Richard Esch

  • President

President Rick Esch has worked closely with the faculty and staff at Pitt-Titusville for many years, developing strong relationships with members of the university community as well as the surrounding community.

A proud Pitt-Bradford and Pitt grad, he was named president of the Pitt-Titusville campus on July 1, 2022, after serving as interim president for a year.

President Esch began his career at Pitt-Bradford in 1994 as the director of auxiliary services. In 1999, he was named chief business and administrative affairs officer, and in 2003 was promoted to vice president for business affairs.

In 2012, he was named vice president for business affairs at Pitt-Titusville. In that role, he has helped the campus make the fiscal and physical transition to the Education and Training Center at Pitt-Titusville, which includes the Broadhurst Science Center renovation project as well as future renovations to the McKinney Student Union.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has represented Pitt-Bradford and Pitt-Titusville on the Chancellor’s Resilience Steering Committee and has worked closely with Pitt’s COVID-19 Medical Response Office. He also has collaborated with local, regional and state agencies, including the McKean County and Crawford County Emergency Management agencies, UPMC and Bradford Regional Medical Center.

President Esch also assembled and has led a COVID-19 Mitigation Response Team, which included representatives from most offices at Pitt-Bradford and Pitt-Titusville. Under his leadership, the team successfully implemented many changes on campus, including testing asymptomatic students weekly; isolating and quarantining symptomatic students; adapting the physical plant, including the dining hall and classrooms, to enable physical distancing; purchasing masks, signage and other materials; and identifying vaccinations sites.

Education & Training

  • MBA, University of Pittsburgh Katz School of Business Executive MBA Program - 1998
  • BS, Environmental Science, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford 1983