Landmarks CEO honored with leadership award

Soon after Howard Slaughter's wife Janet agreed to marry him, he asked to see her credit report.

"I asked to see his," Janet Slaughter said.

Although the requests represented an inside joke between a couple immersed in the world of banking, it showed a deep commitment to their understanding of the world of credit and its applications to small households and community revival projects.

For Howard Slaughter, chief executive officer of the Landmarks Community Capital, the world of high finance has been an odyssey from Homewood to Pittsburgh's corporate board rooms and the inner sanctums of Washington, D.C.

Landmarks Community Capital is a nonprofit subsidiary of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation that provides investment capital, development expertise and pre- and post-technical assistance to low and moderate-income communities during the early stages of development. Slaughter also is CEO of Landmarks Development, a for-profit subsidiary of the foundation that undertakes real estate development and consulting related to the group's preservation mission.

Slaughter, 51, has headed programs that taught financial literacy to minority students and been briefed on the world AIDS epidemic by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In asking Slaughter to join the board of the Pittsburgh Foundation, president and CEO Grant Oliphant cited his broad range of experience in the community and passion about Pittsburgh.

"Howard is very concerned about the people in the community who are disadvantaged," Oliphant said.

Slaughter brings a commitment to finding funding to breathe life into rundown historical neighborhoods in need of low and moderate income housing.

This past year, Landmarks Community Capital made $830,000 available to East Liberty Development to rehabilitate historically significant but dilapidated homes on Rippey Street; that rehabilitation is near completion. The homes are being converted to market-rate condominiums to satisfy demand for affordable housing in East Liberty.

The nonprofit corporation also has provided Three Rivers Youth, an organization that works with at-risk young people, with $1.3 million to relocate from its quarters in the North Side to East Liberty.

"(Slaughter) believes in the significance of restoring historic buildings as a means to economic development and improving the quality of life. He taps the energy of the grassroots residents and helps to channel it into a positive force for community renewal," said Tribune-Review publisher Dick Scaife, who is on the board of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks.

Improving the quality of life for others always has been important to Slaughter, who, while with Fannie Mae, supervised employees cleaning up New Orleans and rebuilding playgrounds after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Slaughter's experience with Equibank (now National City) and Dollar Bank that prompted Arthur Ziegler, founder, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh History & Landmark Foundation, to tap him for the arm of the group that acquires funding to rehabilitate historical neighborhoods.

At Dollar Bank, Slaughter served as vice president for the Community Development Department.

"Howard Slaughter continues to deepen and broaden our commitment to historic neighborhood restoration and economic development," Ziegler said. "He is a man who is bigger than life."

On Feb. 23, Slaughter will receive WQED's 2009 African-American Leadership Award for his civic, community and humanitarian service.

Slaughter credits his mother, Vera Shields, with instilling faith and a strong work ethic.

Slaughter's mother moved from cleaning houses in Squirrel Hill to a 25-year career with the Pittsburgh Board of Education. She eventually received a bachelor's degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh.

Taking a page out of his mother's playbook, Slaughter, as a youngster growing up in Homewood, would go to the local supermarket on Saturdays to earn quarters by carrying groceries to shoppers' cars.

In later years, like his mother, he began a quest to further his education by attending evening classes while continuing his full-time jobs.

He has an associate's degree from Community College of Allegheny County, an undergraduate degree from Carlow College, a master's degree in public management from the H.J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, an MBA from Point Park College and a doctorate in information systems and communications from Robert Morris University.

"I was the perennial evening-class student," Slaughter said.

"As a youth, my interest was in sports, but I always respected my mother's keen sense of what classes I needed to take in high school. When she advised me to take up typing, I did it. Typing has been one of the most important tools I used in my schoolwork and in my profession."

Slaughter attended Peabody High School and graduated from Penn Hills High School in 1975.

While playing football at Peabody, Slaughter became friends with David Logan, a teammate who became a mentor and who, in later years, was instrumental in helping when Slaughter became a successful banker.

"Dave often said to me when we were both at Peabody that he was going to become a professional football player," Slaughter said. "I thought he had the height, but not the build or weight to go out and play in the pros.

"His answer was 'I'm going to pursue it,' and he did," Slaughter added. Logan went on to play college football at Pitt and in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Logan died of a heart attack in 1999 at age 42.

"Throughout my life, I've tried to emulate Dave. He was my hero, a man who was guided by principles, both on and off the playing fields."

Slaughter says that if his mother instilled a work ethic, it was his time in the military that instilled discipline. He served four years in the Navy during the 1970s and, after his discharge, enlisted in the Army Reserve.

"I felt it was important that I continue to serve my country, because my country served me," Slaughter said.

That experience in the military motivated him to establish a Christian Cadet Corps at the Faith Center Church of Christ in the East End.

"We wanted to prepare young men considering entering the military with basic fundamentals," he said. "The training I received and the discipline that was required were instrumental in shaping my career. I feel strongly that every young man, regardless of his economic status, should consider entering the military."

This past year, the congregation of Mt. Ararat Baptist Church in East Liberty, considered one of the largest Baptist congregations in Western Pennsylvania, honored Slaughter with a Community Activity Award for exemplary community service.

The Rev. Dr. William H. Curtis, senior pastor of Mt. Ararat, commends Slaughter's commitment to improving Pittsburgh by marrying preservation of landmarks with community development.

"(Slaughter's) work ethic is a sentiment to his spiritual values and to the activity needed for the overall commitment to both community and the city at large," Curtis said.

Slaughter said it was his dream to become CEO of a financial institution -- an institution where he could use the Christian principles he grew up with and help those who needed the advice of a professional.

"It was a long haul, but when Arthur Ziegler asked me to become the CEO of the Landmarks Development Corp. and its goal of reaching out to low-income families, I achieved my dream."