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16
Sharon McDaniel
Age
39
| Executive director, A Second
Chance
Sharon McDaniel
always knew that she would be a child-welfare advocate.
"In my
own kinship foster care, I had a lot of positive role models,"
says the Churchill resident. "Many social workers are working
with kids in a positive way, but you just don't hear the good things."
Employed in
the child-welfare arena for more than 17 years, McDaniel has served
as a caseworker, supervisor and court liaison for Allegheny County
Children, Youth and Family Services, and for the Black Adoption
Services Program of the Three Rivers Adoption Council.
In 1994 she
founded A Second Chance Inc., the nation's only agency focused solely
on kinship care, i.e. foster care provided by a family member other
than a parent. At first, she recalls, she thought the organization
would have "about 350 kids in the first year." Instead,
there were 350 cases in the first three months.
"Clearly,
there's a demand," she says. "The benefit of kinship foster
care and adoption is that it lessens the trauma involved. The child
will be placed close to where they live, with siblings, aunts, uncles,
grandparents or whoever is a related, extended-family member."
McDaniel in
1997 headed to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale to
earn her doctorate in organizational leadership and behavior. "I
realized that I had to work positively with such a diverse list
of people, including the difficult political climate," she
says.
The Allegheny
County Office of Children, Youth and Families has recognized the
benefit of children staying within families, and through its relationship
with A Second Chance looks first to relatives when placing a child.
That's good news for McDaniel. "To see how the quality of life
improves for these kids is remarkable," she says. "It's
why I get up every day."
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19
Patty Jaconetta
Age
32
| Education specialist, Carnegie
Museum of Art
Patty Jaconetta
spends each day surrounded by art, but she's not an artist. The
Squirrel Hill resident works behind the scenes to make the Carnegie
Museum of Art a great place to visit and learn.
Jaconetta's
job focuses on adult tours of the museum (another staff member handles
the tours for children and teachers). Most of her time is spent
training the volunteer docents that conduct tours at the museum,
although she does do some tours herself. Docent training is an involved
process, consisting of art-history classes (with a focus on the
museum's collection), education and museum education theory, and
various practice tours.
"Our aim
is to facilitate discussions [on the tours]," says Jaconetta.
"What we're after on tours are life-altering experiences."
Since earning
her master's degree in art history and art criticism at the State
University of New York at Stonybrook, Jaconetta has worked at the
Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and she spent time at the Warhol
Foundation in New York City developing educational programming for
the Andy Warhol Museum before its opening.
Jaconetta is
also an adjunct instructor of art history at Duquesne University
(her alma mater) in the School of Leadership and Professional Advancement,
a continuing-education program for adults.
"It is
an inspiring job," says Jaconetta.
When not working,
Jaconetta spends a lot of time with art, especially contemporary
visual art. She says she is "very immersed" in the arts
community in Pittsburgh. Her goal is training a new group of docents
and providing a fantastic experience for the museum's 20,000 visitors
a year.
"I feel
that this is what I want to be doing and where I want to be doing
it."
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22
Marla Werner
Age
26 | Project director, Shalom Pittsburgh,
United Jewish Federation
Growing up
in Monroeville, Marla Werner considered Pittsburgh a totally different
city and didn't think it had a whole lot to offer.
After graduating
from the University of Rhode Island, she came back, completed the
Pittsburgh Regional Alliance Pittsburgh Champions course, and completely
changed her mind. She started volunteering with the United Jewish
Federation, chairing the precursor to Shalom Pittsburgh: the UJF
Newcomers Committee, now part of Shalom Pittsburgh. Very quickly,
a constant stream of human-resources directors began calling.
"When
Glen Meakem of Freemarkets called to say that he had a top candidate
who was unsure of the Jewish community experience that might be
available for him here, we knew we had something," the Squirrel
Hill resident says. "The Jewish community is very tied into
the broader community. We work very closely with PUMP and other
groups to ensure that we are not a stand-alone."
Werner has
been known to be happily aggressive in convincing young professionals
to move here, saying she has to compete with 10 other cities on
any given day. This fall, Werner will hit the road to those other
places armed with index charts, pictures and spreadsheets, presenting
them to a huge list of Jewish professionals compiled by calling
local grandmothers, siblings and parents.
"We are
going to go get them and show them that they can work and live here
and love it."
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17
Keith Gardner
Age
29
| Controller, Applebee's Restaurants
Keith
Gardner is making a difference by being a good example. As a successful
black man, Gardner says, he feels that young black men need to see
more people like him.
The
Edgewood resident is controller of an Applebee's restaurant franchise
in the region, with 11 restaurants plus one coming next month. The
job title means he handles all the accounting for the franchise.
And he believes strongly in mentoring.
"It's
something I have a love for," says Gardner. "It's important
to reach back."
Gardner
wouldn't have got through Westinghouse High School or received his
accounting and business-administration degrees from Thiel College
in 1993 without his mentor, William Thompkins, then-vice president
of the Urban League of Pittsburgh.
"There
isn't a decision in my life that he didn't give his blessing on,"
says Gardner. It was also through his mentor that Gardner got involved
with the Pittsburgh Council on Public Education, a citywide organization
that works to ensure every Pittsburgh child gets a high-quality
education. He got involved in 1996 as co-chair of PCPE's Innovation
in Teaching Grants program. He helped to develop and plan PCPE's
new annual event, the Gold Star Awards Celebrating Leadership in
Public Education (he's still on the committee and is a presenter).
