Union Pacific Railroad Donates $10,000 to LBV Planetarium

Laredo and area residents who visit the Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) Lamar Bruni Vergara (LBV) Planetarium will benefit from a generous gift of $10,000 donated by Union Pacific Railroad to the LBV Planetarium.

“Union Pacific Railroad is honored to continue our support and association with great organizations such as the TAMIU LBV Planetarium that do much to make the communities in which our employees live and work a better place,” said Iván Rodríguez, senior business manager, Union Pacific Railroad’s Marketing and Sales.

The donation, presented in April, was made as part of the LBV Planetarium’s partnership opportunities program.

“The funds will be used to buy new educational programs,” explained Gerardo A. Pérez, LBV Planetarium director.

“We want to thank Union Pacific for this generous contribution as it will greatly assist us in continuing our mission of educating, inspiring and entertaining the residents of Laredo. We are proud to have Union Pacific as a partner,” Pérez continued.

There are a variety of sponsorship and partnership opportunities available to help support the LBV Planetarium at the family and corporate level. In the past two years, more than 45,000 people have visited the LBV Planetarium—most of them school children at a very low cost.

The LBV Planetarium’s shows range from features on black holes, violent weather, uncovering the sun’s secrets, exploring an enchanted reef, violent weather, ancient Egypt, traveling to the past and the future and many more.

The LBV Planetarium has one of the few new generation digital projectors. Prior technology only allowed a view from the Earth; this projector allows viewing from any part of the known universe. Thus, one can travel to structures previously unseen, except to highly developed telescopes.

Digistar 3 projectors use powerful graphics hardware and software to generate immersive full-dome images on the interior surface of a dome, integrating all-dome video, real-time 3D computer graphics, and a complete astronomy package.

For more information on memberships, please visit tamiu.edu/planetarium/memberships.shtml or contact Pérez at 326.2606.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at prmis@tamiu.edu