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George Ketchum
Year of induction: 1997
Bio:
On October 16, 1990, George Ketchum was posthumously enrolled in the Junior Achievement of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Business Hall of Fame. As guests watched on a giant video screen, a remarkable story unfolded of Ketchum Communications and its founder:
“George Ketchum, a man who helped create one of the leading advertising agencies in the world, but with an unusual twist. The company wasn’t located in New York or Chicago, but here, in Pittsburgh.
And his first job was not in advertising … it was in fundraising.”
In 1919, fresh out of Pitt, Ketchum launched his first major fund-raising campaign. It was the success of this campaign for the Jewish War Relief Fund that allowed him to rent an office and begin staffing it. His decision to start his business in Pittsburgh defied conventional wisdom of the day.
“Pittsburgh and Paradise had little in common. None of the major advertisers in Pittsburgh used a local agency; it was generally accepted that none ever would,” he said. “But at least I knew some Pittsburghers, and the family was there.”
In the early years, Ketchum worked on fund-raising jobs for the YMCA of Wilkinsburg and for the Industrial Home for Crippled Children, now the Pittsburgh Rehabilitation Institute. He expanded his services to incorporate advertising with modest accounts at Colonial Trust Company (predecessor to Pittsburgh National Bank) and Union National Bank.
Ketchum Publicity ultimately evolved into Ketchum, Inc., the country’s largest professional fund-raising organization, and Ketchum MacLeod & Grove (renamed Ketchum Communications in 1982). After 73 years of acquisitions and mergers, Ketchum Communications Inc. still acts as the advertising agency for Pittsburgh National.
George Ketchum died in 1975. By that time, the agency he founded had not only flourished in Pittsburgh, it had become one of the 20 largest communications firms in the United States, with a national and international client roster.
In accepting the Junior Achievement award for her father, Janet Ketchum Whitehouse said:
“My father loved Pittsburgh; he loved its business community. He felt that business was an exciting, creative endeavor that produced a better life for all Americans, and an important part of that was advertising.”
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