Kessels Establish UPB Scholarship

When Ann Kessel of Bradford wanted to get her husband, Dick, an extra special birthday gift, it didn’t take long for her to come up with a solution – a scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

“We’re very interested in education and want to help students pay for a quality education,” Ann Kessel said. It turned out to be the perfect present. When Dick Kessel needed a present for his wife’s birthday, he added her name to the scholarship.

The Kessels gift was matched by the Agnes L. and Lewis Lyle Thomas Scholarship Challenge.
This fall, the first Ann and Dick Kessel Scholarship was awarded to Grace Chuhinka, a sophomore nursing major from Marysville.

Preference for the scholarship goes to students enrolled in the business management, sports medicine, nursing and pre-medicine programs.

Ann Kessel said those programs reflect the family’s interests. The Kessels are the owners of Kessel Construction Inc., a respected Bradford Design/Build construction firm specializing in construction of commercial and industrial buildings.

In the early 1960s, the couple took the business over from Dick Kessel’s father, who had started it by building powerhouses in the Bradford oil fields.

Their interest in the medical fields comes from their daughter, Kristin Kessel Asinger, a visiting instructor in sports medicine at Pitt-Bradford.

The Kessels’ scholarship is just their latest contribution to their longtime support of Pitt-Bradford.

“The University is vitally important to Bradford,” said Ann Kessel, who sees the couple’s contributions to Pitt-Bradford as one way to repay the community that’s helped them and their company succeed.

She admits that philanthropy is also fun for the couple.

“Aren’t you rewarded when you give things away?” she asks. “The community has been so good to us. You have to give things back.”

The couple also established the Jeffrey Brian Kessel Memorial Scholarship in memory of Dick Kessel’s cousin, a Pitt-Bradford alumnus and community leader who worked for Kessel Construction. They continued to support the scholarship through an annual golf outing.

Kessel Construction was also the general contractor for Pitt-Bradford’s facilities management building and made major in-kind gifts toward its construction.

Ann Kessel also gives her time to the university, serving as a member of Pitt-Bradford’s Advisory Board, of which Dick Kessel is an honorary member.

The Thomas Scholarship Challenge was made possible by a $1 million gift from Agnes L. Thomas and allows donors to double the amount of gifts between $5,000 and $50,000 to new or existing scholarships, as long as funds last. Gifts must be paid within five years to be eligible.

For more information, contact the Pitt-Bradford office of Institutional Advancement at (814)362-5091 or Joelle Warner, manager of donor relations, at jaw104@pitt.edu.