ESWP Annual Banquet

More than 500 engineers and professional luminaries crammed into the East Club Lounge at Heinz Field February 18 to celebrate the awards and achievements of a handful of companies and engineering executives.
The gala celebration marked the 125th anniversary of the swank banquet hosted by the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP). Each year, the banquet brings together engineering leaders to meet and celebrate a year of outstanding projects and a select group of individuals who routinely turn dreams into useful projects.

This year’s prestigious Metcalf Award was given to Stephen R. Tritch, chairman of Westinghouse Electric Corp.

“This is a wonderful honor for me, and a great way for this profession to showcase the importance of engineers and engineering,’’ said Tritch, who spent 37 years at Westinghouse. In fact, Tritch told the ESWP audience that becoming an engineer was initially more about great timing than desire.

During his junior year of high school in Butler, Pa. , Tritch was on his way to discuss career options when he asked another student what he was going to tell the guidance counselor. “I’m going to be an engineer,’’ the young man said. “Sounds good to me,’’ Tritch recalled.

Tritch’s father, a World War II vet working as a nurse’s aide, had scant funds to send five children to college. But Tritch was fortunate to receive scholarships to Pitt where he graduated in 1971 with a mechanical engineering degree from Pitt.

From Pitt, he selected to work at Westinghouse. And the rest is history. After receiving his MBA at Pitt in 1977, Tritch worked at Westinghouse’s Chattanooga field office. Peers report that his “user-friendly’’ demeanor, excellent communication skills and commitment to values soon ensured his steady ascent to management and eventually to the CEOs office.

During Tritch’s tenure, Westinghouse grew from a $1 billion company to a $3 billion company. He also was instrumental in keeping Westinghouse in the Pittsburgh region.

At the ESWP dinner, Tritch admonished his audience to continue enticing more young people to become engineers. He was extremely proud of the Pitt students who received accolades at the annual dinner.

The 2009 George Washington Prize Winners were Patrick Vescovi, a senior in chemical engineering, bioengineering and chemistry at Pitt, and award finalists Alexander Dale, a senior in mechanical and materials science engineering at Pitt; Jennica Roche, a senior in bioengineering at Pitt; Kelly McCormick, a semi-finalist and senior in industrial engineering at Pitt and Derek Mitch, a semi-finalist and senior in civil and environmental engineering at Pitt.

Female engineers snapped up quite a few awards at this year’s banquet. In fact, the 2008 Project of the Year Award was presented to Linda Figg, president and CEO of Figg Bridge, a company started by her father.

“This is a wonderful honor and I know it will continue to inspire me and my company to do great things,’’ said Figg.

Other awardees included Lawrence J. Lennon of Lennon, Smith, Souleret Engineering. Inc.

“I am humbled by this award because engineering is such a noble profession, said Lennon. He also admonished the ESWP membership to encourage more high school students to get interested in engineering and science.

Even keynote speaker Howard Fineman challenged the region and both Pitt and Carnegie Mellon to help create the worker of the future. Fineman, a senior editor and national political writer for Newsweek and MSNBC, told the audience that the region needs to move from touting “the man of steel’’ image to “ the “ man of creativity ‘ image.

“It’s all about ‘meds’ and ‘eds’,’’ he said. “This region is leading the world in medical and educational advances, and that is our mantra for continued growth,’’ said Fineman, a Pittsburgh native and devout Steelers football fan.

In spite of the looming recession, Fineman predicted that western Pennsylvania would play a pivotal role in getting the nation’s economy growing again.

“You could not ask for a better evening with all the great awards and positive messages,’’ said T. Peter Ruane, president and CEO of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.


Contributed by: Chriss Swaney

In addition to the Silent Auction at the February 18th Banquet, we featured a special on-line version of our annual auction to help with our continued commitment to support educational programs for students in our area.