Our People

   

For more than 55 years, Bill Strickland has been an innovator in the service of providing underserved people with learning and healing environments that inspire hope and shatter expectations for what they can achieve.

As a college student in 1968, Bill founded Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild to give the youth of his neighborhood a place to learn pottery as a safe alternative to the streets. In 1972, he assumed leadership of a struggling building trade school and ultimately combined the operations under one roof. Over the years, other operations were added, including five-time GRAMMY®-winning MCG Jazz, one of the longest-running jazz subscription series in America. Today, the center serves hundreds of under-resourced youth and adults every year in a host of vocational training and arts disciplines, including culinary arts, medicine, photography, and digital imaging.

Since founding MBC, Bill has guided the creation of more than a dozen centers. What started as a few pottery wheels in a basement in Pittsburgh has become a constellation of world-class vocational training & arts education centers in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Israel. In 2023, Bill founded the Strickland Global Leadership Institute (SGLI) to institutionalize and propel his vision into the future. SGLI facilitates the creation of new centers, supports the centers guided by his vision, and will go on to train & mentor people in how to start & run these centers.

Bill is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellows “Genius” grant (1996) and has been awarded the Skoll Award (2007) and Goi Peace Award (2011). He has earned more than 25 honorary doctorate degrees. His work transforming lives has been the subject of four Harvard Business School case studies to date. Bill is the author of Make the Impossible Possible with Vince Rause.
 

Anthony Cascione is the President of SGLI. Anthony works closely with SGLI's board to guide the creation of vocational training and arts education centers consistent with Bill's vision and to support the network of existing centers. Prior to SGLI, Anthony was a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where he focused on developing methods to open communication and build trust in closed network environments, like classrooms. He received his law degree with honors from Harvard Law School and has an MS in Applied Psychological Methods and a BS in Business Administration, both from Fordham University.

Ryan Lytle is the Chief of Staff of SGLI, where he supports daily operations and serves as a project manager. Ryan has a background in IT and project management.

• Board Chair, Hope Center for Arts & Technology (HopeCAT)
• Director of Planned Giving, Community Foundation of Western PA & Eastern OH
• Partner, Hemlock Wealth Management

• Founder, Manchester Bidwell Corporation

• Board Chair, Laurel Highlands Workforce & Opportunity Center (LHWOC)
• President & Lead Financial Advisor, Covington Investment Advisors

• Founder, Fechter Holdings LLC

• Former Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company
• Former Chief Executive Officer, Steelcase
• Founding Board Member, Western Michigan Center for Arts & Technology (WMCAT)

• Professor and Senior Vice President for Research, Howard University

• Former Executive in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business
• Former Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives

• President, Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh
• U.S. Honorary Consul of Ireland, Pittsburgh

• Social Impact Investor and Investment Liaison, 4S Bay Partners