De La Salle holds blessing ceremony for new STEM Center

WARREN — Plans for De La Salle’s new Steve and Kathy McShane STEM Innovation Center, scheduled to open in the fall of 2025, continued Oct. 10 with a ground-blessing ceremony.

The ceremony, held in the school’s Bill Fox Gymnasium, gave faculty, students and past graduates the chance to gather and see the beginning stages of the construction.

The ground-blessing also brought out the school’s longest living graduate, Ed Grieshaber, Class of 1947. Rev. Brian Meldrum, from the De La Salle Collegiate Class of 2002, provided the blessing through prayers and by sprinkling holy water.

In the summer of 2023, school officials announced that Steve and Kathy McShane pledged a multimillion-dollar gift to De La Salle to construct the world-class science, technology, engineering and math center. The Steve and Kathy McShane STEM Innovation Center will be built inside the school; it’s not an addition to the school building.

The Steve and Kathy McShane STEM center is a component of the school’s capital campaign. The campaign — titled “Builders of Boys. Makers of Men. The Next 100 Years!” — is designed to keep the school alive and well for another century. De La Salle will turn 100 in 2026.

Br. Thomas Zoppo, school president, led the ceremony.

“Let’s begin as we always do when we are in the holy presence of God. Father in heaven, we are gathered here today to celebrate the new and exciting addition of the Steve and Kathy McShane STEM Innovation Center,” Zoppo said. “We thank you, Lord, for our students who will benefit from the activities that will be housed in the center, and the faculty and staff for developing the programs.

Junior Gabe Enghauser, who leads the school’s Rocketry Club, also addressed the crowd at the ceremony. One goal of the Rocketry Club is to be the first school to send a rocket into space.

The McShanes attended last week’s ceremony. McShane, a 1961 graduate of the all-boys Catholic high school, wanted to support the school and its students.

“It’s my way of giving back to the school that has meant so much to me,” he said. “It was the academics, the rigor and the discipline that really made a difference in my life.

“There is a whole curriculum that is being developed,” McShane said. “The idea is to prepare students for careers in science, technology, engineering and math. The world is changing so fast with technology and affecting everyday life.”

After graduating from De La Salle, McShane attended the University of Detroit Mercy where he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He also earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

In 1984, McShane started his own company, Midtronics. Located in Willowbrook, Illinois, Midtronics develops and produces battery management equipment and services for the global automotive industry.

“We’ve been blessed,” Kathy McShane said. “We want to pass on some of our good fortune to a school like De La Salle.”

In July, Scott Husken was hired as director for the Steve and Kathy McShane STEM Innovation Center. The curriculum is still being developed. While the school already has a STEM program in place, the new center will add more, including courses in civil engineering, architecture, aviation, data management and cybersecurity.

Joe Gerardi (Class of 1986), the school’s director of operations, said the instructional space will be 6,000 square feet. There will be a ground level, an upper-level mezzanine, lots of open space and natural light.

Frank Rewold & Sons, based in Rochester, is the construction management company. TMP Architecture, based in Kalamazoo, is the architectural company.