Photo provided to the Times Observer When Warren native Colten Brown passed away, his close college friend pivoted from finance to nursing to honor Brown's heart for serving others.

Armand Kassam became close friends with Colten Brown of Warren when they attended college together at Penn State Behrend.

When Brown died of COVID-19 during the pandemic, Kassam was devastated.

Kassam took just a few weeks to decide he would switch careers from finance to nursing to help others in Brown’s honor. Brown had been dedicated to serving the community as a parole agent.

Kassam will be graduating from nursing school in May, and when a professor assigned his class to write about what had influenced the students to go into nursing, Kassam’s mind turned toward his memories of Colten Brown.

Brown and Kassam met at Penn State Behrend. A scholarship in Brown’s name has been established at the Erie college, with Brown’s family raising a $50,000 endowment.

A “buddy bench” near the west entrance to Kochel Center is dedicated to Brown. It was funded by friends and fellow students. A “Mr. Penn State Behrend” award recognizes students who embody Brown’s high level of engagement on campus.

Kassam’s letter explains a little bit of why the endowment at Penn State Behrend made so much sense.

“I met Colten in college, and we spent every waking moment together; bouncing at bars, going to concerts, yelling at screens as if football players could hear us miles away,” Kassam wrote. “In our small college town, it became apparent that we both had a loud presence in a room; where you’d find one of us, the other was 5 feet away, completely inseparable.”

Portions of Kassam’s essay accompany this story.