People Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Thomas Solich is the owner of Solich Piano & Music, which has stores in Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, and, as of 2022, Pittsburgh. Blind since birth, he became a champion wrestler, classically trained pianist and successful entrepreneur, becoming one of the largest Yamaha piano dealers in the U.S. Solich lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife …

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Profiles

20 Years of Interviews, Pt. VII

by PQ Staff

Editor’s note: The Pittsburgh Quarterly team has interviewed many of the most interesting and noteworthy people in our “city-state of Pittsburgh” as my old editor and friend John Craig used to call this area. The number of interviews that have appeared in this magazine reaches well into the hundreds (writer Jeff Sewald alone has interviewed …

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People Profiles

A Hero in Pittsburgh

by Scott Holleran

Assassinations abound. in July 2025, a gunman shot President Donald Trump on fairgrounds near Butler. The nation’s biggest health plan’s CEO was killed in New York City. An arsonist targeted Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family. Islamic terrorists vowed to assassinate America’s top pop star, Taylor Swift, causing her to cancel a concert. And …

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People Profiles

20 Years of Interviews, Pt. VI

by PQ Staff

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American Spirit

The Tools Left Behind

by Jeff Dooley

Frozen forever in their black-and-white time, the two men gaze at me from separate photos atop a dresser. In one, my late paternal grandfather, Ray, “RC,” squats in the bright Florida sunshine while holding a tray of fish. A caption written on the photo’s border is in my grandmother’s (his wife Catherine’s) neat cursive: Snapper …

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People Profiles

Editor’s note: Since late 2005, we have interviewed many of the most interesting and noteworthy people in our “city-state of Pittsburgh” as my old editor and friend John Craig used to call this area. The number of interviews that have appeared in this magazine reaches well into the hundreds (writer Jeff Sewald alone has interviewed …

20 Years of Interviews, Pt. II Read More »

People Profiles

20 Years of Interviews

by PQ Staff

20 Years of Interviews Read More »

Obituaries

Soffer, Greer, Reich, Skrinjar, Pitterich, Spatafore, Lubetz, Stancell-Condron Dodd, Bruschi, Pistella, Poppenberg, Poppenberg, Foy, Parsons, Muse, Christie, Aldridge, Rooney, Etzel, Dindak

by PQ Staff

Donald Soffer, 92Soffer was best known for turning 800 acres of swampland into Aventura, Florida, now home to luxury hotels and high-rises. The Duquesne native and his father co-founded one of Pittsburgh’s largest commercial real estate firms in the early 1960s, joining three other brokers in Don-Mark Realty, the predecessor to Oxford Development. The shopping …

Soffer, Greer, Reich, Skrinjar, Pitterich, Spatafore, Lubetz, Stancell-Condron Dodd, Bruschi, Pistella, Poppenberg, Poppenberg, Foy, Parsons, Muse, Christie, Aldridge, Rooney, Etzel, Dindak Read More »

Profiles

What Do I Know? Dr. Kathy Humphrey

by Jeff Sewald

I was tenth in a family of 12 children. My mother was a secretary and seamstress. My father was a bricklayer who was in the Army and stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he met my mother. This was at the time of “Jim Crow” and, after my father’s discharge from the service, my parents moved …

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Business Profiles

Doing Business with People

by Steve Breuner

It was a couple summers back, when I was sitting down the third base line at PNC park, that my thirst finally won. I had made it through three toasty innings, but now it was time for a frosty draft beer. As I worked my way from the outfield to home plate, I passed four …

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Profiles

Building Basic Science in Pittsburgh

by Douglas Heuck

On the occasion of the retirement of Dr. Arthur Levine from the University of Pittsburgh, we asked him about his career and what he sees ahead for Pitt and UPMC. For the second half of the 31 years he spent at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he was scientific director of the National Institute of …

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People Pittsburgh Immigration Pittsburgh Tomorrow

After Years of Torment in Venezuela, Novelist Finds Refuge in Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum

by Tracy Certo

Israel Centeno is haunted by nightmares of his final years in Venezuela, waking in a lurch of panic as he relives the torment he long endured. The burn of a cigarette jammed against his neck. A baseball bat smashing his car. The beating that broke his fingers. Once he was stabbed with a knife as …

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American Spirit People Pittsburgh Immigration Pittsburgh Tomorrow

Immigrants are More Likely to Start Businesses — What that Means to Pittsburgh

by Bill Zlatos

In 2000, Johnny Diaz fled the Dominican Republic and the rampant corruption that hampered his business career. If you needed to get something done, he says, you had to bribe someone. He moved to Norwalk, Conn., where he got a job managing a Walmart. In the same town the following year, Grecia Vasquez was studying …

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Obituaries People

Springer, Thorbecke, Sagan, King, Miclot, Wolfley, Tansky, Wholey, Myers, Fagan, Tambellini, Kampmeinert, Hotopp, Truter

by PQ Staff

Cecile Springer, 94Armed with master’s degrees in chemistry and urban and regional planning, Springer was well prepared for a diverse life. A research chemist for Bristol Myers and Schering Pharmaceuticals, she joined Westinghouse Electric as manager of product development for the Advanced Energy Systems Division. From 1978 to 1989, she served as director of Contributions …

Springer, Thorbecke, Sagan, King, Miclot, Wolfley, Tansky, Wholey, Myers, Fagan, Tambellini, Kampmeinert, Hotopp, Truter Read More »

American Spirit Arts Culture

Gorson Bio and an Exhibit at The Westmoreland

by Maxwell King

The first two decades of the 20th century were an extraordinary time for Pittsburgh and for the whole world that bought the steel produced in western Pennsylvania’s mills. The Pittsburgh region dominated the world in the production of steel, and that new alloy utterly changed civilization as the new century advanced. The cars, trucks, rails, bridges, skyscrapers and airplanes that heralded a …

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Profiles

What Do I Know? David Holmberg

by Jeff Sewald

I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where my father did factory work for General Electric and Westinghouse. My mother was a nurse. We never starved, but we didn’t have a lot. We were just a middle-class, fundamentally stable family. And the expectation in our home always was: If you wanted more, you had to do …

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Obituaries People

Lange, Maher, Garber, Linaberger, Bowers, Burnett, Wettick, Effort, Gaines, Veale, Rayvid, Blank

by PQ Staff

Mike Lange, 76He spent 46 seasons as the play-by-play voice of the Pittsburgh Penguins, creating some of the most memorable sayings in the process. “It’s a hockey night in Pittsburgh!” he would announce during a career that chronicled Mario Lemieux, Sid Crosby and the history of the franchise in Pittsburgh. A Hockey Hall of Famer …

Lange, Maher, Garber, Linaberger, Bowers, Burnett, Wettick, Effort, Gaines, Veale, Rayvid, Blank Read More »

Profiles

What Do I Know? Dr. José-Alain Sahel

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in Tlemcen, Algeria, a small city on the border with Morocco. My family is Jewish, of Spanish ancestry, and had been in Algeria for centuries. Both sides of my family were poor and struggled often just to eat. My grandfather on my father’s side was severely injured during World War II and …

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Books Culture History Profiles

Pittsburgh’s Mal Goode: Television’s First Black Broadcaster

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

On Oct. 28, 1962, the three major television networks interrupted their scheduled programs to broadcast a special report on what would become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was a critical moment not only in American history, but also in the integration of American broadcasting. Just a few months earlier, ABC, at the urging …

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