Donald Trump he's not.

Pittsburgh-native Ed Fritzky, the former Immunex chief executive officer who led his Seattle company to the biggest merger in pharmaceutical history -- a $16 billion buyout by behemoth Amgen Inc. in 2002 -- lacks Trump's ego, bravado, hubris ... and the orange-hair comb-over.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Edward Fritzky, former CEO of Immunex, is endowing a chair in biotecnology at Duquesne University. Fritzky returned recently to Pittsburgh to endow an economic development. Click photo for larger image.

Many CEOs are portrayed with those Trump-like characteristics, the hair thing aside. Some would even argue that they are essential to survival in the often Machiavellian corporate climate.

Not Fritzky, who in April granted Duquesne University with a $1.5 million gift to endow a chair in biotechnology.

He might even be Trump's antithesis -- elusive, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, thoughtful ... a far cry from the bombastic mogul-turned-television-star.

Publicity, and the glare of the limelight, seem to embarrass Fritzky, 53, who grew up in Sheraden and graduated from Duquesne in 1972.

Former Immunex Executive Vice President Doug Williams recalled Fritzky negotiating the Amgen deal by his ailing mother's bedside in Pittsburgh. I thought, "This is a pretty quiet, unassuming guy. Not the sort of big time ego that you would envision," said Williams.

The quiet, seemingly introspective retired executive demurely refuses to take full credit for his donation, used to fund the Edward V. Fritzky Endowed Chair that will meld a number of the school's research initiatives with the intent of developing Duquesne into a regional biotech and development player.

"The four of us decided as a family to focus on education," Fritzky said in an interview last month, noting that his donation also came from his wife, Karen, who lives with him in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Wash., and his college-age children, Ryan and Lisa.

Fritzky comes from modest means, having been raised by a single mother during his pre-teen and teenage years. One of his earliest memories of what he wanted to be when grew up was a "good person who is well respected in the community" much like his father, Frank, a barber who died when Fritzky was 10.

Though not picture-perfect, his childhood wasn't atypical.

His mother, aunt and extended family rallied around him and his older brother, Bob, to make sure they had what they needed. Fritzky loved electronics and developed a circle of friends who were just as crazy about hand radios and circuit boards as he was. They played baseball and ran around their working class neighborhood like most kids do.

At Holy Innocents High School, Fritzky served as a deejay and, with childhood buddy John Rudzinskas, drank coffee at the Eat'n Park in McKees Rocks to powwow on plans for the future.

"Ed was laid back and unassuming," said Rudzinskas. "He had the ambition ... an inner type of steeliness and determination."

You'd never know it by looking at him.

To hear the slightly built, sometimes glasses-clad Fritzky tell it, a glowing career in pharmaceuticals could have just as easily been anything else -- particularly journalism, which he studied while a student at Duquesne in the late '60s.

By the time he graduated in 1972, Fritzky entered the Army for a brief stint as an officer. By the next year, it was time to look for a job.

"It was easy getting the interviews," he said. Many companies were looking for college graduates with military experience.

One of those interviews was with a pharmaceutical company and Fritzky did what he knew best -- he went to the library and pulled every book he could find on the drug industry. He got the job, at Searle Pharmaceuticals, selling medicine for high blood pressure.

Fritzky worked his way up Searle, eventually being named president and general manager of Searle Canada Inc. and vice president of marketing for Searle in the United States.

Fritzky's notion on what it takes to succeed in business is, not surprisingly, old-fashioned but tried and true: "My view is really work hard. Really try to accomplish what you're doing," he said. "I always felt that if you did that, people would ultimately recognize you for it."

Of course, walking through those wide-open doors of opportunity doesn't hurt. And like the rest of us, he looked to those who'd already "made it."

"I remember reading this newspaper piece with interviews of people who were successful in business. Virtually everybody interviewed said all I did was take advantage of opportunities when they came up," he said.

So Fritzky didn't shirk the chance to take the helm at Immunex, despite its reputation as a an insular, science-geek's fantasy island.

He was facing a difficult task. Brought in to focus on commercialization, Fritzky's challenge was to turn Immunex's well-regarded scientific research into commercially viable drugs. Over half of Immunex had recently been sold to American Cynamid, and Fritzky was hired with the charge to turn it into a biotech powerhouse.

Fritzky had his work cut out for him, said Williams, a scientist who led the company's science group. "Here comes Ed, sort of viewed by other people as this marketing guy. He was in a hole because of that."

Daunted or not, Fritzky worked himself out of the trench by being accessible, easy to talk to, without pretense.

Plus, he knew what he was doing.

Williams recalled Fritzky's pitch in 1996 to get Immunex's stock up to $98 in 1998. "98 in '98' was the slogan, to the dismissal of his executive team. The cynics at Immunex wrote it all off to a marketing guy coming with a marketing ploy," said Williams.

Two years later, one executive had a cake baked in the shape of a crow for Fritzky's staff to eat. As predicted, in 1998, Immunex's stock skyrocketed as high as $127 before the stock's 2-for-1 split.

Four years later, Fritzky was named "Best Boss in America" by Forbes Magazine for generating the highest annual shareholder return over a six-year span.

Fritzky, according to Duquesne President Charles Dougherty, is not unlike most Pittsburgh born-and-bred Duquesne graduates.

"They are typically first generation college graduates. They remember their humble roots. Many are the children or grandchildren of steelworkers and immigrants and they see Duquesne as the door through which they moved to a much better future."

Humility might be an enduring theme in Fritzky's life despite his accomplishments.

"I've probably made every mistake in the world," he said. "I'm always thinking about how I change something for the better. You learn tremendously from the people who work with you. I think you learn from your own experiences and failures. "

Friends and colleagues said they weren't surprised to hear of Fritzky's generous contribution to Duquesne, given his steadfast ties to home.

Now semi-retired, Fritzky spends his time hanging out with his family and zipping back and forth between his home in suburban Seattle and Pittsburgh to care for his mother, Irene, now in her 80s. He serves on the corporate boards of four public companies and manages to find time to explore whatever piques his interest, including his continued philanthropic endeavors in leadership and literacy.

" I do have a natural curiosity for things," he said. "I'm curious about the world and people and why they do what they do. I'm interested in learning all the time."