Known for their civic and business leadership, Peter and his wife, Edith O’Donnell, who died in 2020, established the O’Donnell Foundation in 1957. Their financial contributions over the years to UT Dallas alone total more than $40 million. “Peter O’Donnell’s leadership in securing for UT Dallas the authority to teach engineering and to have a full, legitimate four-year undergraduate program made possible all that has been accomplished in the succeeding decades,” said Dr. Richard C. Benson, UT Dallas president and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership. In 2013 the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building was dedicated in her honor. Most recently, the O’Donnell Foundation made a $2 million commitment to support the construction of the UT Dallas Athenaeum as part of New Dimensions: The Campaign for UT Dallas.