There is a set of Zurich Insurance ads that feature professional golfers hooked up to lie detectors and asked things like, “Do you love golf more than your wife’s cooking?”
After telling the audience at the African American Chamber of Commerce June 17 PowerBreakfast how he spent a torrential rain delay at the U.S. Open at Oakmont the day before, Allegheny County Regional Asset District Executive Director Richard Hudik should do one.
“I spent 71 minutes trapped in an outhouse with three other people,” he said. “Hey, I’m fat and I love golf.”
He also loves economic development. During his previous tenure with the state Department of Community and Economic Development, he was the lead negotiator on the state side working to bring the Shell ethane cracker facility to Beaver County. And though RAD’s focus is funding cultural assets, they are often critical to business attraction, retention and job creation.
“Businesses want to locate where there’s a pulse—where something is going on,” he said. “And If you’re negotiating with Asian firms, the Japanese won’t even consider a place that doesn’t have a symphony.”
RAD funds the Pittsburgh Symphony, it also funds 200 libraries, the Zoo, the Aviary, county and Pittsburgh parks, mass transit, and provides operating grants to musical, theatrical and arts organizations throughout the county.
And it not only supports diversity, it demands it.
“We require all our applicants to have a diversity plan and an accessibility plan,” said Hudik. That’s our requirement, beyond the requirements of the legislation that created RAD back 20 years ago. We want to know about the minority makeup of your board and staff.”
And because the support grants RAD makes are all taxpayer dollars—half of the 1-percent county sales tax—the application process is entirely transparent.
“Any organization asking us for money has to come before the board and make their pitch. The press is there. It’s all public,” he said. “We have to give some of them the buzzer, and some we have to hook off the stage.”
Organizations begin submitting applications in June for the mid-July deadline. They make their public pitches, usually in august, and the board then makes its preliminary funding suggestions in the fall. Those are followed by a public comment period, after which the board makes its final decisions.
According to some of the figures from RAD’s just released 2015 annual report, last year those decisions resulted in more than 23 million people attending RAD-funded events, with 585,000 of them receiving free tickets.
Its funding also resulted in $753 million in direct spending and helped keep more than 9,000 people employed. Rad funding also helped leverage millions more in bond financing. Its budget was $96 million.
In her closing remarks, chamber President and CEO Doris Carson Williams thanked Hudik, noting they are neighbors in the Koppers building. She also thanked those who attended last month’s mixers and the Chamber’s Annual Meeting and Luncheon.
She also welcomed new members and reminded members the chamber will be marching in the city’s 200th Anniversary parade July 19, and will have a special breakfast meeting July 22. Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce President Matt Smith will be the speaker.
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
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