Ejabat announced earlier this year that he was pledging $1 million over the next five years to the College of Engineering and Computer Science for the creation of the college's first endowed chair. The Mory Ejabat Chair will be awarded to a tenured full professor with an outstanding record in both scholarship and teaching in the college. The first Ejabat Chair has yet to be named.

"Mory is a visionary, he invests with foresight and commitment, and that always produces success. With this transformational gift of the very first endowed chair in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, Mory is investing again," said S.T. Mau, dean of the college. "He has invested his prestige, his wealth and his vision in us. He challenges us to recruit more and to retain our excellent faculty so that our students will get the best education we can offer, so that there will be many more Mory Ejabats to come out of Cal State Northridge."

The reception will take place from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in the breezeway of the college, just north of the Oviatt Library near the center of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.

Ejabat, who holds a bachelor's of science degree in industrial engineering and a master's in systems engineering from Cal State Northridge, is co-founder of Oakland-based Zhone Technologies Inc., which is the first company dedicated to building total-delivery solutions for voice, data and video services to access the local network.

Ejabat has said that the education he received from Northridge provided "the foundation of my success as an engineer, CEO and entrepreneur."