Our History

AIChE Susquehanna Section was chartered by the AIChE Board in October, 1992, to serve the south central Pennsylvania region.  Prior to this event we belonged to the AIChE Central Section which encompassed the Maryland Border, New York border, west of Le High, and east of Appalachian mountains around Pittsburg, PA.

To attend monthly meetings, Hershey Chocolate engineers (Tom Fallat, John McCormick, and John Mihalik) would drive to Williamsport, Lewisburg, Lock Haven and return after midnight.  So we decided to contact AIChE National to see if we could start a new local section in south central Pennsylvania region to better service our local members.  John Bloomer was assigned in 1992 by AIChE National and we held a monthly/information  program at Hershey’s Comfort Inn where we had 40 local chemical engineers in attendance, January 1992.

Based on this turnout, John Bloomer and our local chemical engineers decided to form a new Local section in late 1992.  The Central Section officers at Bucknell U, Darlene Schuster, Bob Sloanaker, and others, gave us the go ahead to claim south central Pennsylvania region from their boundaries.   We did identify some 20 chemical engineers who expressed interest and volunteered for upcoming Local Section officers and Committees Chairs plus we need to identify our Section Name.

John McCormick volunteered to be chairman and went to the AIChE National Officers Training conference in Scottsdale, AZ to come back with most update information to start a new Local Section.   From here, our first Local Section officers and Committee Chairs were established as follows:

Chair - John McCormick
Vice Chair - Rich Freeman
Secretary - Heidi Fiedler
Treasurer - Bob Rosten
GIC Chair - Dave Cunningham
Career Guidance- Charles Merris
Membership - Don Prowant
Newsletter - Harry Zechman 

In June 1992, we meet at Railroad House, Marietta, PA, to finalize our AIChE application and we choose “Susquehanna “ to reflect our central location in Pennsylvania.  In October 1992, AIChE National Board issued us a charter for our Susquehanna Local Section to operate from.

This is the  history of why Susquehanna Section was formed and how it was organized in 1992.  We have many other historical accounts covering our fund raising experience - snow blower raffle, seminars, and AIChE National Officers Training Conference in Hershey, PA, 1995, and other accomplishments since 1992.