Former CEO of U.S. Steel
There’s humble beginnings. Then there’s choosing to honeymoon in Cleveland. In January.
Such was the early life of David Roderick, who would go on to become CEO of U.S. Steel during one of the most tumultuous times in its history, and one of Pittsburgh’s most well-known business and civic leaders.
During the decade that he led what was then the nation’s largest steelmaker — from 1979 to 1989 — the company closed more than 140 steel facilities, weathered the industry’s longest labor dispute, and spent $6.3 billion to buy Marathon Oil in a successful bid to diversify.
That decade saw more change than the previous 78 years combined at the company founded in 1901 by Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan.
“He was a great man with great values and a remarkable will to live,” said James Rohr, Mr. Roderick’s longtime friend and former CEO of PNC. “David was a force of good who came along at an important time for U.S. Steel and for the city. He was an example to us all.”
Mr. Roderick, 95, died Saturday at his Latrobe home after battling cancer.
The man who met with presidents in the Oval Office, who championed the steel industry for decades and who was later credited with keeping the Pirates baseball team in Pittsburgh, started off as a C student doing odd jobs in his hardscrabble North Side neighborhood.
“By most people’s standards, I was probably not a very nice young person,” Mr. Roderick, the son of a postal worker, told The Pittsburgh Press in a 1989 story. “I was very aggressive, very competitive, very combative.”
But World War II and regimented life in the Marines changed all that, he said.
After graduating from Oliver High School, he joined the Marines in 1942 as a 17year-old and fought in the Pacific Theater as a platoon sergeant.
“He used to say that he went into the Marines as a boy and came out a man,” said his son, David M. Roderick Jr., of Ligonier. “He was a great example of the Greatest Generation — they started off with nothing and went out into the world and won the war and came back and built a country, really.”
After the war, Mr. Roderick worked as a messenger at Gulf Oil while attending night school at Robert Morris University and the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance.
At Gulf, he met Elizabeth Costello and the two married in January 1946. They honeymooned in Cleveland because they couldn’t afford much else, Mr. Roderick Jr. said.
“They had zero money,” he said. “My dad shoveled coal during the Depression. He didn’t expect anything from anybody.”
Eventually, Mr. Roderick requested a promotion to the audit department at Gulf Oil, but when no offer was forthcoming after a year, he left.
“I didn’t complain,” Mr. Roderick said in the 1989 Press story. “I just went out and got another job.”
By 1953, Mr. Roderick became assistant comptroller of Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad, which was owned by U.S. Steel.
From there, he rose through the ranks, serving in 1959 as assistant director of statistics in New York City, then as an accounting consultant for international projects in 1962 — a job that took him and his young family to Paris and other places.
“I still speak French,” his son said. “I spent fourth and fifth grade in Paris.”
Mr. Roderick continued his march to the executive suite, being named president in 1975 and elected chairman and CEO in 1979.
The reality of diversifying — selling assets and closing outdated steel mills — meant the loss of thousands of jobs, and his father felt the weight of it, his son said.
“It was turbulent times in the steel business and he had to make some really hard, agonizing decisions,” he said. “He was desperate to turn things around.”
When Mr. Roderick Jr. expressed concern after seeing steelworkers picketing outside the Downtown offices of U.S. Steel, his father’s response surprised him.
“My dad said, ‘I don’t blame them. I would be angry, too,’” he said. “It’s not like he came from some privileged background. He really cared about these people.”
“He was a person of great will and power,” Mr. Rohr said. “When the industry had a downturn, he had to make some tough, very brave decisions. It saw the company through a very difficult time.”
Mr. Roderick’s civic life was rich and varied. He served as president of the United Way of Allegheny County, volunteered on dozens of boards and was recognized with several awards.
“David raised an enormous amount of money for charities in Pittsburgh,” Mr. Rohr said. “He led by example and he was a huge champion of the Pittsburgh Symphony.”
Mr. Roderick often brought together friends and colleagues for volunteering and fundraising, and his methods are still being used today, Mr. Rohr said.
“He taught us how to raise money,” Mr. Rohr said. “He was a great leader in that space.”
Their love of golf drew him and Mr. Roderick together as friends, Mr. Rohr said.
“The first time I visited Augusta National, it was as a guest of David Roderick,” he recalled. “He was a really funny guy. He made fun of my golf game all the time.”
His love of Pittsburgh sports was unparalleled and Mr. Roderick knew how to put his money where his mouth was, Mr. Rohr said.
In the 1980s, he brokered a deal between the city and a group of local investors interested in keeping the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Mr. Roderick, who served on the Pirates board, also was among those who later chose the site of PNC Park as part of a city task force.
“He got people together and projects turned out better because of it,” Mr. Rohr said. “Everybody ponied up a little bit and they bought the Pirates.”
A lifelong fan, Mr. Roderick also threw out the first pitch at a Pirates game to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2014.
This summer, Mr. Roderick — who spent most of his later years living at his home in Orlando, Fla. — watched every Pirates game, his son said. And, in the last week of his life, he pulled himself out of bed to watch the Steelers.
“Up to his dying day, he wanted to watch that last game,” Mr. Roderick Jr. said. “He was literally dying, sitting in his wheelchair, and he insisted on watching the game. He was a Pittsburgh boy at heart. He was very, very proud of being from Pittsburgh.”
Along with his son, survivors include his longtime companion Rebecca C. Fisher, of Oakmont; a brother, William, of Pittsburgh; a daughter, Patricia Roderick Morton, of Charlotte, N.C.; son, Thomas, of Orlando; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his wife and a sister, Jane Plyler.
Visitation is noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday at John A. Freyvogel Sons, 4900 Centre Ave. at Devonshire Street. The funeral is at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Vincent Archabbey Basilica in Latrobe, Archabbot Douglas R. Nowicki presiding. Interment will be private.
Remembrances may be made to Saint Vincent College, https://stvincent.edu.