Art Center College of Design Gets $15M Gift

Written by City News Service

The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena announced a $15 million gift Tuesday -- the biggest in its 83-year history.

The gift from Peter Mullin, chairman of M Financial and chairman emeritus of MullinTBG, an executive compensation and corporate insurance consulting firm, and his wife Merle will help fund a new industrial and transportation design building at Glenarm Street and Raymond Avenue.

Mullin said the gift was "a chance to make a difference.

"I've been luckier than I ever expected in business and in my life. Los Angeles has been a great place for me. I was born here, stayed here, never left and I don't have any intention of leaving. So our gift is an enormous expression of gratitude to a great city that provided me with great opportunity," he said.

Mullin is an avid car collector and founder of the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, which showcases classic cars such as Bugattis and Voisions and decorative arts from the 1920s and 1930s.

Since 2005, the Mullins have funded scholarships for students majoring in transportation design.

"Peter has a real love affair with art and design, and he's endlessly curious," Stewart Reed, chair of the college's Transportation Design Department. "He absolutely views cars as functional objects that are really works of art, a beautiful marriage of aesthetics and function."