awards to business executives and holds seminars for managers. The center is one of 13 at CSUF’s business school, which has a network of 65,000 alumni and business partners.

When asked why another building is needed instead of using the current Mihaylo Hall, which was built in 2008, Barbuto said the school’s classrooms are always full. He pointed out that Cal State Fullerton’s business school, which has about 10,000 students, is the second largest in the nation.

“For us to be able to offer extensive training opportunities, we have to have a dedicated space,” Barbuto said. “This building will become a destination for leadership and leadership development.”

Barbuto has attracted some of Orange County’s best-known executives and entrepreneurs to sit on his boards, including Charlie Zhang, founder of Pick Up Stix restaurant chain.

“I love Cal State Fullerton,” said Zhang, who owns Laguna Niguel’s Zion Enterprises, at the groundbreaking. “The center is driving the nurturing of the students. This is a great nation that needs leaders.”

At the groundbreaking were many of the school’s leaders.

“There is the vision to be the global hub for leadership development,” interim President Sylvia Alva said. “Landmark Hall will represent a significant milestone as one of the first buildings to be almost entirely privately funded. This is a new normal for CSU system, particularly given the fiscal realities that we are confronting.”

Werner Home

The three-story, 21,392-square-foot building, located next to Mihaylo Hall, will feature a library, training room, an auditorium, a television studio and student meeting spaces.
Besides hosting the Center for Leadership, it will also have the Erhard Institute for Leadership Studies, which will host the papers of Werner Erhard.

“Werner Erhard was the world’s first motivational speaker,” Barbuto said. “All the motivational speakers that are around now, they all followed him.”

About 90% of the building’s $28 million cost has been raised, Business School Dean Sri Sundaram said. He estimated another $5 million will be needed for desks and furniture.

“The vision for the building is allowing every student at Cal State Fullerton to have the opportunity for leadership development,” Sundaram said. “We have an opportunity to be the tops in the area of leadership studies.”

The new building is named after Landmark Worldwide, one of the world’s largest consulting firms and which gave a significant amount for the building, said Barbuto, adding that several naming rights are still available. The center is also looking to build a $10 million endowment, he said.

Another endowment totaling $2.5 million will go toward the annual $100,000 prize for the world’s best leadership idea, Giles said.

Giles is known for building one of California’s largest criminal defense firms and investing in more than 35 business ventures, including turning Toyota Garden Grove into the fifth-largest Toyota dealership in the world. Giles graduated in 1970 with a B.A. in speech communications from Cal State Fullerton.

“This is where I went to school. I credit a lot of my success to being on the debate team at Cal State Fullerton,” he said.

“I love the fact that they are providing leadership to all the various colleges throughout the university,” said Giles’ wife, Kalli O’Malley. “That is unique.”

“Every single field needs leadership,” Giles added. “It is an opportunity to create a place where 50 years from now people will want to come and study.”

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Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung joined the Orange County Business Journal in 2021 as their Marketing Creative Director. In her role she creates all visual content as it relates to the marketing needs for the sales and events teams. Her responsibilities include the creation of marketing materials for six annual corporate events, weekly print advertisements, sales flyers in correspondence to the editorial calendar, social media graphics, PowerPoint presentation decks, e-blasts, and maintains the online presence for Orange County Business Journal’s corporate events.
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