FSU FACT Center funded through grant

The George W. Bowers Family Charitable Trust provided a $15,000 grant toward the Forensic and Analytical Chemistry Technology (FACT) Center at Fairmont State University. The grant funding will go toward the purchase of two key pieces of instrumentation as well as establishing a summer camp for children ages 9-18.

The pieces of equipment, and atomic absorption instrument and a gas chromotograph/mass spectrometer, are critical in the education of students and will give them significant experience with instruments heavily used in forensic science and environmental testing laboratories. While FSU currently has these pieces, the instruments are more than 20 years old and are becoming far too expensive to maintain.

The instruments will also be used in summer 2018 during two FACT Center camps, one for students 9-13 and the other for students 14-18.

Though the grant funding doesn’t cover the total cost for the instruments and camps, part of the proposal includes faculty working with students to research, write and submit more grant proposals, a skillset needed as they enter science career paths.

George W. Bowers established the Bowers Pottery Co. and the Warwick China Co. in Mannington, Marion County.  When Frances Bowers passed away in 2000, as the last remaining of three Bowers daughters, she directed through her will that a portion of the Bowers’ family estate be left to WesBanco Bank in Wheeling for the establishment of the George W. Bowers Family Charitable Trust.

Fairmont StateCollege of Science and TechnologyDon TriselFairmont State FoundationGeorge W. Bowers Family Charitable Trust