Charlie Humphrey uses clout, know-how to help cultural

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It was a packed May weekend for Charlie Humphrey, with three artopenings in 24 hours.
First, he made the rounds at "Glass & Steel: Art TranscendsIndustry" at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in Garfield, where he'scurrently in charge. The next evening he went to the 2008 Biennialat the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in Shadyside, where he hasbeen executive director since 2004. Then he zipped over to Oaklandfor the related Biennial at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, his baby since1992.
There were bigger, more prestigious events that weekend -- theInternational opening at the Carnegie Museum of Art and a party atThe Andy Warhol Museum, where he's on the board -- but Humphreyseemed content in these more intimate spaces, chatting andwise-cracking with artists, visitors and staff.
A casual observer wouldn't pick him out as an executive. With hislong, lanky frame and characteristic jeans and T-shirt, he could beanyone.
But Humphrey is not just anyone. He's a fourth-generation scion ofPittsburgh's industrial wealth whose unorthodox upbringing far fromthe family fold was shadowed by his mother's alcoholism. As aresult, he grew up straddling the line between insider andoutsider. That, in turn, may have made him uniquely suited for therole he has assumed -- using his skills and his access toPittsburgh's old-money foundations (Heinz, R.K. Mellon, Hillman,McCune, Pittsburgh) in the service of small, independent artsgroups that give the city color and spice.
Comfortable in board rooms, confident enough to think big, or atleast differently, driven enough to sweat the details and nagged byenough self-doubt to feel at home among notoriously insecureartists, Humphrey at 50 seems to have found his niche.
"Charlie has a track record of looking at an institution andfiguring out different ways to run that railroad. That's what weneed," says Janet Sarbaugh, senior director of the arts and cultureprogram at the Heinz Endowments, which has funneled millions ofdollars into his proposals over the years.
"If he says something is an important community asset, more peoplewill take notice than might have. He's also an irreverentprovocateur and instigator. When you tell him, 'We've always doneit this way,' it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull."
Big foot print
"The stuff I do is small potatoes," Humphrey says. "The GlassCenter, Filmmakers and the Center for the Arts have a hugeprogrammatic footprint that's really significant in this market.But from a budgetary standpoint, it's miniscule compared to theCarnegie or the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust."
All the more reason to have someone championing their cause, saysCarol Brown, former president of the Trust.
"Charlie's not one of the guys who measures success by budget sizeor their own clout," she said. "He's a very effective advocate forthe people and places where art is actually made."
Filmmakers is the prime example. One of the oldest and largestmedia arts centers in the country, it occupies its modern,sprawling building on Melwood Avenue because Humphrey envisioned itand helped raise the $5 million to fund it. Then he extended thegroup's reach, working closely with Brown at the Trust to transforma Downtown porn palace into the Harris Theater, and securing some$300,000 to buy and refurbish the Regent Square Theater inEdgewood.
In 2004, when the Center for the Arts at Fifth and Shady avenueswas circling the drain, Humphrey was invited to stage anintervention. On loan from Filmmakers, he helped pinpoint theproblems, wrote a recovery plan, worked with the board to getfunding from the state and private sources to keep the placeafloat. Eventually he brought it under the Filmmakers' umbrella,paying off its debt by refinancing the Melwood building. Today,with an annual budget of $4 million, the two venues offercollaborations that neither could have accomplished alone.
"The synergy between Filmmakers and CFA exceeds my wildestexpectations programmatically," Humphrey said. "The creative staffsworking together have created all sorts of stuff that wasn't therebefore."
As for the Glass Center, a widely praised LEED-certified facilitywith a $1 million budget and $500,000 in liability, foundersKathleen Mulcahy and Ron Desmett were concerned enough about itsviability to seek Humphrey's help.
"The center was going to need someone with a great rapport with thefoundation community, who had run a nonprofit public-access schoollike Filmmakers and now PCA. No one we saw had those qualities butCharlie," said Mulcahy.
Again on loan, he wrote a second recovery plan, helped raise$25,000 to keep the doors open and another $400,000 to stabilizethe operation for 18 months. A long-term solution is still in theworks.
Even in his off hours, Humphrey champions the arts, talking up hisoptimistic vision for the city, writing articles and serving on theboards of Quantum Theatre, the New Hazlett Theater and SquonkOpera.
"He was totally instrumental in our growth," said Karla Boos,founder of Quantum.
Wrestling a pedigree
How big a role his lineage has played in his successes is, he says,an unknown.
"There's no way for me to quantify to what extent my extreme goodfortune of birth has enabled me to do what I do," Humphrey says. "Isuspect it plays a role, but I try never to capitalize on that. Theinsecure parts of me say maybe I'd be sweeping floors if not for mybackground, but I try not to speculate about it too much."
Humphrey's paternal great-grandfather, Arthur Luther Humphrey, waspresident of Westinghouse Air Brake. His maternalgreat-grandfather, Charles Donnell Marshall, cofoundedMcClintick-Marshall Steel, fabricator of parts for the Panama Canaland Empire State Building.
Charles Marshall's youngest daughter, Charlie's grandmother, grewup in the house that is now the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (hisinterest in helping the center was civic, not familial, he says,though a few critics questioned his motives). She married AikenFisher, the son of Chester G. Fisher, who founded the globalresearch and laboratory instruments maker Fisher Scientific. AikenFisher became president of the family firm and was a force in theAllegheny Conference on Community Development during Renaissance Iin the 1950s.
"He was my model for civic engagement," Humphrey says.
