Former Penn Hills Councilman Jim Getsy remembered as fixture of civic life

Jim Getsy’s ties to Penn Hills ran deep.

That’ll happen when a person described by friends and family as a dedicated community servant and believer in bureaucracy lives in one community for 57 years.

Getsy, 85, a former Penn Hills councilman and fixture of civic life, died March 15. He is survived by his wife, Andrea; a son, Michael; a daughter, Annette Marshall; and a grandson, Jack.

Alongside his wife, Getsy played founding roles in several local organizations, starting with the Penn Hills Soccer Association in the 1970s. In those early days, the Getsy home doubled as the association’s headquarters.

Later, he served as president of the Penn Hills Rotary and Crescent Hills Civic Association.

“He was a man of commitment,” Andrea Getsy said. “And just busy.”

After 33 years working for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Getsy retired in 2001 as a program manager and special assistant to the director. But that didn’t spell the end of his contributions to community development.

He lent his expertise to the Penn Hills Community Development Corporation and Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission, established in 2009 and 2017, respectively, as they began.

Kathy Raborn, president of the Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission, credited Getsy with helping to launch the organization and secure grants.

“He provided a lot of support and advice to me as I was starting that process,” Raborn said. “He always offered his help.”

The commission will be planting a tree to honor Getsy in Crescent Hills Park, which he landscaped many years ago.

One of his ventures, the Alliance for Consumer Protection, had national aims. That organization successfully pushed for the creation of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972, an independent regulatory agency.

“We personally handled people’s complaints,” Andrea Getsy recalled. “We’d take it so far as to picket the business.”

Howard Davidson, former Penn Hills planning director, knew Getsy in a professional capacity, as the pair often collaborated over federal funds. As time went on, they also got to know one another personally.

Getsy would regularly attend the Penn Hills Coffeehouse music series, run by Davidson out of “The Barn” on Jefferson Road. He loved bluegrass.

“He was well-liked throughout the community,” Davidson said. “I miss him already.”

Getsy often hopped “from one project to another,” his wife said. He had countless passions, from hiking and biking to crusading against litter. One of his last projects was being elected to council in 2019. He resigned in 2022, citing health issues.

Honoring his contributions, the municipality lowered the Penn Hills and state flags to half-staff.

In his later years, he took to whittling birds, giving away more than 130 of them to friends, family members — even strangers, through charity raffles.

Close family members will get one more memento to remember him by: a copy of his childhood memoir, “The Yellow Raincoat.” In it, Getsy recounts the elementary-age escapades of him and his late brother, Regis, as they grew up in Braddock.

“I tell everybody, first, he was a storyteller,” Andrea Getsy said.

Friends are invited to a memorial visitation from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 6, at Wolfe Memorial LLC, 3600 Greensburg Pike in Churchill.

Memorial contributions can be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation.