Steeltown co-founder departs as group shifts emphasis

Youth intiatives main asset going forward

Carl Kurlander is stepping down as president and CEO of Steeltown Entertainment Project, the nonprofit he co-founded 15 years ago with a vision of building another Pittsburgh bridge — one that links his hometown to Hollywood.

Steeltown will move forward with Wendy Burtner-Owens, currently the chief operating officer, as the interim CEO and with a narrowed focus to what board chairman Jim Rogal said is the organization’s main asset: its Youth & Media initiatives that involve 300 teens from 19 Western Pennsylvania schools.

Mr. Rogal said it was a “very amicable parting,” and that Mr. Kurlander volunteered to step away as it became clear that Steeltown could not sustain itself financially in its current direction of feature-length and other projects, along with the youth programs.

“Carl was the first to admit that that doesn’t suit his interests or his desires. … I want to make it very clear: Carl is Steeltown. He has been for 15 years and carried it on his shoulders. There’s no doubt about that,” Mr. Rogal said.

In a statement, Mr. Kurlander, 58, wrote: “I have served many roles at Steeltown, from co-founder to volunteer to consultant to most recently having

the privilege of being its president. But after 15 years of service, I have decided the time is right for me to step down. This decision is bittersweet, as I am so proud of the work we have done. But given the limited resources of the organization and opportunities elsewhere, which I feel it is time to pursue, now seems like the time for me to make this transition and to allow available funding to be directed to current programming, particularly Steeltown’s wonderful Youth & Media program, and give the organization a chance to build on past achievements without me.”

“As Steeltown has grown, it has been increasingly difficult to raise its budget, which has grown to be over $1 million, especially in today’s economic climate,” said Mr. Kurlander, who was more involved with initiatives such as a movie project about the Hill District and Starz TV series “The Chair.”

“And at this level, Steeltown is not able to do that work,” Mr. Kurlander said.

As Steeltown faced its next fiscal year, which starts July 1, “It became apparent in our planning that Steeltown’s strongest asset, its most robust asset and, frankly, we think its most marketable asset is the Youth & Media program,” said Mr. Rogal, who added, “Given that we are always watching our pennies, we determined as a board, and with Carl’s involvement, that the best way forward would be to focus on our youth programs.”

Steeltown’s education and filmmaking initiative for teenagers includes students who are embedded with the nonprofit, making videos for local organizations around the city and putting together “The Reel Teens” docuseries, with episodes available at www.thereelteens.com.

After graduating from Shady Side Academy and Duke University, Mr. Kurlander became a screenwriter in Los Angeles, with credits that include the movie “St. Elmo’s Fire” and writing and producing episodes for NBC’s “Saved By the Bell” franchise. He returned home in 2001 for what he thought would be a yearlong teaching assignment at the University of Pittsburgh. Instead, he ended up co-founding the Steeltown Entertainment Project with the late Ellen Weiss Kander and writer Maxine Lapiduss.

He continues to teach as a senior lecturer at Pitt and, while at Steeltown, he has been the producer on two documentaries about Pittsburgh icons, “Burden of Genius” about the late transplant surgeon, Thomas Starzl, and “The Polio Story: The Vaccine That Changed The World,” about Pitt’s Jonas Salk.

He also was a producer on the Starz cable series “The Chair.”