TVA board members, from left, Bill Baxter, Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr., and Skila Harris

Phil Kazemersky, Acting Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, made comments to the TVA Board members.

TVA Board of Directors Meets on UTC Campus

During a meeting of the TVA Board of Directors on the UTC campus, Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker confessed to being an average student in college. However, he told board members, “If I had been an engineering student in a facility like the UTC Engineering, Math and Computer Science Building, I would have gotten it by osmosis!”

Terry Boston, Executive Vice President, Transmission/Power Supply Group also had kind remarks about the new facility. Additionally, he lauded the efforts of Dr. Phil Kazemersky, Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “There has been a 27 percent increase in student recruitment to engineering since the new building came online,” Boston said. “I am thankful to Phil for the brain trust coming from the University to TVA. The students are well-trained, and now they learn on the same equipment we use.”

In his presentation to the TVA Board, Kazemersky described the TVA Power Engineering Laboratory at UTC, a state-of-the-art Power Systems Laboratory that is a partnership between TVA, TVA’s equipment supplier, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and the University. The laboratory includes microprocessor-based relays and equipment to study electric machines.

“The laboratory is intended to be an educational and research tool for undergraduate and graduate students as well as a training facility for industry engineers,” Kazemersky said. “Students in undergraduate and graduate courses use the state-of-the-art equipment. Laboratory experiments have been written by the faculty and graduate students to train students on this equipment.”

The donated and purchased equipment in the laboratory is valued at nearly $500,000.

Learn more about the College of Engineering and Computer Science at UTC.