Pittcon Science Gathering has Pennsylvania Roots, International Appeal

Trib Live
Local: Westmoreland
Saturday, March 4, 2017
By Patrick Varine

A Penn Township firm that makes vacuum pumps will showcase its products next week at the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy, among the world’s largest science conferences.

But company officials will travel to Chicago to do it.

The conference, nicknamed Pittcon — organized by 11 paid staffers and a group of volunteers from the Pittsburgh area — attracts industry, academia and government attendees from more than 90 countries.

And while it started in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, by the 1960s it had grown too large to be held in the city and has remained that way ever since.

“We (host) about 2,000 technical presentations, we use about 30 hotels in the host city and in Pittsburgh, parking would definitely be an issue,” Pittcon spokeswoman Marian Nardozzi said.