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Michael L. Faust is a 1974 graduate of Northwest. Serving as a director of the Northwest Foundation from 2002-2020, he is among the longest-serving directors in the Foundation’s history. He became a committee chair in his first year and was board president from 2008-2010. He served as chair of the Advancement Committee during the Forever Green Campaign.
Faust retired in 2015 after 36 years with Kiewit Corporation, a Fortune 500 international construction and mining firm based in Omaha. As assistant to the chairman, he was speechwriter to senior executives, contributing editor to the company magazine, instructor at Kiewit University and manager of the corporate charitable giving program. He was active in community affairs, serving as a director of many non-profits, including United Way of the Midlands, Omaha Community Foundation, and the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. In retirement, he kept busy with communication consulting and continued to assist Kiewit chairman emeritus Walter Scott Jr., who passed away in 2021.
Since 2008, Faust has been a director of the Suzanne and Walter Scott Foundation. In 2016, the foundation inquired about honoring Faust’s long service to Mr. Scott, the Northwest Foundation and the Kiewit Corporation and chose to make a million-dollar gift toward the addition and renovation of the Northwest Alumni House. Faust has likewise been a Northwest Foundation benefactor with commitments of his own in excess of $1 million, including major gifts to his scholarship endowment, the Robert and Virginia Foster Fitness Center, a new media lab in Wells Hall, the Carl & Cheryl Hughes Fieldhouse and the Agricultural Learning Center.
In addition to being one of Omaha’s leading philanthropists, Scott was an ardent supporter of higher education. Named in his honor at his alma mater of Colorado State University are the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering and the Suzanne and Walter Scott Bioengineering Building. In an improbable but appropriate twist, the general contractor for the Michael L. Faust Center for Alumni & Friends, Jeff Smith of Smith Contracting Co., received his undergraduate degree from Northwest and a master's degree from Colorado State University.
