Dr. Michael Wu (BScEng'64, LLD'89) was honoured with the UNB Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award in May at a gathering of the alumni chapter in Hong Kong. Along with this award, he was added to the faculty’s Wall of Fame.
Wu is a graduate of the mechanical engineering Class of 1964. After working as an engineer with Canada‘s department of environment for 14 years, he returned home to Hong Kong to take the helm of the family business, the Wing Lung Bank of Hong Kong. Under his leadership as executive director and chairman, as well as his father’s leadership before him, the Wing Lung Bank became one of the largest Chinese-owned banks in Hong Kong, until it was sold in 2008.
Wu has been a tremendously loyal and generous alumnus, having established and led a UNB alumni chapter in Hong Kong and created prestigious graduate and undergraduate bursaries for UNB students in his parents’ names, Wu Yee-sun and Wu Ho Man-yuen. He also supports the Class of 1964 Eric E. Wheatley Memorial Fund in Mechanical Engineering and the Harold Tam Wing-Ming Scholarship for UNB students. In addition, the Wu Yee-Sun Charitable Foundation donated a leadership gift for the construction of the Wu Conference Centre on the Fredericton campus.
Wu has said that his father, Wu YeeSun (DLitt ’87), always believed in the importance of education; being the eldest son of a poor family, he had to work from an early age to support the family. After years of hard work, his father founded his own money exchange at the age of 30 and, although he found success as an entrepreneur, he always lamented not being able to further his studies. He therefore wanted his children to have the best opportunities when it came to their education and was always generous when it came to supporting educational endeavours.
After receiving the award, Wu stated, “I am honoured to have been inducted into the UNB Engineering Wall of Fame. My experience abroad and studying at UNB was invaluable to my professional development as an engineer and subsequently as a banker at Wing Lung Bank. I am very grateful to the University of New Brunswick for the education it has given me and I shall always treasure the time I studied there.”