The young Charlie started out slow, flunking first grade at St.Edmund's Academy in Squirrel Hill and thinking he was dumb foryears after that. His parents divorced when he was 8, and hismother took the four children to Coral Gables, Fla., in pursuit ofa bohemian life.
She had a serious drinking problem and a number of boyfriends, hesays, notably a young Cuban beach club attendant who was in thepicture for five years. When the son argued with his mother, whichwas often, the boyfriend would smack him around as she stood by andwatched. (He says he forgave her, "because you just do," longbefore her death in 1986.)
School was no safe haven, either.
"Charlie was getting the crap beat out of him every day by otherkids at George Washington Carver Middle School," in Coral Gables,recalls Rick Humphrey, his older brother by two years. "Our mom wastotally out of it. He was just trying to survive. It was brutal."
Their mother eventually married an African-American man who wasgood to her and the children, but the union turned the family intosocial outcasts. His stepfather left after four years.
Finally, his grandparents stepped in, and he wound up at the OrmeSchool, an elite prep school in Mayer, Ariz. He was back in theworld of privilege, but trailing way behind on every level.
"We were so far over our heads socially, emotionally andacademically, but Charlie didn't quit," said Rick Humphrey, wholives in Aspinwall. "It took him two years to catch up. He wound upclass president two years in a row.
"Charlie's got great DNA," his brother continued. "He's smart, ahard worker and a good listener. But his upbringing was such thathe had to fight for everything and nothing came easy. Both of usgrew up ultra-competitive and hungry."
This background may explain the different sides of CharlieHumphrey's persona. There's the guy who wore a ponytail until fouryears ago (he saw a picture of himself, thought "What a moron," andcut if off); who dresses down, makes self-deprecating jokes andfurnishes his office at Filmmakers with Gulf Oil castoffs whoseleather seats look like they've been hacked by a madman with a meatcleaver.
There's also the guy who lives in a large, gracious home in PointBreeze, has a country house, likes nice cars and guitars, and whosedaughters were debutantes at the Cinderella Ball.
Then there's the paradox of his rock band, The Shanks, which hastwo CDs and a following from occasional gigs around town. He writesmost of the songs, plays guitar and sings lead. He also hates hisown voice and suspects his bandmates are humoring him.
"The other members of the band are all great musicians," he says."Why are they playing with me?"
"That," says brother and bandmate Rick, "is a typically conflictedremark. He's so insecure. ... If he believes it, why is he standingin front of hundreds of people?"
Because, Humphrey replies, "I want to overcome my fears, and I wantto get better."
Circle of influence
Not everyone loves Humphrey for his efforts. As an outsider cominginto a crisis, he has fired people, stepped on some toes andalienated some board members. He's also had a very public disputewith Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, oversupporting local filmmakers. But at local foundations, which hecalls "unusually generous and enlightened," he gets a lot ofpraise.
It doesn't hurt that he's a donor-adviser to the Fisher Fund,created by his great-grandfather, which gives away $600,000 to $1million a year for science education and, at times, the arts. Butthat money, he stresses, is not his own.
"In no way am I a philanthropist," he said. "That's out of myleague. I'm three generations removed from the wealth created in myfamily."
Instead, he says, "I'm just a regular person who gives money tocauses I care about."
From the Orme School, Humphrey went to Whitman College in WallaWalla, Wash., because, he said, "It was as far away from Miami as Icould get."
There he studied philosophy, ran track, worked at a community radiostation and met his future wife, Nina Gram. They moved toHumphrey's hometown for her to attend the University of PittsburghLaw School. (The couple had two daughters, now in their 20s. Theyseparated in 1994, and six years ago he married Laura Jordan,former director of finance at Filmmakers, who also has twodaughters.)
Humphrey got a job at WQED-FM, where he did producing andfundraising for four years. After a stab at advertising, he got anoffer from John Burstein, founder of In Pittsburgh News Weekly, whohired him as editor and then publisher. He was 28. "It was ablast," Humphrey says.
The paper thrived during Humphrey's six-year tenure. Then, in theGood Friday edition of 1992, he ran a Gary Huck cartoon of Jesus onthe cross with the letters "TGIF." Some readers took offense, andBurstein wanted him to print an apology. Humphrey quit instead.
"Bail-Bondsman bravery," he calls it now. "I knew I wasn't going tostarve."
The two haven't communicated since. Burstein, now living in Boston,still speaks highly of his ex-employee, but it's clear he's stillsmarting over being left in the lurch by someone he trusted.
"Walking out that way put me in a really tough spot," Bursteinsaid. Humphrey keeps the cartoon in his office as a reminder ofthat part of his life -- not, he says, for any moral lesson. "I waswrong and I was right," he says, "as I continue to be about manythings."
When he heard about the job opening at Filmmakers, Humphrey was oneof many to apply (as a child he hoped to become a filmmakerhimself). He wasn't the search committee's first choice -- toocorporate, they said, based on the suits he wore to the interviews.But after four meetings, they hired him. Sixteen years later, it'sstill the center of his circle of influence.
How effective he can be in his latest mission remains an openquestion. "The Glass Center is a patient on drugs," he cautions."When the drugs wear off there better have been serious therapy orit's gonna be a world of hurt."
These days he splits his time among the three locations. There is arisk that he's spreading himself too thin and that Filmmakers maysuffer for it, but he sees it otherwise, saying, "I work with greatstaffs who probably do more and better work when I'm not hoveringaround."
Yet there will always be some free-floating doubts that are partand parcel of his personality. Asked if he's stopped worrying aboutthe PCA's finances, he shakes his head. "That would be hubris. Inever think I'm out of the woods."