People Archives - Page 19 of 21 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Until the spring of 1944, Hungary’s pre-war population of 700,000 Jews remained largely unscathed. Hungarian Regent Nicholas Horthy had resisted Hitler’s calls for the deportation of Hungarian Jews into the killing maw at Auschwitz/Birkenau, 175 miles north of Budapest. Then, on March 19, 1944 Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to occupy Hungary. By July, 437,000 Hungarian …

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Profiles

Mission of Mercy

by Bette McDevitt

When UPMC health systems purchased Mercy Hospital last year, the future of one of Pittsburgh’s most historic institutions became assured just as new questions arose. With the sale, the Sisters of Mercy received a sum that, after expenses, totaled $88 million. With their 160-year affiliation with the hospital ending, members of the order asked themselves how they …

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Profiles

Barbara Luderowski, The Mattress Factory

by Jeff Sewald

I arrived in Pittsburgh about the same time that Columbus arrived in America. Actually, it was in 1972, or thereabouts. I was driving through, hustling my work, and stopped at Pittsburgh History & Landmarks to try to interest them in a garden I wanted to design for them. That didn’t work out. But they gave …

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Obituaries

Semple, Burns, Ellis, Simon, Phillips

by PQ Staff

Dock Ellis, 63 One of baseball’s most colorful, controversial and bizarre figures, Ellis was a Pittsburgh Pirates star, who once pitched a no-hitter on LSD. In an era of social upheaval, Ellis was branded a militant by the media because of his vocal advocacy for racial equality. His 1970 no-hitter came about after he had …

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Profiles

Jack Perkowski, ASIMCO Technologies

by Jeff Sewald

Like so many others in the Pittsburgh area, my grandparents on both sides emigrated from Poland to the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Think about the journey they made. They were going to a place about which they knew nothing. They didn’t know the language. It must have been very …

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Arrivals

Gibbons, Waite, Hansen, Ashburner, Benedict, Humar, Kiehn

by PQ Staff

David P. Gibbons will become the president of UPMC Northwest, in Seneca, Venango County. He comes to western Pennsylvania from Voorhees, N.J., where he was vice president of operations for the Kennedy Health System’s three hospitals.Before joining Kennedy in 1997, he was director of managed care for the Visiting Nurses Association of Greater Philadelphia; regional …

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Arrivals

Everingham, Pollock, Bovbjerg, Jenkins, Hiller, Scarlett-Smith, Thompson

by PQ Staff

Susan Everingham is director of the RAND Corporation’s Pittsburgh office. She joined RAND in 1988 and, since 2004, has been director of international programs, comprising the centers for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Russian Eurasia policy.From 2000 to 2005, she directed RAND’s program of military personnel research for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. …

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Obituaries

Melodia, Cai, Jaffurs, Sittsamer, Lee, Edmunds, Healy, Packer

by PQ Staff

Mario Melodia, 78 He returned to Pittsburgh from Broadway, building a career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. He danced and choreographed for national audiences but left his biggest mark as a teacher of dancers of all stripes, launching the careers of many.He had a dance studio Downtown, taught for more than three decades at …

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Profiles

Mark Roosevelt, Superintendent

by Jeff Sewald

My interest in educational reform started when I was in the legislature in Massachusetts. I was lucky enough, as a young legislator, to be offered the chairmanship of the Education Committee. The Speaker of the House brought me in and said, “I want you to look at how Massachusetts funds and runs its public schools …

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Obituaries

Donovan, Morris, Hattler, Schloss, Pausch, Pidgeon, Diven, Witter, Handy, Harmeier, Jones, White

by PQ Staff

Bishop Edward V. Donovan, 76 After working as a metallurgist with U.S. Steel for 20 years, Edward Donovan turned to religion, forming a prayer group that ultimately broke away from the Catholic Church and became the Community of the Crucified One.Under Bishop Donovan’s leadership, the Community grew to include its own priests and nuns and …

Donovan, Morris, Hattler, Schloss, Pausch, Pidgeon, Diven, Witter, Handy, Harmeier, Jones, White Read More »

