November 2002

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Dara Ware Allen | Age 30
Director, Educational Opportunity Centers of Southwestern Pennsylvania

"It's never been a thought -- it's something that was instilled in me -- that you give back," Dara Ware Allen replies when asked why she is so involved. "I'm part of a community, so it's something you just do."

Allen grew up in Wilkinsburg and developed her sense of duty from her family. Her mother, Lucy Ware, is a teacher; her father, Samuel Ware, became a minister later in life, and her brother, Kamau Ware, founded Bridgespotters, a performing arts collective.

Allen directs the Educational Opportunity Centers of Southwestern Pennsylvania, based in Penn State's McKeesport campus, part of a federally supported national network that provides resources and guidance to open up college opportunities to low-income, first-generation students, primarily adults.

"It really does make an impact on families, when you work with one person going to college," she says. "It [affects] the whole family. It's never just about [the student]." Before that, Allen was a program manager and job placement coordinator for YouthWorks, an employment placement organization that provides job readiness skills.

Since graduating from the Leadership Development Initiative in 1998, Allen has amassed a long list of community activities: Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, McKeesport Collaborative, YWCA of McKeesport and Pennsylvania Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel. A steward and Sunday school teacher at New Life A.M.E. Church in Homewood, Allen is also a founding member of the Urban League Young Professionals and the only woman on the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board.

"Isn't that funny," Allen giggles when asked how she manages all her activities. "I do try to prioritize what's important to me, and those are things that I stay committed to."

Allen now lives in Highland Park with her husband, Gregory Allen, a counselor for a Pitt's University Challenge for Excellence Program, similar to Penn State's EOC. And she's pursuing a Ph.D. from Penn State University, in workforce education and development.

Louis Malafarina | Age 37
Founder and CEO, Ripple Effects Interactive Inc.

Like another famous French-Canadian transplant, Louis Malafarina came to Pittsburgh and found success in his chosen field.

The Montreal native founded Ripple Effects Interactive Inc., a $5.3 million company that uses interactive technology much as a traditional advertising agency uses traditional media -- to market a company, product or idea. The Oakland-based company provides all phases of interactive marking, including website design; e-mail and banner ad design; development, branding, multimedia development, online marketing strategy and development; application development systems integration and universal accessibility.

Malafarina actually began his career in advertising in Montreal when he "fell in love with the crossroads between technology and marketing." Soon he was off to Silicon Valley to work at Poppe Tyson and later Red Sky Interactive in San Francisco. After working with some Pittsburghers during his time in California, Malafarina decided to open his own shop here in 1998, filling a void he saw in the marketplace. "I thought I could bring something to the table."

Since his arrival, the Shadyside resident has done work for the state (experiencePA. com and hauntedPA.com among others), local band Boxstep and nonprofit interdisciplinary arts organization Sun Crumbs. Other clients have included Coca-Cola's Olympic Torch Relay, Johnson & Johnson, Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse.

And Ripple Effects continues to, well, ripple. The company now has 41 employees, and about two years ago, Malafarina set up Ripple Effects Technologies, a technology spin-off headed by chief technology officer Carl Kelly, formerly of Alcoa and Mellon Bank, to handle the tech side of the business.

Ripple Effects is also in the process of setting up a Philadelphia office, followed someday by a Washington, D.C., office, says Malafarina. And during the economic downturn, Ripple Effects hasn't lost revenue or had to lay off a single employee, he adds.

For now, Malafarina is concentrating on Ripple Effects' continued growth. "We really want to be the No. 1 shop in Pennsylvania," says Malafarina. "I'm enjoying my job tremendously."

Trish Hooper | Age 33
Special investigative projects editor, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

If you sift through a copy of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, you probably aren't going to see McCandless resident Trish Hooper's name or byline. But you'll see her work in just about every investigative piece the paper does. From racial diversity on local juries to a small hospital in Haiti started by Pittsburghers, Hooper keeps a team of professional snoops snooping, wrongdoers in the region on their toes and important stories in the spotlight.

Her career started in high school, when she couldn't bring herself to do a biology class dissection. Her teacher's alternative was that she use the free time to write for the school newspaper.

