Obituary: Garland H. McAdoo Jr. | Nuclear engineer who later turned to law - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The interests of Garland McAdoo were as varied as his accomplishments were pioneering.
He was a single father, one of the first Black nuclear engineers in his field, and a longtime Pittsburgh attorney who mostly represented non-profit organizations. Mr. McAdoo died of Parkinson's disease Dec. 25 in Durham, N.C., where he’d lived the past several years to be nearer to his son Brian, a professor at Duke University. He was 80.
The eldest of eight children and a natural leader, Mr. McAdoo was elected student body president at segregated Dudley High School in Greensboro, N.C., before he graduated in 1959.
One thing he didn’t learn at his school was algebra — an essential skill for understanding calculus and his advanced scientific studies at North Carolina State University.
So he taught himself.
“I found his old yearbook from college and he was the only Black person I could see,” his son said. “It was impressive. He used to say that, ‘You have to work twice as hard to get half as far. You put your nose to the grindstone and do the work. Haters are going to hate.’ He graduated with honors in nuclear engineering, which is really remarkable to think about what he had to go through. It was really a pretty remarkable achievement.”
Later in life, Mr. McAdoo shared his gifted intellect by helping his son’s friends and other young students.
“He was always helping young Black teens because they sometimes lacked role models,” his son said. “When we lived in Point Breeze, he put a chalkboard in the kitchen and my buddies would come over and he would lecture us on everything, from English to history and physics to chemistry.”
After he earned a degree in nuclear engineering in 1963, Mr. McAdoo briefly studied law, but his father persuaded him to give it up for a career in engineering.
He came to the Pittsburgh area right after graduation and worked at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin, designing nuclear power capabilities for Navy submarines.
Over the years, Mr. McAdoo found the work less stimulating and chose to return to the law, studying at the University of Pittsburgh law school while raising his son as a single father.
“It was a very difficult time for him. He was my best friend for years,” said Olivia Surratt, now a financial adviser in Baltimore. “Garland was a wonderful person and we were close. I was Brian’s godmother.”
At the time, Ms. Surratt ran a management consulting business in Pittsburgh, but she found time to help out her friend as much as possible.
“Whenever Garland couldn’t pick [Brian] up, I did and I would bring him to my office,” she said. “We made it work.”
After he graduated from law school in 1972, Mr. McAdoo went to work at the firm of Tucker Arensberg, where he also was a shareholder for many years.
“Garland was esteemed by his professional peers and served as trusted counsel to his clients,” said a statement on the firm’s website. “He is remembered as a strong leader and mentor to many young lawyers. Garland served the Pittsburgh community on countless boards and associations.”
Nonprofit groups were Mr. McAdoo’s primary clientele, and he often worked pro-bono for many in the community.
“He chose to make a lot of personal sacrifices to help people,” his son said. “Most of the time, he was not getting paid much, if at all.”
Many of the relationships Mr. McAdoo forged as a lawyer ran deep.
“The law was secondary to him getting to know and help people,” said longtime friend Norman Wilson, a retired vice president at Mellon Bank. “He was a lawyer, but he was a friend to his clients first. He tended to spend a lot of time with his clients on the personal and friendship side. He was definitely a friend to those folks more than anything else.”
Along with volunteering as an active member on many boards, including Point Park University and the national Make-a-Wish Foundation, Mr. McAdoo was president of the Urban League of Pittsburgh for three years and was chairman of the Black Lawyers Association of Western Pennsylvania.
He retired from the law firm in 2003 and worked for several years as general counsel for the Pittsburgh Housing Authority.
Life for Mr. McAdoo was an important balance between work and raising his son.
“He was the coach of our baseball team,” his son said. “He was my tutor, the head chef and maitre d’.”
Mr. McAdoo traveled extensively, including as a college student and YMCA representative to the Soviet Union when Nikita Khrushchev was premier around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
He also enjoyed an unforgettable trip to Antarctica with his son in the winter of 2004.
“We were crossing the Drake Passage and we had close to about 60-foot waves. It was terrifying; I was sick as a dog and curled up like a ball in bed,” his son said, laughing at the memory. “Meanwhile, he was walking around talking to everybody. He was so charming and just a flirt. He came to the room and stuck a tuna fish sandwich under my nose and asked if I was hungry. I ran him over going to the bathroom.”
One of his favorite locales was southern France, and Mr. McAdoo also liked to visit Mr. Wilson’s 160-acre farm in Mount Vernon, Ohio.
“We were neighbors for years in North Point Breeze and had a lot in common,” he recalled. “We would alternate between houses and spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together. When we moved, he often visited the farm and he loved walking in the country and just putzing around, planning things to grow. He liked fixing, healing, shaping and recreating things.”
Along with his son, Mr. McAdoo is survived by his adopted daughter, Dawn Young, of East Liberty; three grandchildren; and siblings Larry McAdoo, of Stanford, Conn., Harold McAdoo, of Pinehurst, N.C., Gale Stout, of Charlotte, N.C., and Francine Scott, Martin McAdoo, and Faye McAdoo, all of Greensboro, N.C.
He was predeceased by another sister Joanne Black.
Memorial donations are suggested to support the academic achievement of students at Greensboro's Dudley High School, at www.gofundme.com/f/garland-mcadoo-memorial-fund-for-dudley-hs.
Janice Crompton: [email protected].
First Published January 28, 2022, 11:47am
source: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2022/01/27/Obituary-Garland-H-McAdoo-Jr-Nuclear-engineer-who-later-turned-to-law/stories/202201270157
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