Albert B. Ciuksza Jr.always knew he belonged in business. As a kid, he sold popcorn balls on the street with his best friend. Now, he's part of an eight-person startup company in the Strip District.

But his current business venture is not necessarily his end game.

"I don't know what my dream is yet," Mr. Ciuksza, 28, said. "The more I ... gather experience, when I figure out what [the dream] is, I'll have a better background."

And he's gathering experience right here in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Ciuksza, of Bellevue, is the vice president of marketing for Eyenovate, a company that produces both consumer goods and software products for opticians.

One of their products is a take on clip-on sunglasses. Basically, instead of clips, there are small magnets embedded in the prescription lenses of the glasses. "Sunlenses"are cut to fit the size and shape of regular glasses and also embedded with magnets, so the sunglass lenses stick perfectly onto the regular eyeglasses, no clips involved.

One recent afternoon, Mr. Ciuksza demonstrated the ease with which he can put on and remove the tinted lenses, and I immediately thought of how my grandmother, who has neuropathy in her fingers, struggles to get her clip-on sunglasses on and off because she can't feel the clips, and how this would be a perfect solution.

He says that being involved in a small business in Pittsburgh is a good place to start for a budding entrepreneur.

"Integrity really matters here because it's a small community," Mr. Ciuksza said. "Everybody knows you; you really have to step up to the plate and say what you're going to do, and do what you say."

Mr. Ciuksza was looking into purchasing a company that sells picture frames in the North Side a few years back, and he knew one of the big clients at this company was the Pittsburgh Pirates. Before buying the company, he wanted to make sure that if ownership changed hands, the Pirates would stick with the company.

So he called Kevin McClatchy, the former chief executive of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and left him a message asking him to keep the Pirates with the company. Mr. McClatchy called him back two hours later and discussed the business venture with him.

Mr. