Philanthropic largesse was boon to medicine, education
John G. Rangos, a man who never forgot the childhood privations of the Great Depression even as he went on to success in business, may be best known to Pittsburghers as a philanthropist dedicated to medicine and education, with his name marking a charitable foundation, university scholarships and medical research institutes.
Mr. Rangos, who lived in Mount Washington, died Wednesday in Boca Raton, Fla., a week shy of his 92nd birthday after a short illness. Funeral arrangements were private and a memorial to celebrate his life was being planned for the future, said his daughter Jenica Rangos Welch.
Mr. Rangos was born in Ohio and lived in West Virginia before moving to the Pittsburgh area with his family as a teenager. He wouldlater make his fortune through finding uses for byproducts from steelmaking, which would in turn fund his numerous philanthropic efforts.
“I trusted his thinking, was grateful for his generosity and treasured his friendship,” Duquesne University President Ken Gormley wrote in a statement. “Mr. Rangos has left behind a shining, indelible imprint that will shape this place he called home long after we’re gone.”
Just last fall, Mr. Rangos was part of a collection of three Pittsburgh philanthropists who together contributed more than $7.5 million to help fund the construction of Duquesne University’s new medical school, which is scheduled to open in 2024. The Catholic university announced it had secured “seven-figure pledges” from Mr. Rangos, John R. “Jack” McGinley Jr. and Rhodora Donahue, widow of the late John F. “Jack” Donahue, to establish a new College of Osteopathic Medicine.
As Mr. Gormley noted at the time of that announcement, the Rangos connection to the university went back a long time.
Mr. Rangos was the founding donor Duquesne’s Rangos School of Health Sciences in 1990 and established the Anna Rangos Rizakus Endowed Chair in Health Sciences & Ethics to honor the memory of his mother in 2004. He would go on to establish endowed and term scholarships, with 50% of the gift proceeds earmarked for providing educational opportunities for African American students enrolled in the health sciences school, as well as help create the Rangos Prizes, a competition involving students and faculty to find creative solutions to problems.
But his interests extended into other parts of the community as well.
Carnegie Science Center Director Henry Buhl Jr. described him as among the center’s “most ardent supporters.” The center’s Giant Screen Cinema bears his name and he had served as a member of the center’s advisory board since 1997.
“His generosity to this community was unparalleled,” Mr. Buhl wrote in a statement. “Our thoughts and condolences go out to his children, his entire family and the many others who knew him.”
Mr. Rangos funded a research center at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Lawrenceville.
“His strong desire to be of service to others, particularly children and families, is an inspiration to all of us,” Children’s Hospital Foundation President Rachel Petrucelli and hospital president Mark Sevco wrote in a statement. “He had such pride in this hospital and in all the incredible milestones our hospital community has achieved by working together for the good of our children.”
A native of Steubenville, Ohio, Mr. Rangos grew up in Weirton, W.Va., where his father owned a Greek restaurant and his mother worked in a tin mill. He was an only child.
He often talked about standing on a soda pop case, as a 10-year-old, beside his grandfather in 1939, to hear President Franklin Delano Roosevelt speak from a train, according to his daughter.
During his high school years, the family moved to Turtle Creek and he played football. After high school, he attended the Houston School of Business before enlisting in the U.S. Army in time for the Korean War.
Returning to Pittsburgh from active duty, Mr. Rangos was impressed by the huge mounds of industrial waste he saw around industrial centers from steelmaking, including coke ash and boiler slag. He made his fortune recycling the materials for use as highway antiskid material and in making concrete blocks and asphalt roof shingles.
By 1996, 30% of all bottom ash and 93% of all boiler slag — both incombustible products collected from the bottom of coal burning furnaces — was being recycled, according to the John G. Rangos Sr. Charitable Foundation.
Ms. Rangos Welch, the youngest of Mr. Rangos’ three children, remembers her father’s love of Greek food and family and summer vacations at Ocean City, Md. She and her brothers, John Rangos Jr. and Alex Rangos, were with their father when he died.