"I never looked back," Hooper says. She majored in journalism at Kent State University, where she was editor of The Daily Kent Stater. She then worked for the News-Herald in suburban Cleveland before returning to Pittsburgh to work at the Valley News Dispatch in 1992.

"Pittsburghers just have the city in them. When they leave, they want to come back, and I think it's just something that sticks with them."

She started her current job as investigative projects editor with the Trib in 1999. "It just offered a better opportunity to do more investigative work," the Bon Air native explains. "You can make more of a difference here."

She cites a story on the City of Pittsburgh's budget deficits as the one with the most influence. "[City officials] told us we were wrong, wrong, wrong," she says of the 2000 report that found the City of Pittsburgh was accumulating astounding levels of debt. "Now they have a committee looking into their finances. We got everyone talking about it."

Stories she directs with her team of three investigative reporters demand notice. A post-9/11 story about the lax security in chemical plants got national attention and prompted tighter security across the region and the country -- and a bill now in committee in Congress, part of the homeland security bill. A story on Title IX and gender inequalities in high school sports heralded piles of letters from readers thanking Hooper's team for covering the issue.

"I think that we're highlighting issues that haven't been tackled before," says Hooper, "and take an approach to stories that would be most meaningful to readers that they aren't getting from other outlets."

James Richards | Age 37
Founder and president, Managerie Inc.

James Richards makes connections in Pittsburgh's culture. The founder and sole employee of Managerie Inc., a special projects company, specializes in Pittsburgh's arts and entertainment community.

The Wisconsin native runs Managerie from his North Side home while juggling a full-time job running special events at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Squirrel Hill and working on a novel. Richards, who started his professional life in broadcasting with local low-powered television station WNEU-TV, worked on special projects for Horne's department store and Mailboxes Etc. (He was also part of the team that developed the city's Sparkle Season celebrations.)

His free-lance work led to the creation of the Pittsburgh Events website, a comprehensive listing of arts and entertainment events in the region. "I put it online because there was really nothing like it," says Richards.

Launched in 1999, the site currently has an e-mail newsletter list of 1,200 people. From there, Managerie put out the Pittsburgh A&E Book -- a directory of Pittsburgh non- and for-profit arts organizations and free-lance professionals, allowing members of the arts community to find each other. (For example, a musician looking for a local label would turn to the A&E Book.) Managerie's other signature project is lovetheburgh.com, a website that offers members of the arts community a place to offer their CDs, videos, books and other items for sale on consignment.

Richards is now developing a monthly newsletter, Pittsburgh Applause!, with the hopes that it will evolve into a trade publication much like Variety, as well as continuing growing his company. "It [Managerie] helps the arts community communicate with each other," says Richards. "It helps build the cultural infrastructure."

Evan E. Baker | Age 37
Pathologist and Homestead community activist

Dr. Evan Baker's roots in the Mon Valley community run deep, beginning with his great-great-grandfather, Cumberland Posey Sr., a steamboat engineer who transported coal and lived in Homestead. Baker's family has been there ever since, so it's no surprise that the lifelong Homesteader is devoted to the community where he lives with his wife, Sharna, and two children, Lauren, 5, and Evan, 3.

But Baker didn't set out to have a career in politics or community building. He's a surgical pathologist with UPMC St. Margaret and an assistant professor of pathology at his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He was approached by several Homestead community leaders to run for Borough Council in 2000. He did. He won.

In just under three years, he's become president of the Homestead Borough Council and a member of the borough planning commission, Homestead Housing Working Group and three other community organizations. Through those organizations, he is examining how to integrate the main streets of Homestead -- Sixth, Seventh and Eighth avenues -- with the new development of the old Andrew Carnegie Steel site, The Waterfront. Baker describes incorporating the success of that new site with the existing community as "priority No. 1." Ideally, he'd like to introduce small businesses along the main streets that would complement the larger ones in The Waterfront.

"Some day in the future, Homestead will be a destination where you do all of your shopping from a commercial chain to a mom 'n' pop type of store," predicts Baker.
He's also looking at how the extra tax revenue can be used to better the whole community and can help with ongoing community projects. A new housing development with 10 newly constructed homes and 10 revitalized ones is in progress. Sidewalks, parking and streetscapes are being revamped along Sixth and Seventh avenues.

