By Town Crier Staff

The Krause Foundation of Los Altos Hills is giving $2 million to The Citadel Foundation to support, advance and endow leadership activities conducted by The Citadel.

Initiated by Bill and Gay Krause, the gift will fund The Krause Initiative in Leadership and will endow and establish The Krause Chair in Leadership.

This fund will support the creation and administrative expenses of a new initiative in ethics and character development designed to strengthen the college’s preparation of principled leaders.

“The Krause Initiative in Leadership will enable The Citadel to integrate leadership models and ethical principles into continuously expanding aspects of campus activities and create much needed principled leaders for society,” Bill Krause said.

The goal of The Krause Initiative in Leadership is to engage students in a discussion of leadership principles, character development and ethics.

“Such qualities are the centerpiece of a Citadel education, which is based on an honor code that expects cadets not to lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do,” said Major General John S. Grinalds, president of the Charleston, S.C., college.

With the program’s particular emphasis on the honor code, cadets will be challenged to study the practice and supporting theory of leadership in everyday life through an interdisciplinary, strategic and action-oriented approach.

The expected result, according to the Krauses, is that cadets will emerge as better problem-solvers, strategists, innovators and team-builders.

The Krause Initiative will also provide operating support for an individual who will coordinate leadership activities through campus programs and steward the program through its formative years.

Bill Krause, a 1963 graduate of the Citadel, is currently chairman and CEO of Caspian Networks, an Internet networking systems company.

He is perhaps best known as president and CEO of 3Com Corporation through the company’s high growth years in the 1980s, and as chairman of the 3Com board from the late 1980s through 1993. Krause’s leadership transformed 3Com into a $600 million publicly traded data networking company with operations worldwide.

Gay Krause, Bill’s wife and a former elementary school teacher, counselor and middle school principal, has been instrumental in developing the Krause Center for Innovation, a teacher-training center at Foothill College.

As executive director of the Krause Center for Innovation, Gay Krause has established an effective regional technology-training center for educators in Silicon Valley.

The Citadel is best known as the home of the South Carolina Corps of Cadets with about 1,800 students, educated under a classic military system.

Founded in 1842 in Charleston, S.C., The Citadel is a state-assisted college with a rich historic tradition that has provided leaders in all sectors of business, the military, government and the professions. Academically, the college is among the top institutions in the country for its four-year graduation rate and has a nationally-recognized engineering school. About a third of Citadel graduates are commissioned into the military each year.