Duquesne University alum Carl Grefenstette remembered for contributions to community

A former president and chief executive of The Hillman Company of Pittsburgh and prominent Duquesne University alumnus was remembered as a special person of enormous accomplishment and generosity.

Charles “Carl” G. Grefenstette, 94, of Pittsburgh, a former Duquesne board member, “was nationally respected as a business leader, known for the high ethical standards he modeled and insisted upon in his work, in addition to being a leader among generations of Duquesne graduates,” Duquesne University President Ken Gormley said.

Grefenstette died Saturday, June 4.

Grefenstette was on the university’s board of directors during a critical time of growth and chaired the search that resulted in hiring John E. Murray Jr. as Duquesne’s first lay president in 1988.

Grefenstette, who graduated from Duquesne’s business school in 1950 with an accounting degree, was a star player on the Dukes baseball team. He was a Navy veteran who was en route to the Pacific when Japan surrendered to end World War II. He served on a ship that redeployed prisoners back to Japan.

He joined The Hillman Company in 1951 and briefly joined D.G. Sisterson Co., as a partner, before returning to Hillman. He was promoted to president and chief operating officer in 1982, then president and CEO in 1990. He considered his 65-year close working relationship and friendship with Henry L. Hillman to be one of the great honors and joys of his life. He later served as vice president of the Hillman Family Foundations, helping to direct significant philanthropic investments that have aided people throughout Western Pennsylvania and globally.

Grefenstette was a charter member of the university’s Century Club of Distinguished Duquesne Alumni and received an honorary degree from Duquesne in 1990.

Duquesne honored Grefenstette in 2019 with the Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology and Law, which was supported by an initial gift of $1.5 million from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation. The center honors Grefenstette’s commitment to Catholic and Spiritan priorities, as well as ethics and innovation, Gormley said.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Mary Jane (Kelly) Grefenstette, in 2013. Surviving are six sons, three daughters and 25 grandchildren.

Calling hours will be 2 to 7 p.m. Friday at Beinhauer Funeral Home, at 2828 Washington Road, McMurray. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at noon Saturday at St. Bernard Church (St. Michael the Archangel Parish), 311 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon. Interment will be at Queen of Heaven Cemetery.