On 28 February we flew to Seattle for the formal dedication of the new Bill & Melinda Gates Center at the University of Washington. The building will provide expansion room for the Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering Departments. We joined about 200 other donors for the event. Pictured left to right are: Bill Gates (with his usual attire and expression), Brad Smith (President of Microsoft), Jay Inslee (Governor of Washington State and candidate for US President), Ana Mari Cauce (President of the UW), Ed Lazowska (CSE Professor), and Hank Levy (back to camera, Chairman of the CSE Department). Melinda Gates was travelling and unable to attend. Bill Gates' speech was especially poignant, given the recent death of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, for whom the Computer Science & Engineering Department is named.

Since Gary is a graduate of UW CSE (PhD, 1972) and we are long-term donors, a study lounge was named for us; we used it to relax and charge our phones before the ceremony. Our names are also on the plaque in the building foyer. After the ceremony we were treated to a guided tour of research projects underway in the CSE and ECE Departments. We also ran into several of Gary's professors, who are now all Emeritus.