20 Facts About Henry Hillman

Henry Lea Hillman was an American billionaire businessman, investor, civic leader, and philanthropist.

Henry Hillman was chairman of The Hillman Company, a family office and investment company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and owned by the Hillman family.

Henry Hillman chaired the board of trustees of Hillman Family Foundations, which manages 18 named foundations.

Henry Lea Hillman was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Henry Hillman was the fifth child and second son of John Hartwell Hillman Jr.

Henry Hillman's father built upon his own father's small iron brokerage firm to create a diversified industrial operation with holdings in coal and coke, steel and utilities, energy, transportation, real estate, and banking.

Henry Hillman enlisted in the Navy before the United States entered World War II in December 1941 and served first as an aide to Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Henry Hillman became a Naval aviator in 1942, holding the rank of lieutenant and serving until after the war's end in 1945.

Henry Hillman served as a director of Pittsburgh National Bank from its founding until 1988.

The Henry Hillman Company was the largest single venture capital investor in the country during the early 1980s.

In 1976, Henry Hillman became the first limited partner in the leveraged buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

The Henry Hillman Company became what Forbes magazine described as "one of the country's largest, and lowest-profile, commercial real estate developers", with properties from California to Florida.

Henry Hillman stepped down from active management of The Hillman Company in 2004.

Henry Hillman was inducted into the Private Equity Hall of Fame.

Henry Hillman was named Industrialist of the Year in 1968 by the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Society of Industrial Realtors and Business Leader of the Year in 1989 by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce.

Active in Pittsburgh civic leadership since the years of the city's first "renaissance" in the late 1940s, Henry Hillman has served as a director or trustee of ACTION Housing, Inc.

Henry Hillman served as president of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development from 1967 to 1970 and as chair from 1970 to 1973.

In 2012 Henry began to give additional annual contributions to the Henry L Hillman Foundation to support community efforts and organizations that drive the development of new ideas across the nonprofit sector in Pittsburgh.

Together, he and Elsie Henry Hillman received the Tree of Life Award from the National Jewish Fund, the Sheepskin Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Universities, and the gold medal award from the American Institute of Architects, Pittsburgh chapter.

Henry Hillman married Elsie Hilliard in Pittsburgh on May 12,1945.