S. Paul Mazza III — President

paulmazza@southhills.edu
814-234-7755

S. Paul Mazza III was appointed President of South Hills School of Business & Technology in the fall of 2015. The son of the founders of South Hills, S. Paul Jr. and Maralyn J. Mazza, Paul Mazza III has been actively involved in the school since it was founded in 1970.

The faculty, staff and students who have worked for and attended South Hills have all benefited from Paul Mazza III’s contributions to the school, as have the many institutions that hire the school’s graduates.

The involvement of Paul Mazza III with the South Hills Secretarial School dates back to the early 1980’s, when he developed the first computerized administration system for the school.

In 1982, when the South Hills Business School moved from Allen Street in State College to the old Boalsburg High School building, Paul Mazza III installed the first computer classroom and taught the first computer classes. At that time, the classes offered consisted of BASIC programming, Visicalc, and Wordstar.

In 1984, Paul Mazza III founded Mazza Computer Systems, a company that designed, installed, and supported business-grade computer systems throughout central Pennsylvania. During the time that he was running his own computer company, he continued to design, install, and maintain the classroom computer labs and the administrative computer systems that South Hills relied upon for its operation.

When the Mazzas decided to build the current South Hills School campus on Waupelani Drive in State College in 1989, Paul Mazza III oversaw the plans for the building so that it would serve the technological needs of a growing school.

In 1996, subsequent to running a successful company for twelve years, Mr. Mazza moved into the position of Vice-President of Technology at North American Communications, a regional long-distance telecommunications provider head-quartered in Williamsport, PA.

Mr. Mazza returned to South Hills in 1999 as a full-time instructor, teaching computer programming, networking and operating systems. Upon his return to the school, and in response to the needs of the area’s largest employer, Penn State University, Paul III introduced a new discipline into the computer curriculum by offering Unix/Linux instruction at the school for the first time.

Paul Mazza III served as the coordinator of the South Hills Computer Information Systems (CIS) AST degree program (now called the Information Technology program) from 2003 to 2007. In this role, he oversaw curriculum development efforts to ensure that the CIS program kept pace with advances in technology. Additionally, he was responsible for placing the soon-to-be graduates from the program into critical internships with area companies.

In 2007, Paul Mazza III filled the position of Interim Director for nine months, while spearheading the search for the current full-time Director, Mr. Mark Maggs. In 2008, Paul turned his attention again to the technical needs of the school, serving as the Director of Technology.

Beginning with the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, Paul Mazza III joined his brother, David Mazza, Senior Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer for NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics, for a few weeks every other year to help bring the coverage of the Olympics into the Internet age.

He immersed himself in the testing and operations of an online video production system capable of digitizing 48 simultaneous venue feeds, editing this footage into over 3,000 produced pieces and streaming the results to millions of viewers across the country.

To date, Paul III has been awarded two Emmys for his contributions to the successful and innovative delivery of record-breaking Olympic coverage spanning five consecutive Games.

Now, as the President of South Hills, Paul Mazza III is focusing his energy on the administration and management and long-range planning for the future of the school his parents nurtured for so many years.