By MARTY LEVINE

Karen Sebolt came to Heinz Memorial Chapel — first as a part-time docent, working her way up to director — after many moves around the country and across several careers.

As she explained at the latest Staff Council Coffee and Conversation on March 23, her initial contact with Pittsburgh came when her father’s human resources career brought him here from their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, and he raved about the town.

After moving here herself, Sebolt worked in the executive training group at Gimbels department store downtown and was “real, real close to becoming an assistant buyer — and that’s when they liquidated and went under,” in 1986. But she had become intrigued enough with business by then to pursue an MBA at the Katz Graduate School of Business, and embark on an accounting career. That, and her marriage, took her to Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas and beyond.

Eventually the work of raising kids took over, and more moves followed to Orange County, Calif., Virginia and finally back to Pittsburgh: “I was so busy in that move (back to Pittsburgh), just getting the kids enrolled in school and finding a church and dentist and a doctor and a library card and swimming lessons and all those kinds of things, and I just never had time to look for another job. I got involved in public school, volunteering at our church, Girl Scouts, and of course … I had to be a leader.”

After 15 years, she considered other work again: “I thought maybe I should start out part time, maybe I should slowly do this. I saw this part-time position as a docent at Heinz Chapel, and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ and then I thought, ‘Oh Karen, you should have waited until you got something full time and something bigger.’ But obviously it was the right choice.”

Her Heinz Chapel work eventually expanded. By the time she was asked to be interim director, “I knew the building very well. I knew the event business. It was just getting my hands into some other areas: donor relations, financial statements, getting us through COVID.”

“What drives your passion for the management and the care of that chapel?” asked Staff Council’s Sam Young, the event’s monthly host.

“That’s all the staff — they’re maybe a little too passionate,” Sebolt answered. “It’s something about the building, the dedication to the Heinz family. … It’s a special place on campus. Plus, we have a lot of events, weddings as you can imagine, and so we’re very invested in customer service and making sure that we’re providing the best that we can.”

And there are always new developments, such as additions to the chapel tours, she said — a “Women in the Windows” tour of famous figures in the stained glass windows during March for Women’s History Month, for instance, or a flora and fauna tour, devised with Pitt’s sustainability office, focused on the insects, wildlife and plants in those same windows.

“We have almost 400 identifiable individuals within the chapel” windows, Sebolt pointed out, “and it’s not just religious figures and saints. It’s also people of science and medicine, explorers, activists, leaders, nobility, teachers, artists, writers and poets. So we could do a whole poetry tour. We could do a people in science and medicine tour. There are a lot of possibilities.

“Last year we really wanted to focus in on student engagement,” she said, “so we planned a number of things for Welcome Week, and we had great success. We want to continue doing more of that. The building was built for the students. It’s always very bothersome, at least for me, for students to come in and get a picture taken in their cap and gown — which is wonderful — but on their last day, just before graduation. They’ve never walked in the chapel before. So we want them in there earlier and enjoying the chapel.”

Sebolt said the other thing she’s really enjoyed in the past few years are the “simply styled weddings,” which she said the rest of the staff love too. “These are kind of pop-up weddings, where we sell a whole package to couples where they come in, they don’t have to worry about flowers. We provide the photographer, of course the ceremony, reception outside with cookies and champagne under a tent.”

Sebolt even sought and received her officiant’s license to conduct the ceremonies. “I actually really enjoyed doing that. It was interesting meeting with the couples, talking with them. I came up with readings for them, wrote a religious and a civil wedding to choose from, and it was nice.”

“Is there anything you wish you could do, any event that’s specific, anything that is on a wish list for the chapel or for yourself at this point,” Young asked.

“I would love to meet Teresa Heinz Kerry and welcome her to the chapel,” Sebolt said. “That would be a real honor. The things she’s done for Pittsburgh and the things she’s done with the foundation — the Heinz Foundation is very good to us.”

Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.

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