If the presence of hundreds of local industry executives at the dedication of the George B. Duke Engineering and Information Technologies Building on Friday didn’t make it clear, then the building’s namesake did: local industry sees itself as a partner with the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in the technical training of professionals that they need to maintain and advance their businesses.
Duke, the owner and chairman of Zippo Manufacturing Co., pledged $2 million to Pitt-Bradford last year to equip the new building’s ultramodern engineering labs with the best and newest of everything students need to learn, test and build.
The $24.5 million building, with its labs full of precision measuring and automation devices, 3D printers, a plasma cutter, CNC milling machines and lathes, fluid dynamics systems, strength of materials testers, and state-of-the-art electronics measurement systems has made two new majors possible: mechanical engineering technology and energy engineering technology.
Duke said that when Zippo made its pledge, the company’s President and CEO Mark Paup said to him, “We can make this very cool. Let’s think about this as a collaboration with Pitt-Bradford. … Zippo wins. The university wins.”
Zippo is eager to see Pitt-Bradford mechanical engineering technology students at work as interns and show them the possibilities of working in Bradford. Other area industries that supported the project financially are just as eager to work with interns and graduates, including KOA Speer Electronics Inc., American Refining Group, Northwest Bank, Control Chief Corp. and Napoleon Engineering Services.
Duke explained why industries are hungry for engineers.
“Our equipment wears out. The pieces that come in [to replace them] are very, very complicated, and they take engineers to keep running, and that’s not just at Zippo.”
Other speakers included Chris Napoleon ’86-’88, owner of Napoleon Engineering Services in Olean, N.Y., who said he saw supporting the building financially as an investment.
Napoleon said that at the start of his career, former engineering faculty Dr. August Freda and Dr. Ronald Mattis were teaching at Pitt-Bradford.
“They invested their time and energy in me for two years, [and eventually] Pitt’s investment [in me] enabled the creation of a business,” he said. “My coworkers and I are thankful to be a part of this project with a real return on investment. … It all starts with filling this awesome space with awesome students.”
In addition to making two new engineering technology programs possible, the Duke Building is the home to one of Pitt-Bradford’s most popular and successful majors, the computer information systems and technology program, another vital program for area employers seeking to hire technical workers. For the information technology program, the Duke Building has a new virtual reality lab and a systems, networks and projects lab as well as the most up-to-date classrooms.
“This is a second-to-none facility,” Duke said. People will be banging the doors to get in this place.”
Other speakers for the dedication included Dr. Ann E. Cudd, provost and senior vice chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh; State Sen. Cris Dush; State Rep. Martin T. Causer ’96; Pitt-Bradford President Richard T. Esch ’93, Dr. Matt Kropf, director and designer of the new engineering and technology programs; and Mychal Berlinski, a junior energy engineering technology student from Allegany, N.Y.
Following speeches and a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the hundreds of guests were able to visit the labs, talk with students and current faculty, and see some of the machinery in action, including scene-stealing CNC lathes that students were using to create light metal bottle openers. Large windows on the sides of the machine allowed guests to watch the process as it happened.
In a crowd full of engineers, several reminisced about their own schooling as they admired the new lab equipment.
One of the visitors was former professor Mattis, who retired after 36 years of teaching engineering at Pitt-Bradford in 2021, just before ground was broken on the Duke Building.
“It’s great to see it done, and you can tell how excited people are,” he said. “It really helps complete the campus.”
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