MARSHALL TWP, Allegheny County — Nancy Lewis, SAE International corporate communications manager, has received the PR News 2007 PR Team Leader of the Year award.

The PR News award honors leadership and innovation in the public relations field.

Prior to joining SAE International, Lewis was a sports marketing executive in the motorsports industry and she worked as a reporter for several major newspapers.

Lewis, who lives in the North Hills, received her bachelor's degree in communications from Bethany College in West Virginia and her master's in sports administration from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

JEFFERSON TWP — Larry Talmadge has been named vice president for retirement services for Concordia Lutheran Ministries in Cabot.Talmadge joined Concordia in 1995 as an assistant administrator, and graduated to project coordinator for the past 10 years.He attended Geneva College and is a retirement housing professional through the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.He and his wife, Barbara, have three children.

EVANS CITY — NexTier Bank, formerly Citizens Bank of Evans City, has marked its 100th anniversary as a national bank.NexTier's National Association means the bank was chartered by the U.S. Treasury Department.The bank opened in 1876 under a state charter and then received its national charter in 1907.NexTier became the bank's name under a legal agreement with Citizens Bank, a member of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which opened branches in Western Pennsylvania in the late 1990s.

John Kosar in October celebrated his 50th year with the Burt Hill firm of architects based in Butler.He joined the Burt Hill staff in 1957 as a co-op student from the University of Cincinnati. He received his bachelor's degree in architecture in 1962, and he was named a Burt Hill principal in 1969.When Kosar joined the firm, then called Howard Burt & Hill, it had a nine-member staff. Now the firm has a staff of 825 with 12 offices worldwide.

KITTANNING — Merchants National Bank and Farmers National Bank, both in Kittanning, are merging.The new bank will be known as the Farmers & Merchants bank of Western Pennsylvania, with Merchants Bancorp the surviving parent company.The merger will take place in the first quarter of 2008.Merchants has been in business for 110 years.

BUFFALO TWP — Its been genetically imprinted on most residents of Sarver, Buffalo Township and Freeport to call the Sarver TruServ, "Westerman's."Although the hardware store on Route 356 stopped being Westerman's in 2004, Mike Broniszewski says he doesn't mind what customers call the store.Broniszewski and his former partner, Andrew Amrhein, actually bought the store from the Westerman family in December 2003.Broniszewski recently bought Amrhein's share of the business for $937,000.Broniszewski said he grew up in the hardware business with his father's store in Bellevue, Allegheny County, which had been a ServiStar store.ServiStar was an East Butler and a Butler business. The North Main Street building now used by Armstrong had been home to the ServiStar headquarters after Nationwide Insurance moved out in the 1990s.ServiStar later partnered with and then was bought by TruValue Hardware in Chicago.

The Butler County Chamber of Commerce will host these events:• Dec. 6 — End of the Year Payroll Update and Year 2008 Seminar, 101 E. Diamond St., Morgan Center, Lower Level Suite 116, Butler. Cost is $20 per member, $30 per nonmember, and includes breakfast. The seminar will be presented by Carbis-Walker.• Dec. 7 — BC3's Succop Conservancy, 185 W. Airport Road, Penn Township, for "Celebrate the Season," the annual gathering for the chamber, the United Way of Butler County and The Atrium. The event will feature desserts, a wine tasting and holiday music.For information, call 724-283-2222.

• <B>M. Carl Lesney</B> of Gibsonia has been appointed director of the Bureau of Audits for the state's Public Utilities Commission.

• <B>Westinghouse Electric Co</B>. has bought Carolina Energy Solutions, a supplier of welding and machining services to the nuclear, fossil and hydropower generation, waste-to-energy, petrochemical, gas and general fabrication industries. The company is in Rock Hill, S.C., with 60 employees and will become part of Westinghouse's newly established subsidiary, WEC Welding and Machining, which holds PCI Energy Services, supplier of welding and machining services to the nuclear power industry.