On the second Friday of every month, the Center for Women in Business at Chatham University hosts the Women in Business Breakfast series and brings in a guest speaker to talk about the business she is a part of. The guest speaker for April was Mary Del Brady, the proprietor of Mansions on Fifth–a boutique hotel–and the chairperson and CEO of Wellbridge Health, Inc.
During her talk, Del Brady spoke about her childhood as the sixth of eight children, five of whom were older brothers, which she has pointed to as the source of her competitiveness in the field of business. She attended Slippery Rock University with the intent of studying to be a teacher, however, she switched to the humanities after her first semester.
After graduating from Slippery Rock, Del Brady joined the National Association of Women Business Owners and eventually became the president of the Pittsburgh chapter. During her time as president of NAWBO’s Pittsburgh chapter, she sought out other women business leaders and convinced them to join. Sometime later, Del Brady became the president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, a position that had international responsibilities with the parent organization.
In addition to her work with NAWBO, Mary Del Brady earned her MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and launched two businesses by the time she turned twenty-four. The majority of her business ventures in Pittsburgh related to the biotech and service industries, which Pittsburgh had–somewhat by accident–become a center for.
During the talk, Del Brady said that if she had been in Boston or on the West Coast, it was highly unlikely that she would have become involved in the biotechnology industry, as the circumstances in Pittsburgh were just right, unlike other regions with specialized industries.
Over the past three decades, Del Brady has been a member or founder of multiple biotech and service companies, the majority of which are related to health care and the academic health system.
In 1997, Del Brady co-founded TissueInformatics.Inc, a company that specializes in tissue imaging, image analysis and image information analysis solutions, for the purpose of understanding diseases and the effects of drugs. She also co-founded and directs ThermalTherapeuticSystems, Inc., was the CEO of RedPath Integrated Technology, and is a member of the board for Intelomed, Inc. All three companies are related to biotechnology and health services.
Del Brady’s latest business venture is the Mansions on Fifth, a luxury boutique hotel on Pittsburgh’s “Millionaires Row”. During the 18 and 1900s, Fifth Avenue was home to Pittsburgh’s millionaires, all of whom left behind mansions that have been converted to duplexes, donated to various universities in Pittsburgh, or held in trust by various groups.
The home of Mansions on Fifth Hotel is the former residence of William F. McCook and his family. McCook was Henry Clay Frick’s attorney during Frick’s famous legal fight with Andrew Carnegie. Restoration of the McCook mansion on Fifth Avenue started several years ago, and reached completion in the summer of 2011. Since its opening, the hotel has been used for a variety of functions, including an appearance in the film adaptation of John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars”.