Robert L. Breuder

Published 04.02.2013

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Robert L. Breuder“I was willing to upset the equilibrium,” recalled Robert L. Breuder, whose 17-year tenure as college president – chaotic, contentious and altogether constructive – was the most transformational in the institution's history. Hired to shore up a blighted Williamsport Area Community College and build on its vocational reputation, Breuder embarked on a quest that led to the creation of Pennsylvania College of Technology. It was an administration marked by calculated risk and occasional impertinence, and one that included immeasurable enhancement to the college's footprint: the Advanced Technology and Health Sciences Center (which now bears Breuder's name), the addition of bachelor's degrees, the Community Arts Center and –  largest of all –  an affiliation with The Pennsylvania State University that anchored the institution's very future. "I think of all the people I worked with ... who stayed the course ... who put away the differences of opinion that we had," the former president said, "and we created this masterpiece that, in the end, we can be proud of." Much more about the Breuder years and the institution's rebirth as "Pennsylvania's premier technical college" can be found in “Legacy of Leaders,” the second volume in the Countdown to the Centennial series. The book, supplemented by an ever-growing centennial website, is available for $9.95 from  The College Store.

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