Two years after making a major gift to UC Santa Barbara to help fund a project they also helped to conceive, donors Paul and Kate Page celebrated the completion and dedication of the Kate and Paul Page Research and Learning Center at UCSB’s Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL) in Mammoth Lakes.

The Pages are longtime volunteers and benefactors at the university-run Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve, which encompasses SNARL and nearby Valentine Camp. The new facility — a net-zero energy, multiuse lecture hall and classroom — was named for the couple recognition of their lifetime philanthropy to the reserve.

“I see this project as completely evolving the way in which this field research station will be used in the future,” Paul Page, a retired technology entrepreneur, said of the building when plans when final plans were first unveiled in 2013. “It changes the dynamics, in my opinion. All this time, they haven’t had an effective place where teachers and students and researchers could meet and collaborate.”

Joining the Pages at the grand-opening event were UCSB and Mammoth area dignitaries including Chancellor Henry T. Yang and his wife, Dilling; Daniel Dawson, director of Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve; UCSB Vice Chancellor of Research Michael Witherell; Patricia Holden, director of UCSB’s Natural Reserve System and a professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management; and Rusty Gregory, CEO of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.