Sisters Jeannie Lewis (from left) and Dori Lewis Smith are honoring the memory of late parents Al and Doris Lewis (shown at right) with their latest gifts to support Data Driven WV at the WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics. (WVU Foundation Graphic)
A $1 million gift to the West Virginia University John Chambers College of Business and Economics from an alum’s family bridges experiential learning and community outreach by expanding support for Data Driven WV.
Housed within the Chambers College Department of Management Information Systems and Supply Chain, Data Driven WV is an outreach center that connects businesses, nonprofits and government entities with WVU faculty and students to study their real-world challenges and provide suggested solutions.
Impressed with the center and its purpose, sisters Dori Lewis Smith and Jeannie Lewis have generously supported the program. Their latest gift provides $210,000 to bolster two existing family funds and $790,000 to establish a new endowment — the Doris and Albert Lewis Tech Support Fund — that honors their parents’ memory.
The new fund provides financial support and other resources for undergraduate and graduate students selected as Albert Lewis Fellows, as well as travel and technology for the Data Analytics Lab and Data Driven WV experiential learning projects. The Chambers College can also use the fund to recognize exceptional students with awards.
“For years, students across WVU, especially at the Chambers College, have been impacted by the generosity of the Lewis sisters,” Josh Hall, Milan Puskar Dean, said. “Endowments like this help to further student success by supporting experiential learning opportunities such as Data Driven WV. Those opportunities give students hands-on experience that helps to jump-start their careers and allow them to become impactful business leaders.”
During a campus visit that included feedback from Data Driven WV participants, the sisters were moved by the work students are doing.
“Giving back to their communities during floods, raising money through coin donations to support flood-ravaged rural areas — I just sat there in shock,” Smith said. “It blows me away that our little gift goes a long way with each of these students. We don’t deserve any credit.”
Data Driven WV was recently announced as a partner in an 18-month needs assessment to better understand substance use disorder and how it affects state residents.
“Students are delivering real solutions that create measurable impact for real organizations,” Joshua Meadows, Data Driven WV executive director, said. “In a single year, our teams have implemented customer relationship management systems for nonprofits serving veterans and athletes with disabilities, built data solutions for startups, supported advanced analytics for WVU Medicine and WVU Athletics and partnered with organizations working to reshore manufacturing in West Virginia.”
The Lewis family gifts pay tribute to Dori and Jeannie’s late father, Albert Lewis, who earned a business degree from WVU in 1951. He was also a Korean War veteran, U.S. patent holder, aerospace glass developer and business executive.
The Lewis sisters come from humble beginnings and were taught that giving can be more rewarding than receiving.
“I look at it like this: If you can put one grain of sand in this kid’s world or one seed of faith, maybe that sparks hope for them and a path for them,” Smith said. “They will turn around and multiply your seed so many more times than you can imagine.”
One of eight children who grew up during the Great Depression, Albert Lewis learned to work hard and be resourceful. In the early 1960s, he and his wife, Doris, took their work ethic to the West Coast.
“They uprooted us from everything we knew to chase this six-month dream,” Smith said. “That’s all it was going to be, and 60-some years later, we were still in California.”
Lewis was a former Marine who loved science. His wife of more than 70 years was an inventive homemaker. They encouraged their three daughters to be curious, determined and brave, shooting for the stars.
“We’ve been rocket-sciencing since 1964,” Smith said of the family’s business legacy. “He was a big part of developing the fuel tanks originally for the Apollo missions and the jet fuel containers for military aircraft for the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy.”
Lewis was inducted into the Chambers College Roll of Distinguished Alumni in 2020. He also established the Helen Lewis Medical Research Foundation, which has granted more than $2 million to WVU.
His daughters are advocates for WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute research after losing their youngest sister, Helen, from an undiagnosed neuromuscular disease.
The Lewis family gifts are made through the WVU Foundation, the nonprofit organization that receives and administers private donations on behalf of the University and its affiliated entities.
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sw/5/18/26
MEDIA CONTACT: Sunshine Wiles
Communications Specialist
WVU Foundation
304-284-4018; swiles@wvuf.org
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