Penn College HVAC Students Win National Scholarships

Three heating, ventilation and air conditioning students at Pennsylvania College of Technology were awarded $2,000 scholarships at a recent convention of the National Association of Oil Heat Service Managers in Hartford, Conn.

The winners Brandon G. Darrah, of Coudersport; Gregory J. Miller, of Easton; and Joshua D. Saeler, of Fenelton add to Penn College's growing list of NAOHSM scholarship awardees from the School of Construction and Design Technologies. The college accounted for one-third of this year's nine recipients and had two honorees in each of the previous two years.

Darrah is a senior in the HVAC technology bachelor-degree major; Miller and Saeler are freshmen in the two-year heating, ventilation and air conditioning technology major. Among those attending the convention was Richard C. Taylor, associate professor of plumbing and heating.

The ninth annual scholarships honor Dave Nelsen, of the Kurz Oil Corp., who was NAOHSM's education chairman at the time of his death in 1998. Darrah's award was presented by Delavan Spray Technologies, part of the Goodrich Corp. and a world leader in the design and manufacture of high-quality spray nozzles and fluid-handling systems.

The Nelsen scholarships are open to anyone attending or planning to attend a technical college or trade school and who is involved in the oil heating industry. In their winning efforts, the Penn College students each wrote a 500-word essay to answer the question, "What are your goals and why do you wish to better yourself within the oil heating industry?" Competitors for the scholarship came from throughout the East Coast, where oil heat is popular.

For details on the scholarship, visit online .

For more about the HVAC program and other majors in Penn College's School of Construction and Design Technologies, visit on the Web or call (570) 327-4513. For general information about the college, visit online , e-mail or call toll-free (800) 367-9222.