A Life Together That Changed Pittsburgh's Landscape

Abstract

Entrepreneurs are known risk takers. They are courageous, self-starters, and visionary. I am not an entrepreneur, but my parents, Max and Esther Sestili, were. In 1947, after World War II, they were young, smart, and hard-working. They were in love, parents of three of us children—with three more to come—and as Italian immigrants committed to family, community, and their church. Having just moved from Juliet to Dawson Street in Pittsburgh’s South Oakland neighborhood, they made the leap to go it alone by launching the Max Sestili Landscape Contracting Company, a small one-man, one-woman business in the backyard of our home. Seventy years later, Sestili Nursery, Inc., continues to thrive, now managed by my brother Ron, brother-in-law Chuck Beck, and nephew Patrick Beck.

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