People of the Year 2023
Pittsburghers are, at our core, neighborly. It’s simply part of who we are — we’re bred to look out for one another, whether that means helping a friend dig their car out of the snow or speaking up for someone who needs a fighter in their corner. In big and small ways, Pittsburghers show up.…
Pittsburgh’s People of the year 2023: Labor
When workers from the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh kicked off their unionization drive in June 2020, it was already “a bit of an experiment,” says admissions senior representative and bargaining unit secretary Jim Kappas. COVID restrictions compelled the group to organize virtually, and they had to reach more than 500 workers employed across four museums…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Food & Drink
Mel Larrick has done more than most to grow Pittsburgh’s craft beer scene beyond beards and flannel. First as a taproom manager, then as a marketer, and now as a brewer at Hop Farm and the incoming executive director of the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild, she has helped facilitate important conversations about inclusivity while continuing to…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Performing Arts
Karla Boos admits that, when she founded Quantum Theatre in 1990, she never thought it would become her life’s work. Over 30 years later, few things have changed from the company’s original mission: taking theater beyond the stage and into unorthodox venues. “We were just looking for any place to make a show once upon…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Health
Sydney Etheredge has been with Planned Parenthood for over a decade, but in many ways, she’s just getting started. “I’m very much in a new phase,” she says of her role as CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania — a position she took on in January 2022 after 10 years with the national office…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Lit
As a child, Virginia Montanez developed a keen sense of humor through watching The Carol Burnett Show and Marx Brothers movies. She had a gift for making adults laugh, “not with 12-year-old humor,” but with pointedly funny observations and jokes. She says that gift helped her deal with having a “hearing impairment” in a big…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Visual Art
How do you guarantee that your art won’t be ignored? Putting it on billboards along one of Pittsburgh’s busiest routes is one way. Not that Mikael Owunna, a queer Nigerian-Swedish American multimedia artist, needs to always resort to such tactics, as his striking experimental prints easily draw viewers in. His work focuses less on promoting…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Politics
Allegheny County Executive-elect Sara Innamorato didn’t originally plan to run for office. As she shifted from a business career to nonprofit work and consulting, Innamorato found herself both intrigued by local policymaking and dismayed by the lack of women in Harrisburg. “I thought I was going to be the person who helped women run for…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Business
Heather Conroy has run Evolve Coaching for more than a decade, providing job coaching services and support to autistic, disabled, and neurodiverse job seekers, college students, and artists. She has plans to make Pittsburgh “autism’s most livable city,” transform the region’s workforce, and open a coaching inclusion center in Garfield — “the next physical manifestation…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Activism
Scrutiny of the Allegheny County Jail has been high in recent years, with a group of journalists, politicians, and activists — among them Abolitionist Law Center community organizer Tanisha Long — maintaining pressure on the county to improve conditions. Long has been at the center of an ongoing fight for people in the carceral system…
Pittsburgh’s People of the Year 2023: Music
On his debut 2016 album, God King Slave, rapper Frzy set his sights high: “Now I ain’t gon’ stop / Until they say I won … May not have birthed hip-hop / But it’s my godson,” he declared on the song “Headed 4 the Crown.” Since then Frzy (given name Harvey Daniels) has made good…
