David C. Oyler Biography

David Oyler has been a resident of South Park Township for many years and lives with his wife Anne on Brownsville Road Extension.

David graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1972 with a B.S. in Physics and in 1980 from the Pitt evening program with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He passed the Professional Engineering exam in 1981. Over the years he has also taken a number of graduate courses in Petroleum and Structural Engineering.

David worked in Texas as a cased hole geophysical logging and perforating engineer for Schlumberger Well Services from 1972 through 1974. In 1975 he went to work for the U.S. Bureau of Mines at the Bruceton Research Lab in South Park Township as a research engineer. For the first 10 years he worked in the Methane Control Group, on research into ways of producing natural gas from coalbeds. In the mid-1980’s he was transferred to ground control research where he worked until his retirement in 2011. He has been senior author of over 13 research papers and co-author on more than 15 papers. He has had extensive underground experience, conducting research in over 45 underground coal mines and 13 stone mines.

In 2001 David began volunteering with the Montour Trail Council. By 2003 he was a regular member of the Council’s Engineering & Construction Committee. He has been on the Council’s Board of Directors for 12 of the last 13 years. In 2006 he became a founding member of the South Hills Friends, the local trail group responsible for maintenance of the Trail between Library and Clairton. He has been the Secretary/Treasurer of the group since its inception. As secretary he is responsible for the Friends Group’s agenda and meeting minutes and writes regular news items for the South Park News and Mon Valley Messenger. He can be seen most days performing maintenance along the trail in the South Park area.

David has been the project manager for two completed trail projects in South Park Township. A major part of his duties as project manager was keeping the project financial records and correspondence with the funding agency and local government officials. He has written over 8 applications for grants for trail funding, 6 of which have been funded, bringing over $1.2 million in trail construction funding into South Park Township. He is still actively working on trail construction projects in South Park Township.