Profiles Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

I was born in Pittsburgh on May 6, 1989. My grandma still lives here. When I was young, we moved around a lot because my dad, Craig Heyward, played 11 years in the NFL for five different teams. When I was 6, we moved to Atlanta so that my dad could play for the Falcons, …

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Profiles

Karla Boos: “All the World’s a Stage”

by Jeff Sewald

As a kid, I lived in Wheeling, W.Va., but I wasn’t born there. My dad worked for Titanium Metals Corporation and, before Wheeling, we moved a couple of times around the country to places where Timet plants were located. I was 10 when we settled in Wheeling, so I think of myself as a West …

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Profiles

Just Askin’… Carey Harris

by PQ Staff

Q: What’s the most interesting thing about your job? A: The most interesting and rewarding part of my job is bearing witness to the tremendous resilience of our students, who I like to call “never give uppers.” These adults have faced enormous barriers to education, well-being and wholeness, yet they keep pushing forward. They are …

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Profiles

Just Askin’… Steven Knapp

by PQ Staff

Q: What’s the most interesting thing about your job? A: Sadly, I was only on the job for six weeks before the pandemic forced us to close our four museums to the public! But I was in the buildings long enough to begin to appreciate the striking differences between the formal kind of education to …

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Profiles

When Mother Came to Pittsburgh

by Jim Roddey

In late 2001, I visited mother in Texas. She was 98 and living alone in the same condominium overlooking Corpus Christi Bay where she had been for 45 years. My stepfather and almost all her friends were gone, and I was there to persuade her to come to Pittsburgh. She had lost most of her …

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Profiles

Ken Gormley: Lawyer, Teacher and Author

by Jeff Sewald

I was the first person in my family to be born in Pittsburgh. My brothers and sisters have always said that this accounts for my “irrational” loyalty to the city. My dad grew up on a farm in Kentucky and was the odd person in his family—the one who left home to get a Ph.D. …

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Profiles

Vision and Action: A Remembrance of Paul O’Neill

by Douglas Heuck

I first met Paul O’Neill 23 years ago. I was running a project at the Post-Gazette called PG Benchmarks, which compared Pittsburgh to regions across the country with the goal of elevating Pittsburgh’s moribund trajectory. Aside from publishing statistics and stories, we held periodic roundtable discussions, the first of which was on the economy. I …

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Profiles

Just Askin’… Sabrina Saunders Mosby

by PQ Staff

Q: What’s the most interesting thing about your job? A: My work involves a personal commitment to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the region’s workforce. It means working with companies beyond just checking boxes and making statements about diversity. One of the most interesting aspects of my job is being able to move from …

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Profiles

Jim Roddey, Business Executive and Community Leader

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1933, when the city was still pretty small, and lived with my parents in a little house at the foot of a mountain. My father was the comptroller for the city but, more importantly, he was a passionate ham radio operator, and a lover of electronics—and flying. …

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Profiles

Tim Smith, Pastor and Founder of Center of Life

by Jeff Sewald

My mother’s name was Emma Liaura Muskelly and my father’s name was Virlie—Virlie Joseph Smith. Mom was from Pittsburgh, one of nine children, and worked in many of the schools that my siblings and I attended, tutoring, doing teacher’s-aide stuff, and lunchroom work. Dad was from Virginia, a little place about 45 minutes from Roanoke …

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Profiles

Randy Gilson, Genius of the Human Spirit

by Jeff Sewald

Life began for me on January 27, 1957, in Titusville, Pennsylvania. My dad was from there and my mom came from a dairy farm in Mercer. She was a little country girl who loved to play the accordion, and she’d always go down to the tent revival meetings because she also loved Jesus. That’s where …

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Profiles

To Bail or Not to Bail

by Jennifer Papale Rignani

The president of the Pennsylvania Bail Bond Association is not straight out of central casting. His wife and young daughters write children’s books, and he’s sipped a lot of tea at imaginary princess parties. Matter of fact, he looks more like an underwear model than a tough guy who meets criminals in the dead of …

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Profiles

Farnam Jahanian, President of Carnegie Mellon University

by Jeff Sewald

I am an immigrant. I left my family’s home in Iran, as so many immigrants have, to pursue an education. My family hails from Tehran, and all of my siblings—five in total, all older—went to college in either Europe or the U.S. But I decided to begin my journey at age 16, and traveled from …

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Profiles

Compassion, Mindfulness and Resilience

by Douglas Heuck

A native of California, Dr. Barry Kerzin is a Buddhist monk and the physician to the Dalai Lama. He sat down with Pittsburgh Quarterly to discuss his recent visit to Pittsburgh. Q. You’re here to work with many of UPMC’s 16,000 nurses for training in compassion, mindfulness and resilience. How do you do this? A. …

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Profiles

Chin Music

by Evan Pattak

In late August 2018, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill peduto looked at his calendar and was pleased to notice a rarity—a nine-day break without a scheduled public appearance. He celebrated his unusually long vacation in an unusual way. [ngg src=”galleries” ids=”153″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″] “I didn’t shave during those nine days,” he recalls.“ I made a conscious decision …

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Profiles

Consensus Builder

by Jonathan Callard

Mark Nordenberg’s cell phone lights up. He smiles to see a call from Herb Douglas, the oldest living African-American Olympic medalist and a University of Pittsburgh alum. Douglas hails from Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, where some community advocates raise questions about how residents will fare amidst the mammoth Hazelwood Green development project currently under construction. “Are …

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Profiles

John Kasich, Government Leader

by Jeff Sewald

I was born and raised in Mckees Rocks, Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh. It was a working-class, blue-collar town, but it was a positive place. I loved it there. As a kid, I played a lot of sports, and learned a great deal from that, about working together and trying hard. I was also blessed …

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Profiles

Pittsburgh’s Leading Newswoman

by Kate Benz

It is a hot, unbearably humid day in late August. There are two LED lights, a heavy, Sony XD camera mounted on a tripod and one monitor propped up on the Baughman Trail in Ohiopyle, just beyond the old train station. Mosquitos relentless, sun managing to beat down through a thick canopy of trees, crickets …

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Profiles

Ageless Wisdom: Abraham Twerski, 87

by Douglas Heuck

Try and find happiness in everything. And that’s not easy. There are a lot of things that cause you misery. Right now I’m disabled in a wheelchair. I’m dependent on other people for so many things. I don’t like being dependent on people. But I still try and find some happiness in that. I once …

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Profiles

Ageless Wisdom: Thaddeus Mosley, 92

by John Beale

Thaddeus Mosley, 92, talks about his work as a sculptor and living a life of contentment. The secret to longevity? Good luck and good genes. I’m lucky that I’ve had good health for most of my life… The biggest thrill, or the most excitement comes from when you conceive of an idea and you work …

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Profiles

Ageless Wisdom: Cyril Wecht, 87

by John Beale

In part five of this video series, Cyril Wecht, age 87, shares his path to forensic pathology and discusses what is important in life. The secret to longevity? It’s probably genetics, over which I have no control. My father and mother, who were immigrants, lived beyond their life expectancy, despite the very hard work they …

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Profiles

Ageless Wisdom: Patricia Wilde, 90

by John Beale

In part four of this video series, Patricia Wilde, age 90, talks about how she entered the world of ballet and her experiences with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. I was born in the countryside outside of Ottawa, Canada and there were five of us in the family. The first part of the family were all …

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