The Power 100, a listing of the region’s most influential business leaders, is being presented by categories this year. Here are Connectors.

Connectors are everywhere. They are the often behind-the-scenes players who drive business decisions and whose influence extends well beyond their given industries.

Economic development tends to happen when different counties within a region help one another by sharing assets, while investing in infrastructure and education, according to Rich Fitzgerald, executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.

These topics among others were discussed Wednesday, Jan. 31, when the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted its annual legislative breakfast event, where Fitzgerald and Matt Smith, chief growth officer of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, spoke to a crowd of chamber members at The Chadwick, 10545 Perry Highway.

Economic development tends to happen when different counties within a region help one another by sharing assets, while investing in infrastructure and education, according to Rich Fitzgerald, executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.

These topics among others were discussed Wednesday, Jan. 31, when the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted its annual legislative breakfast event, where Fitzgerald and Matt Smith, chief growth officer of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, spoke to a crowd of chamber members at The Chadwick, 10545 Perry Highway.

For U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a news conference in Swissvale Friday was about more than a $142.3 million grant to improve the Parkway East and Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway, among other projects in the eastern suburbs.

“This is about people,” said Lee, a Democrat who grew up a block away from the news conference site along the busway. “It’s about jobs. It’s about quality of life.

“’The bathtub’ is not just an obstacle to overcome, it’s a warning sign,” Buttigieg said. “It’s a warning sign that it is long past time to upgrade the entire corridor to be more resilient against the climate crisis.”

The grant includes additional funding to reduce traffic, prevent landslides and avert accidents along I-376, which Buttigieg said carries 44,000 drivers per day.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh on Friday to announce a $142 million federal funds for the city’s infrastructure.

He’s expected to join federal, local and state leaders, including U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and U.S. Reps. Chris Deluzio and Summer Lee to celebrate the investment, which aims to improve infrastructure on the Interstate 376 corridor, officials said in a news release.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will be in Pittsburgh on Friday.

He will join local, federal and state leaders, including U.S. Sen John Fetterman, Congressman Chris Deluzio and Congresswoman Summer Lee to celebrate the more than $ 142 million headed to Pittsburgh.

The funding is through the INFRA and Mega grant program, which was funded by President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law that he announced Thursday in Wisconsin.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will be in Pittsburgh Friday to celebrate funding for $142.3 million in projects along the Parkway East and the eastern suburbs and to meet with students at Carnegie Mellon University.

Buttigieg is part of the Biden administration’s promotion of $4.9 billion in grants for major road and bridge projects formally announced Thursday. Biden was scheduled to announce the 37 projects at a news conference along the Wisconsin-Minnesota border, where $1 billion will be used to replace the Blatnik Bridge between Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin.

In different rooms with different voices, peoples across Pennsylvania have been imagining what it would take to decarbonize their economies.

Some of these conversations began before the U.S. Congress enacted its landmark infrastructure bill in 2021, or the energy and climate powerhouse, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Others started afterward, or picked up steam as it became clear that a firehose of funding for greenhouse gas emission reduction schemes would be unleashed in a short period of time. Short, because of the urgency of climate change and the realities of a political system where energy and environmental policy can do a 180 every few years.

Repairs are on the way for the Fort Duquesne, West End and McKees Rocks bridges in Allegheny County, thanks to $132 million in new investments the Shapiro-Davis administration announced Thursday, Jan. 18, by Lt. Gov. Austin Davis and Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation (PennDOT) Mike Carroll at a news conference in Pittsburgh.