Ex-Gateway Rehab chair was passionate about helping people with addiction issues
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As a longtime board member and chairman at Gateway Rehab, a drug and alcohol addiction treatment center, Robert Egan went way beyond showing up at meetings and authorizing budget expenditures.
He personally accompanied friends and business colleagues to the facility for treatment and was involved in several interventions for people struggling with addiction issues, said Neil Capretto, chief medical director of the organization based in Center, Beaver County.
“He bent over backwards to help people with recovery and he did it with dignity, kindness, grace and warmth,” Dr. Capretto said.
Mr. Egan, a retired steel and metals executive who formerly lived in Fox Chapel, died Jan. 10 at a hospital near his home in Gulf Stream, Fla. He was 86.
His son, George Egan of Jacksonville, Fla., said that while his father was involved in other charitable service over the years, the outcomes he saw at Gateway after joining its board and serving as chair from 199095, “just struck him as having enormous impact.”
“It was easy for him to see how successful treatment could save people and that really struck a chord with my dad personally. He developed a great love for the mission.”
Mr. Egan grew up in the Schenley Farms section of Oakland and was a son of the late Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge John P. Egan.
After graduation from Shady Side Academy, he attended Yale University and served in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s prior to earning an MBA from Harvard University.
He started his career in sales with Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Ludlum Steel at an office near Detroit, and advanced through a series of sales and marketing jobs prior to becoming group president of the metals and metal products group of Allegheny International, a successor company to Allegheny Ludlum.
In 1985, Mr. Egan led an investment group that purchased an AI subsidiary, Alloy Rods Corp., which made welding materials and was based in Hanover, York County.
After retiring in the 1990s and eventually moving to Florida, he spent much of his time playing golf and offering advice about the game to all who would listen, said his son.
An accomplished competitor, he won the Western Pennsylvania Senior Amateur Championship in 1992 and regularly played on the Lesley Cup’s Pennsylvania team.
He finished nine holes the same day he was hospitalized in November, his son said.
In addition to his son, survivors include his wife, Barbara Forrester Egan; another son, Robert Egan Jr. of Oakland, Calif.; two daughters, Emily Thomas of Wilmette, Ill., and Sarah Hebert of South Berwick, Maine; and 11 grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in Pittsburgh at a later date.
Memorial contributions may be made to Gateway Rehab, 311 Rouser Rd., Moon, Pa., 15108 or at www.gatewayrehab.org