Gardner
also spends time mentoring high school students at Westinghouse.
"I
like to be involved with youth," says Gardner. "I'm a
product of the Pittsburgh public schools."
As
for the future, Gardner says he would like to put his business skills
to work as an entrepreneur -- maybe by opening a restaurant of his
own -- and help Pittsburgh in the process.
"I want to be part of the renaissance that's happening now."
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20
Jay Katarincic
Age
36 | Managing director, Draper Triangle
Ventures
As managing
director of Draper Triangle Ventures, a $55 million venture fund
he founded in 1997 to focus on investing in early-stage technology
companies here, Jay Katarincic downplays the terms "tech boom"
and "bust."
"Luckily,
Pittsburgh's conservatism served a good purpose," explains
the Fox Chapel resident. "Most of the tech companies here have
been managed more conservatively. That's why we've had only one
or two huge successes, but that's also why we haven't had tons of
empty office buildings."
Citing his
most successful investment, he notes that Carnegie Learning is a
prime example of the lasting work that regional companies do. The
educational technology firm is "employing close to 100 people
and is not only profitable for the owners," he continues, "but
has revolutionized the way children learn math." Algebra students,
for example, work with "intelligent" software that helps
them with their weak areas.
Such entrepreneurship
has not always been easy. "Pittsburgh was and is to some degree
a very difficult place for young people," says Katarincic,
who moved back to Pittsburgh from New York in 1994.
"The establishment
is very close-knit, and the business world is difficult to crack
until your hair turns gray."
Things have
begun to change, he says. Respect is starting to be based on ability
rather than age, with the tech boom skewed much younger. Katarincic
says the biggest turning point was when he decided to found his
investment company.
"I realized
that when I went out on my own, I found more like-minded people."
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18
Kacey Marra
Age
31
| Research scientist, Carnegie
Mellon University's Institute for Complex Engineered Systems; and
faculty member in biomedical and health engineering and in materials
science and engineering at CMU
If you ever
have bone-related health problems in the future, remember to thank
Kacey Marra for the solution. Marra is not a physician. She's a
research scientist at CMU's Institute for Complex Engineered Systems,
where her specialty is tissue engineering biomaterials, specifically
bone substitutes.
For the past
four years, the Houston, Washington County, native has been working
on polymers that can be implanted into the human body and then melt
away over time as the body produces its own natural replacements.
"The environment
is so ripe for this field of tissue engineering," says Marra.
And Marra is a leader in it. She has one U.S. patent (and two pending)
for her research and has been winning awards since 1994, when she
was a finalist in the Sherwin Williams Student Award Competition.
"I knew
in seventh grade that I was going to be a chemist," says Marra.
She earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.
While there, she was funded by the U.S. Navy to study the use of
polyurethanes to prevent barnacles from clinging to aircraft carriers.
A colleague approached her, hoping to use her polymer research in
his biomedical study, and Marra was hooked.
When not working
on biomedical breakthroughs, Marra spends time with her husband,
Bill, and her two children, Ethan and Leeanna, and their dog, Scarlett.
As a side business,
she has started an online biomaterials consulting business. Marra
is also involved with outreach programs at CMU in which girls from
area public schools come to CMU to be introduced to engineering
as a study and a career. She takes pride in showing the girls that
they can be scientists and successfully balance work and family.
While most
of her time at CMU is spent in research, Marra did design and teach
one course during the spring term this year. "I loved it,"
she says. "These CMU students are so incredibly bright."
She hopes to
teach more classes in the future and has no plans for leaving CMU
or Pittsburgh.
"It's
a great time to be in Pittsburgh," Marra says.
Biomaterials
Consultant.
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21
Diane Cencarik Walter
Age 28 | Founder, Pittsburgh chapter of Webgrrls
International
Diane Cencarik
Walter enjoys being a grrl -- a webgrrl, that is. Walter founded
the Webgrrls International's Pittsburgh chapter, geared toward providing
women in or interested in new media and technology with the chance
to network, exchange job and business leads, form strategic alliances,
mentor and teach, intern and learn skills to help women succeed
in an increasingly technical world.
While working
for Lycos in New York several years ago, Walter made networking
connections, learned new skills like HTML and code (her degrees
were in journalism and communication) and moved to more technical
jobs.
The Munhall
native moved back to Pittsburgh because of her job with the company,
but when Lycos left, she stayed. But she couldn't find a group like
Webgrrls to fill her networking and skill-building needs. So she
made one.
"There
was no group like it," says Walter. "It filled up a void."
The Pittsburgh
chapter's first meeting, in 1996 in the Beehive Coffeehouse on the
South Side, was attended by six women. The group now has 60 paid
members and 230 women on its mailing list, from high school girls
to e-executives to homemakers.
Pittsburgh
Webgrrls arranges speakers on various topics and hosts networking
session. Each month, the group features a class on Internet and
new media.
"People
have gotten better jobs because of this group," says Walter.
The Shadyside resident lost her job as online marketing manager
at Blattner Brunner at the end of the summer, but she's taking it
in stride.
She plans on
devoting more time to her pursuit of an M.B.A. at the Katz Graduate
School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. But one thing is certain:
She'll stay involved with Pittsburgh Webgrrls.
"It's
a comfortable, little tech community for women," she says.
"This is a supportive environment."
Pittsburgh
Webgrrls:
$55 annual membership. 412/665-2965.
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