"Since the closing of the steel mills back in the '80s, thing have really gone downhill," Baker says. "Now we're trying to make a comeback and revitalize the community."

Laura R. Zinski | Age 32
CEO, Mon Valley Initiative

What most impressed Laura Zinzki when she bought a Victorian house in Braddock in 1996 was the appearance of a neighbor on her porch with a pie and a warm welcome. Braddock is one of the communities she seeks to improve through the coalition that makes up the Mon Valley Initiative (which comprises Charleroi, Clairton, Duquesne, East Pittsburgh, Glassport, Homestead, Monessen, North Braddock, Swissvale, Turtle Creek, West Newton and Wilmerding).

"The state of these communities, it was just overwhelming when I first got here," Zinzki says. "I really was impressed with the coalition. They are doing something in common to try to find a bigger solution to this and in a grassroots kind of way."
Much of the Mon Valley was devastated economically with the collapse of the steel industry.

Zinski, a native of Canton, Ohio, who came here for grad school (at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon), stepped in as CEO of the Mon Valley Initiative a year ago.

Through programs that revitalize housing, workforce development initiatives and a business loan program, she and others like her have been working to promote the many amenities in the area -- such as the Waterfront multiuse development, Kennywood and the Grandview Golf Course -- to show what Mon Valley communities have to offer.

The Waterfront in particular has changed ideas about what can be done: Negotiations are in the works to turn the Carrie Furnace site in Rankin into a development that would include a museum, light-industrial space and residential housing.

Zinski is also trying to preserve and promote the history of communities like Braddock, a major battle site of the French and Indian War. With the 250th anniversary approaching, interest is peaking, and Zinski would like to see a museum devoted to the subject. Another example is the preservation of the Bost Building in Homestead, which played a big role in the history of the steel industry in this area -- the 1892 clash between steelworkers and Pinkerton guards.

Zinzki describes her greatest challenge as "maintaining this concept of coalition and cooperation among 12 communities. It's trying to act as the glue and the grease -- the glue that holds everyone together and the grease in the wheels of all the governments.

"Trying to do that among 20 municipal entities, it's hard."

Zinski met her husband, Ron, through another community organizer. He is a computer programmer, and the couple plans to raise their family here.

John Stephen | Age 38
Cofounder and executive director,
Friends of the Riverfront

"I love the environment, the terrain, the greenness of Pittsburgh," says John Stephen. And he's doing something to keep Pittsburgh green.

Twelve years ago, the Morningside resident cofounded Friends of the Riverfront. A lawyer with a degree from Columbia University, he helped the fledging organization with its legal needs. He says he slowly took on more and more responsibility until he was named executive director in 2000.

Since then, the Upper Saint Clair native has helped further the organization's mission of promoting public access and civic appreciation of the region's river resources by working on stewardship, environmental advocacy, riverfront trails/greenways expansion, purchasing and caring for riverfront amenities, and building partnerships with other organizations.

Some of the projects he's led include the Allegheny Water Trail, a fledgling route along the Allegheny River with equipped access points; Riverfronts Naturally, a native plant restoration program for volunteers working along the rivers; and the 3 Rivers RiverKeeper Program, in which boaters report illegal dumping or discharging to the Friends of the Riverfront, who then take corrective measures. (Stephen is the first independent Riverkeeper as program manager of the 3 Rivers RiverKeeper program.)

Stephen also helped plan and institute an annual Adventure Triathlon, which encompasses the Allegheny River (a 2-mile canoe/kayak component), the North Shore's Three Rivers Heritage Trail (a 3.2-mile run) and, with the assistance of PennDOT, the HOV lane of I-279 for a 12-mile bike ride. "I'm a jack of all trades," laughs Stephen.

When he's not working on bike trails along Pittsburgh's rivers, Stephen is a consultant for the Harmony Trails Council, providing trail development services in Millvale, McCandless, Pine and the City of Pittsburgh, and to Indiana University of Pennsylvania on a brownfield development program for the Monongahela River Valley, funded by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

He was coordinator of the Nine Mile Run Greenway Project, which developed a greenway and stream restoration plan to connect Frick Park and the Monongahela River. He also worked with the Pennsylvania Resources Council as regional director, and the Steel Valley Authority as sustainable development coordinator.

