النهار

 BEIRUT: AUB announced Tuesday the passing of school trustee, benefactor, and alum, Maroun Semaan, with the university noting that his memory will live on at the school which benefited through the years from his transformative philanthropy and service.

Maroun was a genuinely great and humble man, whose work and whose impact will resonate through the ages,” said AUB President Dr. Fadlo R. Khuri. “We will carry on his wishes through our revised curriculum in the faculty he graduated from and which will now forever hold his name. We will carry on his good work in other important ways as well, along with our own determined common path, and seek to be always worthy of his profound trust.” 

In 2017, AUB named one of its most successful faculties after this visionary partner and friend of the school —The Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture — following a gift from the Semaan Foundation which to date is the largest donation ever received by AUB.

While the school declined to name the exact amount of Semaan’s largess, it exceeded the previous largest donation of $22 million by businessman Jamal Daniel and the Levant Foundation to the AUB Medical Center.

An influential entrepreneur and successful businessman, Semaan was also a civic leader and engaged citizen. "His inspired philanthropy has touched innumerable lives. The Semaan Foundation, which he founded in 2011, has provided much-needed support in the fields of education, hospitalization, and social welfare, focusing on the Middle East," the school said in a statement.

In 2013, Maroun Semaan was elected to the AUB Board of Trustees and served his alma mater "with dedication, bringing his business acumen and great love for AUB to help the school," the university said.

AUB Board Chair Philip Khoury said: "The university today mourns the loss of its student, alumnus, trustee, role model and philanthropist Maroun Semaan. Maroun believed deeply in the power of education and its role in preparing the citizen leader. His love for and service to AUB knew no bounds. Fittingly, his legacy will endure through the ages, as generations of engineers and architects will graduate from the school that he did, and which now most fittingly bears his name."

Semaan was himself the recipient of a scholarship allowing him to study at AUB. He graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and, with the tools that AUB helped him home, moved to the Gulf to pursue his career.

After graduation, Semaan held numerous leadership positions in the fields of oil and gas, infrastructure, and civic works. Then, in 1991, he joined Petrofac and helped grow this small company into an international powerhouse in the oil and gas engineering industry. He was also a founding member of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) and served on the Board of the American University of Sharjah.

After serving in many leadership positions at Petrofac International, including on the Board of Directors and as president, Semaan retired from the company in 2013 and focused on entrepreneurial endeavors in renewable energy, telecommunications, and real estate.

"Mr. Semaan’s generosity to AUB has been extraordinary, supporting student scholarships, Ph.D. fellowships, and innovative research over the years. In addition, the Semaan Foundation was one of the Strategic Partners for AUB’s 150th Anniversary and made a major gift to the American University of Beirut Medical Center to name the Outpatient Surgery Center after Mr. Semaan’s parents, the late Tanios and Souraya Semaan," the school said in its statement.

On January 16, of this year, at the launch of BOLDLY AUB: The Campaign to Lead, Innovate, and Serve, Maroun Semaan’s daughter Nour spoke about his belief in the power and necessity of serving humanity through purposeful philanthropy.

“He always wondered how someone with means could rest his head on his pillow while a neighbor of his, near or far, is unable to make ends meet,” said Nour Semaan.

“His primary objective is providing a suitable environment for students and seekers of knowledge. His ambition is to ensure the availability of medical care, and to encourage development projects wherever there is a need, as his contribution in lighting a candle in the darkness of the Middle East.”