Brandon Simmers – Environmental Engineering


Senior student Brandon Simmers has found a way to pursue some of his biggest passions at Geneva College. His major combines two of Brandon’s favorite things – the great outdoors and engineering – into a single area of study: Environmental Engineering. Brandon says that he’s a big fan of God’s creation, and he was drawn to engineering from an early age.

As a preteen, Brandon heard stories of engineers helping society by building things, which inspired him to do the same. His desire to help people moved Brandon to serve in the US Army, as many members of his family had done before him. He signed up to serve as soon as he could, with his parents’ signatures, just a few months after turning seventeen.

Now, Brandon continues that commitment as he attends Geneva through the Army National Guard program. Before he entered higher education, however, Brandon was attending Glendale High School in Coalport, PA. There, he was active in student leadership, along with the school’s choir, drama program, and the wrestling and football teams. It was through football that Brandon learned about Geneva College.

Glendale’s football coach had once played at Geneva and so recommended the engineering program, which is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 100 undergraduate engineering programs in the nation. His interest piqued; Brandon visited the campus. It was enough to show him that Geneva was the right college for him. He started classes as a freshman Chemical Engineering student and Golden Tornadoes football player in 2017, after completing basic training at Fort Lee in Virginia.

He studied Chemical Engineering for two semesters, until his love for the outdoors drew Brandon to his current major – Environmental Engineering – and he played football for two years. More recently, Brandon has gotten involved with the newly formed Students Veteran Group as the club’s vice president. These activities have helped give Brandon a sense of community at Geneva College, and – overall – his experience on campus has helped him grow stronger in his relationship with God.

“If Geneva was handed a rock,” he describes how God used the college to shape his faith, “there was someone there with a chisel that just kept chipping away.”

One of the biggest ways in which Brandon says he likes to connect with God is by reaching out to Him from the midst of His creation. With the beautiful displays of nature on campus, along with the forested river nearby, there are many opportunities for him to enjoy God’s creation at Geneva.

-Kailee Boylan ‘23