Gifts in Action - David and Jane Eades

MEET THE EADESES

A graduate of Wabash College, David Eades holds an MBA and a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, as well as a doctorate in zoology from Indiana University. He taught at the U of I before leaving in the early 1970s to take over his family’s commercial real estate business, Regency Associates. He is managing general partner of the company and an adjunct professional scientist in the Illinois Natural History Survey.

Jane Eades earned her bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. She is a graduate of the Executive MBA program at Illinois and was president of Regency Systems, Inc. She and her family previously created scholarships and fellowships in honor of her late father, Loh Kwan Chen, a 1924 civil engineering graduate of the U of I and chief engineer for construction of all air fields in China in World War II. The gift from the Chen family was an expression of Loh’s deep gratitude for the knowledge he gained at Illinois.

HOW THEY GAVE

Now the couple has provided a significant gift to create the Orthoptera Research Endowment Fund in the Center for Biodiversity. The gift will support the expansion of knowledge of a group of insects that includes grasshoppers, locusts, mantises, crickets and katydids among others.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“Orthoptera are very important ecologically and agriculturally. They are major herbivores, predators and food sources for other animals, so understanding their biology is important both to basic ecology and to managing their positive and negative impacts in natural systems, agro-ecosystems and the human environment. The critical first step in this work is understanding their taxonomy and distributions, the focus of the research supported by the Eades’ gift,” said Dr. Geoffrey A. Levin, director of the Center for Biodiversity.

“The Center for Biodiversity is already home to important work on the biology of various insect groups and the 9th largest insect collection in the United States. The Eades’ gift now makes us an international center for Orthoptera research,” Levin added. “On behalf of the Center for Biodiversity and Illinois Natural History Survey, I want to thank Dr. and Mrs. Eades for their generous gift. The Orthoptera research program will be a great asset to the campus and the state.”