business Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

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 …

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History

Andrew W. Mellon: Building a Banking Empire

by William S. Dietrich II

The year was 1866. With monotonous regularity, an older man and a little boy boarded the train in East Liberty for the short run downtown. The older man, attired in a long-tailed frock coat and a high-starched wing collar, spoke to the boy about matters of consequence; he spoke to him as an adult. The …

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Opinion

The Revelation of China

by PQ Staff

To be in China now must be like witnessing the construction of the pyramids. In Beijing, the world’s most powerful totalitarian regime is preparing for next year’s Olympics. Shanghai, a garden of skyscrapers, is getting ready for the 2010 World’s Fair. New highways, airports, power plants, dams and towers are fueled by China’s $1 trillion-plus …

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Innovation

No cubicles

by Parker Snyder

If any company represents creativity, success and a new paradigm, it’s Google. With an Internet advertising model that’s revolutionizing the industry and racking up money click by click, Google’s methods and its market cap represent a wish list for many companies. Its recent opening of an office in Pittsburgh was an easy decision for the …

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Opinion

Say What?

by Chris Allison

If you think it’s hard understanding a George Will editorial, you ought to spend time with the technology intelligentsia as they evaluate a prospective investment in a start-up company. Every industry has its own vernacular, but this gang can befuddle the most erudite among us. Show me the money: names for start-up investors In the …

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Business

Backstage with Springsteen

by Sanford Neiman

It was Christmas 1978, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were playing at Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theater. A mutual friend asked my wife to relay a message to sax player “Big Man” Clarence Clemons and ask him to call her. We had a notion of who Bruce was but had never heard of Clarence. …

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Arrivals

Arrivals: Fall ’06

by PQ Staff

John R. Price is president and CEO of Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. He is a Rhodes Scholar, who earned advanced degrees in development economics and diplomatic history from Queens College at Oxford University. He is also a graduate of Harvard Law School. During the first Nixon Administration, Price succeeded the late Daniel Patrick …

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Opinion

Whatever Happened to the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit?

by Chris Allison

In 1955, Sloan Wilson wrote a groundbreaking novel on the trials of working in the 1950s. “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” became a hit film starring Gregory Peck and tells the story of how a young executive works tirelessly in what would become known as the white-collar world. Wilson’s protagonists are Tom and …

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Business

An American Lawyer in China

by Dennis Unkovic

Twenty years ago I visited China for the first time, and my view of the world changed forever. This took me by surprise. I had studied China at the University of Virginia as part of a lifelong fascination with the country and its people, and I mistakenly thought I “understood” China. I came to realize …

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Opinion

The Pennsylvania Society

by Douglas Heuck

The setting could hardly have been more festive: New York City at Christmas with its crowds, carols, shopping, bright lights and snow. No wonder then that Pennsylvania politicos and business seekers by the thousands tore themselves away for the 107th annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Society. As they roamed through the Waldorf-Astoria seeking the next …

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