February 7, 2020 – Murray Associates Architects, P. C. celebrated the grand opening of the largest Academic Welding Center in the Country.  This was the second addition that Murrays designed at Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Lycoming Engines Metal Trades Center.  The College’s President, Dr. Davie Jane Gilmour, cut through a metal ribbon with a plasma cutter, officially opening the college’s welding expansion project, which added 35,000 square feet to the current lab.

The addition houses an electron beam welder plasma cutter, which is the only one in the United States and enables up to 60 more students to be enrolled annually in the College’s welding program. The lab is full of automation and robotics, dedicated to specialized types of welding and a non-destructive testing classroom and laboratory for students. According to President Gilmour, “This will all take us to the next level of curriculum offerings. We have space dedicated to metal fabrication,  a “pipe alley,” as it so affectionately is called, offering pipeline simulation. There are 124 individual lab booths for welders to do what they like to do most, which is weld.”

Murray Associates completed the original study and assisted the College to obtain a $2 million grant from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The welding program enrolls a total of more than 300 students and is the third largest program at Penn College of Technology.