Sbaffoni receives outstanding alumnus award
A standing ovation greeted Joseph A. Sbaffoni as he received the 2002 Outstanding Alumnus of the Fayette Campus Award. Campus Executive Officer Dr. Gregory Gray placed the beribboned medal around Sbaffoni’s neck during a recent meeting of the Advisory Board of Penn State Fayette Inc.
A 32-year veteran of the mining industry, Sbaffoni is bituminous mine safety chief with the Bituminous Mine Safety Division of the state Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Deep Mine Safety. He is well known for assisting in July with the rescue of nine miners who were trapped 72 hours in the flooded Quecreek mine in Somerset County.
Sbaffoni is the 18th recipient of the award, which goes to former students whose professional achievements merit the special recognition.
He graduated in 1973 from Penn State Fayette with an associate degree in mining. He obtained his first grade assistant mine foreman certificate and became a section foreman. He had already been working in the mines. A 1970 high honors graduate of Springdale High School in Allegheny County, he received a certificate in drafting and surveying from Forbes Trail Area Technical School in Monroeville.
Sbaffoni said he was newly married and raising a family when he went back to school and unable to attend a four-year college; however, he said he got what he needed from the local campus.
“I think I owe a lot of my success to Penn State,” he said.
He worked five days a week while he went to classes two days.
“For a year, I don’t think I had a day off. It was enjoyable to me because I was working in the mine and could apply what I learned in the classroom,” he said.
He told the story of the Quecreek mine rescue and said the fact that all nine miners lived through the ordeal was a miracle.
“In the first eight to 10 hours, there was some key decisions that were made, but there was still that miracle. There were a lot of things that could have happened that could have changed the outcome.”
Sbaffoni said he was one person doing his job and is overwhelmed by the accolades.
He worked in several different mines in various capacities, starting directly out of high school. In 1984, he gained the position of bituminous deep mine safety inspector for the Department of Environmental Resources and was a member of the department’s mine rescue team before he assumed his current position as bituminous mine safety chief.
Among his accomplishments, Sbaffoni was named in 1996 the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Centennial Fellow and received the Joseph A. Holmes Safety Association Merit Award. He was the recipient in 2001 of the Bill Hoover Lifetime Achievement Award.
His honors have continued since the Quecreek mine rescue and include the 2002 Governor’s Excellence in Service Award.
A Fairchance resident, he and his wife, Gloria, have two daughters: Nicole and Natalie.