The Williamsonian Summer 2017 | Page 10

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Alumni Honor 10 Of The Class Of’ 18

The Alumni Association honored ten members of the Class of 1W8 for outstanding academic achievement at the 22nd Annual Student Academic Achievement Awards Dinner at the Porch Restaurant at the Lamb in Springfield in April.

The students honored were: Construction Technology-Carpentry- James Muscarella and Scott Pearce; Construction Technology-Masonry- Bryce Dean; Horticulture, Landscaping, and Turf Management- Matthew Dwyer and Kevin McKnight; Machine Tool Technology- Todd Fluck and Anthony Mariani II; Paint & Coatings Technology- Jacob Lapp; and Power Plant Technology- John Collins and Cody Miller.

With Daniel Flood 8W1, Alumni Association second vice president, serving as master of ceremonies, the evening opened with an invocation by Chaplain Mark Specht 7W7. Then the Artisans, under the leadership of Sherre Gaert-

Duke Energy Hosts‘ Phil Brown’ 99 Memorial 5K Run / Walk’

Duke Energy recently hosted a“ Phil Brown 9W9 Memorial 5K Run / Walk” to honor Brown who was killed while riding his motorcycle to work on March 1, with proceeds benefitting Williamson.

Brown was an operations team supervisor at Duke Energy Hines and Tiger Bay Energy Complexes in Bartow and

Phil Brown 9W9 ner, performed three songs.

Next, President Michael Rounds offered words of encouragement, telling the juniors“ You are excelling at Williamson and next year you will be the leaders. Your classmates will be looking up to you as role models.”

Then, keynote speaker Thomas Collins 8W1, president of Phoenix Construction, the second largest masonry contractor in Delaware County, told the juniors“ This is a night for you to be proud of. You have excelled academically.”

The advice he gave them, included“ faith and integrity go hand in hand. Do your work earnestly and love what you do. Give back to your community and to your school.”

He closed saying,“ Always be active with Williamson and be active in the Alumni Association. You are a member of an elite fraternity, you are Williamson men. The school helped you, now

Vann’ 17 Does Well At SkillsUSA Nationals

Continued from page 3 year to be with us as he is retiring from Williamson. He had a long run attending SkillsUSA competitions and we will miss his contributions in the future.”

Though Mike Neville 0W0, director of construction technology-carpentry, did not attend nationals, he did a great job working with his students prior to the competition, Curran said.

“ Pete and Mike are taking over as the next generation of instructors who are preparing our young men to be SkillsU- SA champions and they are both up to the task. They are a credit to their trades and their teaching ability is second to none.”

Curran said they missed having Carmen Martella, director of machine tool technology, who passed away June 2, with them.“ Carmen was a good friend and was very good at motivating his students in their competitions. We really missed having him with us.”

Curran said with Zwolak and Neville having one season behind them now, the future looks good for Williamson in the SkillsUSA competitions.

Fort Meade, Fla., and 60 fellow employees and family members participated.

Brown’ s wife Mary Marcia Brown chose Williamson to be the beneficiary of the event because of her husband’ s deep respect for Williamson and the education he received there. [ Brown was being considered for the position of Williamson’ s director of power plant technology at the time of his accident.]

John Beaudry, Williamson’ s director of power plant technology, said“ As his former instructor, it was very nice watching Phil rise in his career to the top.

“ He was an outstanding student and an excellent and well respected worker in the power industry. I greatly enjoyed seeing him recently and will miss him.”

Brown worked in nearly every segment of the power generation industry. After graduating from Williamson, he began his career in operations at Carolina Power and Light in Roxboro, N. C. He then advanced to leadership roles at Exelon Power, NRG Energy, and Florida Power and Light, before going to Duke Energy.

Pictured at the Alumni Association’ s Student Academic Achievement Awards Dinner are( from left to right): 2nd VP Daniel Flood 8W1, James Muscarella, Scott Pearce, Bryce Dean, Todd Fluck, Kevin McKnight, Anthony Mariani II, Matthew Dwyer, Jacob Lapp, John Collins, Cody Miller, and 1st VP James Simpson 1W2.

you have to help the school.”

Next, Flood and James Simpson 1W2, Alumni Association first vice president, presented each student with a certificate and trophy for their accomplishments.

The evening closed with Russ Harvey 5W0, retired drafting instructor, leading the entire group in the singing of the alma mater, and Mark Specht 7W7 giving the benediction.

Paint Students Work At NACE Conference

Ten paint and coatings technology seniors and juniors helped make the NACE Conference in New Orleans, the world’ s largest corrosion conference, attended by 7,000 corrosion industry professionals from around the world, from March 24 to April 3, a success.

The students stuffed 4,500 backpacks with conference materials, helped with registration, manned information booths, and answered questions, among other things.

Margaret“ Weemie” Kingham, placement director and trip organizer, said“ The conference was a wonderful, eye opening experience for our students. They did a phenomenal job and represented Williamson very well. The event organizers were so impressed they invited us back for next year’ s conference.

“ This was one of the largest conferences of its kind in the country, with many industry people for our students to talk to. They made many valuable contacts that could lead to employment and learned about new products on the market.

“ The students worked very hard for over 10 hours each day, but the educational benefits were worth it.”

Kingham said they also were able to establish relationships that led to the donation of equipment to the Paint Shop and in some cases, reduced prices to purchase equipment.

Tinker and Rasor, manufacturers of corrosion mitigation instrumentation, donated $ 10,000 worth of gift certificates to Williamson’ s paint and coatings technology program.

Brendan Buchanan 1W7 said,“ Attending this conference was a great experience. It was awesome to meet so many people in the corrosion field. We learned a lot about the industry and got to do a lot of networking. We all made contacts that could possibly lead to employment in the future.”

Mike Shanahan 1W8 said,“ It was definitely a good experience and we got a lot out of it. We met people from a large number of companies and learned alot about the industry.”

Also attending was John Curran 0W5, paint shop instructor.

Paint and Coatings Technology students helped make the NACE conference in New Orleans, the world’ s largest corrosion conference, a success.