Louis Ronald Scatena was born in March of 1942 in Dupont, Pennsylvania. From 1950 to 1959, he spent all of his summers and most of his weekends working at his father's anthracite coal mines in the Greater Pittston Area of Northeastern Pennsylvania. After graduation from Jenkins Township High School in 1959, Lou joined and served in the U.S. Marine Corps, completing boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and Aerial Navigation School at Cherry Point, North Carolina. After service in the Corps, he continued his education at the University of Scranton, married his wife, Frances, in 1963, and graduated from the University of Detroit in 1967. After working for Burns and Loewe Architects and Engineers in Scranton, Pennsylvania for eight years, Lou and his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he worked for twenty-eight years for a major water and power utility - The Salt River Project(SRP). In his final ten years at SRP, Lou served as a Quality Improvement Team Facilitator, and Technical Consultant on the general manager's staff. Since 2003, Lou continues to work as a structural engineer for Carollo Engineers, Inc. in Phoenix. At Carollo, Lou has been responsible for the structural design of many large water and wastewater treatment plants though-out Arizona, California, and the Southwest, and currently continues his responsibilities for structural engineering at Carollo. In 2015 Lou went to work on his first book, titled ANTHRACITE GRADE SCHOOL ON IRISH HILL, which was an account of his boyhood experience at his Father's coal mines. Shortly after publication, the publisher discontinued their business, and Lou's book was no longer published or available. In 2019, he decided to create a second edition that substantially expands on the first edition, improves and clarifies descriptions of events, and adds a final chapter that summarizes the benefits and lessons handed down by previous generations of coal miners. The new book is titled ANTHRACITE BOOT CAMP and concludes with a description of the manner in which those lessons can inspire our current society to improve service to family, country, business clients, and humanity.
