Duane G. Nichols

Born and raised in Tyler County, Duane Nichols graduated from Paden City High School and played on the varsity basketball team, which recorded a record of 23-3. He graduated with honors in 1959 from West Virginia University with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He received the Whitehill Award and Phi Lambda Upsilon Award in chemistry as an undergraduate. Industrial experience included four summers at the PPG Natrium plant and one summer with the silicones division of Union Carbide.

Graduate work at the University of Delaware was supported by a National Defense Education Act Fellowship and resulted in a master’s degree and with a PhD dissertation in chemical engineering. He then moved to Dover, Delaware, to join the faculty of Delaware State University, where he served as the first head of the Department of Physics, as well as director of the Nuclear Radiation Laboratory.

In 1968, he moved to WVU as assistant professor of chemical engineering under the National Science Foundation Heat and Mass Transfer Enrichment Grant, teaching courses in unit operations, heat and mass transfer, catalysis, applied differential equations and optimization theory. Later, as an associate professor of chemical engineering, he served as coordinator of the NSF program on The Siting of Coal Conversion Complexes in Appalachia.

Nichols became head of the fossil energy section at the Research Triangle Institute, in Durham, North Carolina, in 1977. The Environmental Protection Agency-supported research program was directed to the environmental assessment of coal gasification for synthetic natural gas production. In 1980, he moved to Library, Pennsylvania, as senior process engineer with the Conoco Coal Development Corporation. This became CONSOL Research and Development, where he was the group leader for special projects. He served the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in various positions including president of the Pittsburgh section.

Nichols retired in 2000 and moved with his wife, Sue, to the Stewartstown area of Cheat Lake. He has since served as president of the homeowners association and president of the Cheat Lake Environment and Recreation Association. Projects have included the establishment of a swimming beach and improvement of trails and boating on Cheat Lake, as well as the conservation of native habitat areas in the Cheat River Canyon. He has also been active as the co-chairman of the Upper Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact and as a board member of the Mon-Valley Clean Air Coalition.