People Archives - Page 20 of 21 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Head of the class Read More »

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 …

Randy Pausch: The Expert in Time

Randy Pausch: The Expert in Time Read More »

Thirteen years ago, a young assistant professor at the University of Virginia shared his time management techniques with graduate teaching assistants and fellow faculty members. They all wanted to get ahead—get tenure—and still have time for their friends and family. Peppered with aphorisms, the talk would have made Ben Franklin proud. It wasn’t the work …

Dye, Burgess, Coonelly, Sadovsky, Wafer, Zubik, Lamoureux, Sarro, Mellah

Dye, Burgess, Coonelly, Sadovsky, Wafer, Zubik, Lamoureux, Sarro, Mellah Read More »

Robert Dye is vice president and senior economist for The PNC Financial Services Group. Dye came to PNC from Philadelphia, where he was vice president and econometrician, analyzing the economy and commercial real estate markets for Realpoint, a division of Capmark Investments. He has also been senior economist for Moodys.com and Wharton Econometrics.Dye is a …

Miller, Rogal, Tannehill, Schmidt, Woodruff, Levinson

Miller, Rogal, Tannehill, Schmidt, Woodruff, Levinson Read More »

Eliza Miller, 92: She was an artist who was best known for her sculptures in steel but whose large, ceramic works can be found in local schools and playgrounds. She was born into a prominent family, and her grandfather designed a famous steel mill in Homestead, which he named after her — the Eliza Furnace. …

Consol CEO: J. Brett Harvey Read More »

Consol CEO: J. Brett Harvey

by John Buckman

If you find yourself driving east across Pennsylvania on I-80 and want to take a detour to the mining industry’s grim past, consider taking the tour at the Lackawanna Mine near Scranton. First opened in the 1860s and active until 1966, the sprawling underground maze of tunnels gives sobering insight into the wrenching conditions miners faced. …

Abraham J. Twerski, Psychiatrist and Rabbi Read More »

Abraham J. Twerski, Psychiatrist and Rabbi

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in Milwaukee where my father was a rabbi. Two of my brothers were six and eight years older than I and were off to yeshiva when I was about 7. My younger brothers weren’t born until I was 8. So I was a lonely child. Not only didn’t I have siblings with …

Saunders, Gibson, Dietz, Perkins, Nollen, Astorga, Dayan, Suver, Wright

Saunders, Gibson, Dietz, Perkins, Nollen, Astorga, Dayan, Suver, Wright Read More »

Thomas D. Saunders is the new president and CEO of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Saunders was most recently in Gainesville, Fla., where he was community development director for the city for the past 10 years, directing planning, growth management, redevelopment, housing, historic preservation and neighborhood planning.Prior to that, he directed the Maryland Environmental Trust, a …

McCullough, Chiodo, Boesel, Bernard, Moore, Wargo, Hansen, Prosser, Aiken

McCullough, Chiodo, Boesel, Bernard, Moore, Wargo, Hansen, Prosser, Aiken Read More »

C. Hax McCullough Jr., 81 McCullough was a writer and a great advocate for Pittsburgh. His projects often included supporting the arts, and he wrote histories of the Pittsburgh Symphony, opera in Pittsburgh, West Penn Hospital, The Pittsburgh Golf Club and corporate histories.He had a love for music which began as a youngster in Point …

It’s a Book Thing Read More »

It’s a Book Thing

by Karen Lillis

Ten or 15 years ago, a story about Pittsburgh’s “independent” bookstores wouldn’t have made much sense. “When we opened in 1990, there was just the Borders in South Hills,” says Richard Goldman, co-owner of Mystery Lovers’ Bookshop. Now the Pittsburgh area supports 18 of what Goldman calls “the chain superstores,” doing an estimated 80 percent …

Heinz CEO: Bill Johnson Read More »

Heinz CEO: Bill Johnson

by John Buckman

Quick, name the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic. It’s not easy to follow greatness, whether genuine or self appointed. William R. Johnson, CEO of The H.J. Heinz Company since 1998, has had to do it twice in his life, first as the son of an NFL player and coach and then as …

The gift of opportunity

The gift of opportunity Read More »