An avid biker (he biked from New York to San Francisco the summer after he graduated from law school), Stephen says, "I do all that I can to build the network of trails in Pittsburgh." He sees himself continuing to work on trail development for a couple of more years before moving back to law and perhaps working in environmental public policy. But whatever he does, he says he'll do it in Pittsburgh. "It's an exciting city."

Deborah Gross | Age 36
Co-owner, Percolater Inc.

Deborah Gross has lived and worked all over the world, but chooses to make Pittsburgh her home. And since her return to the area from North Carolina in 1998, the Baldwin native has been working to improve the region.

"I love Pittsburgh. That's one of the reasons I moved back," says Gross, who now lives in Bloomfield. "It is a pedestrian-friendly, beautiful city. I like it because it has kept a sense of its history -- in the South there is no neighborhood identity, and there's no civic culture. People don't have a way to look out for each other… and people can't organize themselves together."

Gross established herself as one who would organize people together within a few months of her return. She got involved with PUMP, organizing the first PUMP, Power and Politics in 2000 to raise awareness and involvement among young Pittsburghers. She helped organize PUMP's involvement in the Impact Conference, an annual statewide event first held in Pittsburgh in 2001.

She also coordinated with Ground Zero and the New Idea Factory on the original UltraViolet Loop, a specialized bus route through the Strip District, downtown, Oakland and the South Side. And now she chairs the communications committee for start-up Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners, which provides grants to organizations serving at-risk populations.

Many people know her as the executive director for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Alliance. Gross was hired to help in the transition from a network of volunteers to a more formal organization.

After 20 months she handed over the reigns then cofounded Percolater Inc. with Gloria Forouzan. The two have worked with local small businesses and nonprofits, such as Helios Arts, The Lawrenceville Corp. and The Women and Girls Foundation, on special events, grant writing, public relations and marketing work, among others.

In her free time, Gross organized an investment club for women with 12 members, $6,000 in stock -- and it's beating the market. She got married in August to Stan Caldwell, a public affairs consultant whom she met through her work with PUMP.

Josh Knauer | Age 29
Founder, Envirolink Network/Founder and CEO, Green Marketplace.com Inc.

Josh Knauer is making the world a better place -- one cotton diaper and recycled planter at a time.

An environmentalist since childhood, the New Jersey native founded one of the first public websites, Envirolink Network, with the help of Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, in 1991 while a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University. Still one of the largest clearinghouses for environmental information on the Web, Envirolink showed Knauer that there was a demand for environmentally friendly, socially conscious products.

After graduation with a B.A. in environmental ethics and policy degree (and a 2 1/2 month detour into the world of advertising), Knauer worked in the nonprofit world before gathering the capital to start Green Marketplace in 1998.

The company that started off as a one-man operation begging for merchandise has evolved into a corporation with four full-time and one part-time employees, a waiting list of 220 companies wanting to sell on the site and projected sales of more than $1 million this year.

The company has garnered numerous accolades -- from Time magazine's Heroes for the Planet in 1999 to Alternet and Utne Reader's New Media Visionary Award in 2001. But one of the figures that Knauer is most proud of is the 90 mentally and physically challenged people who got job training at Green Marketplace's South Side warehouse experience (in conjunction with Goodwill Industries) and now are happily employed elsewhere in the community.

Knauer plans on continuing to grow the company in a way that helps him reach his goal of entirely changing the way people consume products. (Every product sold by Green Marketplace is guaranteed to be made in ways that are not harmful to the environment or to animals, do not contain hazardous chemicals, are made by companies that respect their workers and pay fair wages, and are fairly priced.)

He'll also continue bringing his dogs, Luna and Simon, to work, and spend his down time with his wife, Kathleen (executive producer of "The Allegheny Front" at WYEP and a 2001 "40 Under 40" winner) and his 11-month-old daughter, Olivia.

"I want to do things in my life that make me feel fulfilled," says Knauer. "I will not compromise on that. I think it's so important for people to pursue a career path that makes them personally fulfilled."

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