L. Hochreiter, at 67; professor appointed to Vt. Yankee panel

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Lawrence Hochreiter, a member of a special panel reviewing operations at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, died after collapsing while teaching a nuclear engineering class at Pennsylvania State University.

Coroner Scott Sayers said that Mr. Hochreiter died of natural causes at a hospital about an hour after collapsing Wednesday morning.

A school spokeswoman said that 11 students were in the classroom when Mr. Hochreiter was stricken.

They called for help while staff members tried to revive him before an ambulance arrived.

Mr. Hochreiter, 67, had taught at Penn State since 1997, winning an Outstanding Teacher award there in 2005.

He previously had worked for 30 years at Westinghouse Nuclear Energy Systems in Pittsburgh, and had been an adjunct professor at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Governor Jim Douglas of Vermont appointed Mr. Hochreiter earlier this summer to a three-member panel overseeing a special review of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon.

The panel was appointed earlier this year to oversee an inspection report on the plant before Vermont lawmakers take up the issue of whether to grant its owners permission to operate past the plant's scheduled 2012 closing.

"Dr. Hochreiter was committed to a thorough and transparent inspection process," Gaye Symington, speaker of the Vermont House, and Peter Shumlin, state Senate president, said in a joint statement. "His involvement in this important process will be missed."