In October, one of Pittsburgh’s children is coming home and throwing a big party. That child is the Carnegie Corp. of New York and the “party” is a two-day celebration of the most recent winners of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. The biennial event, the Nobel Prize of philanthropy, has honored the titans of the …

Thomas Hales: The Proof of the Proof Read More »

Thomas Hales: The Proof of the Proof

by Jennifer Bails

The message went out without fanfare on a quiet summer morning. Thomas Hales finally was done—or so it seemed. Near collapse, he e-mailed his colleagues announcing that he had achieved the impossible. After more than a decade of work, Hales had completed a proof of the Kepler conjecture, a centuries-old conundrum about how best to …

Rich Engler, Music Promoter and Entrepreneur Read More »

Rich Engler, Music Promoter and Entrepreneur

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in New Kensington, Pa., and grew up in Creighton, across the river. My father was a glass worker at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. My mother worked for the county. I studied art education at Youngstown State, then at Carnegie Mellon. I was also playing in a band and began to see …

His Last Resort Read More »

His Last Resort

by Mark DeSantis

I don’t want to be mayor of Pittsburgh. I want to change Pittsburgh forever, and I’m convinced the best way to do that is as mayor. There are, however, other ways to make our city better. You could work for an extraordinary politician who cares for this city like no other place on earth. You …

Lane, Meachem, Anderson, Keeler, LaCasse, Gleason, Gunther, Howard

Lane, Meachem, Anderson, Keeler, LaCasse, Gleason, Gunther, Howard Read More »

Linda S. Lane is the deputy superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. A 2003 classmate of Superintendent Mark Roosevelt at Broad Superintendents Academy, she comes to Pittsburgh from Des Moines, Iowa, where she was deputy superintendent of the Des Moines Public Schools.She was the first female and minority to serve as Des Moines’ chief operating …

Bickel, Nickel, Magobern, Rhoades, Elmer, Lerner, Anderson

Bickel, Nickel, Magobern, Rhoades, Elmer, Lerner, Anderson Read More »

Minnette Bickel, 85: A national award-winning portrait artist, Bickel painted hundreds of portraits of notable Pittsburghers and national figures. She would get a feel for the subject and then be guided by intuition. She was among the founders of Carnegie Museum’s Women’s Committee and was known as a charming, friendly and stylish person. Elbie Nickel, …

Westinghouse CEO: Steve Tritch Read More »

Westinghouse CEO: Steve Tritch

by John Buckman

We Pittsburghers have had our share of recent good news/bad news upon which we can pontificate over summer cocktails — the challenge of population loss vs. the glory of again being the most livable city. We can also prattle on about our region’s CEOs — better they be homebred or global business stars? With Westinghouse Electric’s …

Sullivan, Wright, Kindler, Tomlin, Balzano, Brubach, Paternostro, Palmer, Honeck

Sullivan, Wright, Kindler, Tomlin, Balzano, Brubach, Paternostro, Palmer, Honeck Read More »

Mark L. Sullivan is vice chairman and chief financial officer of recently formed TriState Capital Bank. He has been a leader in the financial services industry for more than 35 years, starting at Price Waterhouse, where be eventually became partner. In Philadelphia most recently, he served as a member of Ernst & Young’s Partner Advisory …

Anatomy of a Rescue Read More »

Anatomy of a Rescue

by Maxwell King

On the first morning of November, I walked down the long slope from my house in Squirrel Hill to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland for a meeting of foundation leaders to do what people in my position do so many times each week: Assess the merits of a proposal to fund a worthy …

Lewis, Becker, McCarl, Shafer, Giddens, Frick, Jacobs, Fowkes, Campbell

Lewis, Becker, McCarl, Shafer, Giddens, Frick, Jacobs, Fowkes, Campbell Read More »

Raymond P. Shafer, 89: Pennsylvania’s Republican governor from 1967 to 1971, Shafer of Meadville extended the legislative term to two years, made Pennsylvania the first state to allow public workers to unionize and tried unsuccessfully to institute income taxes.He later chaired a national commission on drugs, which recommended the Nixon administration legalize possession of small …