Welcome to the Central Pennsylvania Torch Club

Peter Jurs is a retired chemistry professor. He was educated at Stanford University and the University of Washington. He joined the Penn State faculty in 1969 and remained there until retiring in 2006. He authored about 250 publications (scientific papers, research monographs, and a freshman chemistry textbook) and supervised 57 advanced chemistry degrees. He served on the University Faculty Senate for 25 years and was Chair 1995-1996. He was active in the American Chemical Society for decades. Jurs has had a life-long interest in western history, conservation, and the outdoors. He ran daily for decades, and completed four marathons. After retiring, he had time to join several local volunteer organizations, including more than 20 years at Centre Volunteers in Medicine.  He and his wife of 43 years, Elaine, enjoy traveling and staying connected with their eight grandchildren.

Roy Hammerstedt was born in Duluth MN in 1941 and lived there until the early 1960s. It was a wonderful start but then he joined the flood of kids departing after yet another economic collapse of the area. Luckily. Roy benefitted from a supportive neighborhood and a wonderful public school system. He had a test run for a year at Michigan Tech, then transferred to the University of Minn. in Duluth where he discovered chemistry in an environment where the faculty gave all you asked for including unlimited and unsupervised lab access. This was also his introduction to the unadvertised “Midwest consortia of Biochemistry”, where faculty planned, but he was not perceptive enough to recognize, a path for kids with promise.  That path carried him to U of Minn. in St. Paul in 1963, then to Michigan State in East Lansing in 1967, and then to the faculty at Penn State in 1969. Professionally PSU was excellent in that it was an era where the administration was trying to figure out how to get sufficient contemporary vigor to carry them from past areas of excellence in the 1930s-50s to the present through college rearrangements and adjustments. This allowed Roy to range from reproductive biology with the College of Agriculture, to analytical chemistry and unique design and fabrication of instruments with the Colleges of Science and Engineering.  In addition, he helped a few colleagues turn concepts into companies. It was wonderful good fortune to find necessary federal funds to carry too many projects along the paths that developed. Roy finally retired from PSU and put his effort in the bio-business side where he operates a “local consulting company with a lab” that solves problems for others and develops ideas of their own. 

Bob Carline was born and raised in Clifton, N.J.  He earned a BS in biology from Rutgers University, an MS in fisheries science from Oregon State University, and a PhD in zoology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He worked as research biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for 10 years and then joined the US Fish and Wildlife Service fishery research unit at the Ohio State University.  He moved to Penn State in 1984 and was appointed Adjunct Professor of Fishery Science and he served as Leader, of the PA Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.  Much of his research was directed at Spring Creek. He provided an overview of his findings in the 2011 publication “The Fishery of Spring Creek – A Watershed Under Siege”.  He retired in 2007.  Bob and wife Marge have 3 children and 6 grandchildren.  They enjoy traveling and most outdoor activities.  Bob is a devoted trout angler and when the weather is not pleasant, he retreats to his workshop and creates wood sculptures.   

Bill Arden 

Terry Engelder  

Brian Dempsey   

John Dillon 

Wayne Osgood  

Ron Smith 

Cathi Alloway