TED KAY
by Genea L. Webb, For New Pittsburgh Courier
The 20 years that Ted Kay lived in the city of Clairton were some of the most idyllic times in his life.
“Between Clairton and my father, it kind of made us ready for anything. The relationships in the church were like the social center of the city. We would spend hours in the church; that was just what people did. You were in the choir, you were in different clubs—you had things like Vacation Bible School that back then lasted two weeks…I was ready for anything because I never had any expectations of anything being given to me. My foundation was set here in Clairton.”
Kay, 73, now resides in Michigan. He was born in Virginia and arrived in Clairton by way of New Castle thanks to his father’s pastoral endeavors. Kay’s father, Rev. Rosamond C. Kay, was the pastor of Morning Star Baptist Church and was persuaded by those closest to him to turn down the call to pastor in the City of Prayer.
“We lived in New Castle before then and Clairton had a bad reputation, even back in the day, so there were people trying to tell my father not to move to Clairton because it’s rough down there, and you’ve got these kids and it’s not going to be good for them,” Kay recalled.
“I never had any problems with the people—I think because my father was Reverend Kay—and I hung out in Blair Heights and everyone either went to Mount Olive First Baptist Church or Morning Star Baptist Church, Gethsemane or AME. That’s where we grew up and made friends with everybody,” added Kay, who played baseball and ran track while in Clairton. “It was a lot of fun living there.”
Kay’s first childhood friend in Clairton, Terrence Hammons, who is the chairman of the deacon board at Morning Star, can attest to the wonderful upbringing in the city.
“The education in Clairton was very good in Clairton back then,” Hammons told the New Pittsburgh Courier. “You had all the classes and college classes. There was so much from an academic standpoint. You had people who encouraged you because they knew your family. If there were drugs or anything, they hid it. We had a lot of friends, Black and White, it was a great time growing up here.”
While attending Geneva College, Kay would return to Clairton during the summers for work. He started his long career at General Motors, first in McKeesport as a payroll auditor and he moved up in the company to several positions and several plants within the organization.
TED KAY
“My father was always finding jobs for students so when I went to college, he knew the personnel director at the plant and he said, ‘hey, I’ve got a son in college and he needs a summer job,’ and I got hired after my freshman year,” Kay said. “In the summers when I was at Geneva, I would work at the Pittsburgh plant in McKeesport. I worked there for three summers and I graduated in 1971 and got hired into the Lordstown, Ohio plant. (My father) ended up being on the finance staff at General Motors. He ended up becoming the finance manager/VP of finance for the Worldwide Facilities Group (WFG). The company had two environmental subsidiaries—REALM and ENCORE—we had a group of people who managed those and I was VP of finance for those groups, too and that’s basically where I retired from in 2008.”
“There is no better finance person than Ted Kay,” said Ray Tessier, retired director of Global Environmental Services for General Motors Worldwide. “He always knew what we needed to have. He worked in Pittsburgh and Lordstown in the factories and that makes a difference for a finance person because he’s been there. He understood what the people wanted and what the people wanted to hear. We were able to build a sound budget all of the 16 years he worked there. I always said he should’ve run the whole thing. For the 16 years that Ted worked as CFO we always had a balanced budget and that’s almost unheard of at General Motors.”
Kay is still active in the Geneva College community. From approximately 2005 to 2015, Kay served as the president of the school’s alumni council. He received the college’s two highest alumni awards that honor students for their service to the community: The Distinguished Service Award, which he received in 2001—on his 30th anniversary of graduating—and the Life Key Award, which he received in 2006 on the 35th anniversary of graduating from the school.
“We are really thankful to have Ted as one of our distinguished alumni and he’s such as asset,” Geneva College president Dr. Calvin L. Troup said. “…He was kind of one of the founding members of our Black Student Union at Geneva in the turbulence of the ‘60s. He’s really been able to engage and help the leadership of our Black Student Union today as they are responding to dynamics in culture and society related to racism and how you respond to that from a Christian perspective.”
Dr. Troup continued: “It’s really important for us to have a good relationship between the Black Student Union and the leadership of the college and he really helps with that. We are so grateful for (Kay’s) leadership at the college.”
What’s Kay’s message these days to the younger generation of Clairton residents? “I lived through the good times back when the mills were operating and now. Unless there are some major changes here, people who were not born here won’t come to stay,” Kay said. “You have to get a grocery store in town, work on the crime and figure out a way to get kids to stay in school and study and realize that there are not limitations on them.”