Profiles

Riverlife CEO: Lisa Schroeder

by John Buckman

For people who know about such things, Martin Millspaugh is legend. A former Washington, D.C., journalist who specialized in covering housing and urban development issues, Millspaugh was one of the early movers behind the renewal of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. For some 20 years, he chaired a public-private corporation in his hometown that managed the $7 …

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Profiles

Family is Everything

by Mark Miner

As part of our city’s 250 celebration, organizers encouraged Pittsburghers to hold family reunions and bring people to Pittsburgh to showcase “America’s Most Livable City.” And so,I followed suit, inviting my family to come to the Heinz History Center in June for a family reunion. Admittedly, there’s nothing as boring as someone else’s family. Yet …

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Profiles

Manfred Honeck, Music Director

by Jeff Sewald

I came to Pittsburgh in 2006 originally just to be a guest conductor for the symphony orchestra. I didn’t know at the time that they were looking for a music director. I really had no idea about it. When I arrived at the Pittsburgh airport, I noticed something that stayed with me. Two nuns were …

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Arrivals

Reeves, Spence, Johnson, Halevy, Gellman, Griffin, Chamberlain, Fouts

by PQ Staff

Todd S. Reeves is executive director and superintendent of the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. He comes to Pittsburgh from the Washington School for the Deaf in Vancouver, where he was superintendent.A native of Eugene, OR, Reeves began as a speech and language pathologist and teacher, and later served as director of special education …

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Obituaries

Purkey, Martin, Forrester, Beckwith, Lacey, Jones, Horan

by PQ Staff

Lee H. Lacey, 89: For nearly 30 years, Lacey was the president and CEO of Harmarville Rehabilitation Center. During his tenure, the facility, now part of HealthSouth, nearly tripled in capacity and changed from a home for poor mothers into a state-of-the-art center for people recovering from debilitating sicknesses and injuries. Robert T. Purkey, 78 …

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Arrivals

Taylor, Singleton, McGarry, Gideon, Rademacher, Littrell, Cooper, Wood

by PQ Staff

Samuel M. Taylor is the Director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where he worked early in his career. A marine biologist and science educator by training, Taylor has been a museum consultant for the past eight years in New Jersey.Previously, he was chairman and curator of the education department at the California Academy …

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Profiles

The Path to Leadership

by Aradna Dhanda

We have all heard more times than we can count how Pittsburgh can be its own worst enemy; how we as a region defeat ourselves through low self-esteem and low expectations, and how we just need to start believing in ourselves again. Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge our community for struggling …

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Profiles

Paul O’Neill (1935–2020)

by Jeff Sewald

Facts and knowledge have always been important to me, in government and in business. I believe that it is my duty to either know the answers or to know where to get the answers fast if an important decision must be made. I first entered government when John Kennedy was president, and I was there …

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Arrivals

Hessinger, Olivia, Price, Huntington, Sroufe, Skleder, Vagt, Patel, Mullen

by PQ Staff

Linda Hossinger is senior vice president of Comcast’s Three Rivers region. She has been with Comcast for the past 15 years, most recently as senior vice president for the Michigan region. In her current post, she replaces Doug Sansom and is responsible for a workforce of 2,400 serving 850,000 customers in four states, including Southwestern …

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Obituaries

Stanish, Vargo, DePasquale, Cope, Holmes, Cain

by PQ Staff

Rudolph B. Stanish, 94: Stanish was known as the “Omelet King” for cooking for such personages as JFK, Paul Mellon, Goldman Sachs and Marilyn Monroe. The Yukon, Westmoreland County native was sent as a teenager to Newport, R.I., where he began his career as a domestic worker. After working in the kitchen, he soon became …

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Profiles

Tech Council CEO: Audrey Russo

by John Buckman

You can take a New Yorker out of New York, but not, to measure by new Pittsburgh Technology. With a beguiling feistiness and enough self-confidence to fill up a hotel ballroom at a Tech Council Breakfast Briefing, the Nassau County native has set ambitious goals for the 25-year-old, 1,400 companies member trade association. She rattles …

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Profiles

Head of the class

by Reid R. Frazier

Ben Gordon sits in his sparse office, with its bright fluorescents, the textbooks on the shelf, the dry-erase board smudged with equations and graphs. He is talking thermodynamics right now and how power plants are really “just huge engines,” but just a few minutes ago, he was talking about the guys he once called friends …

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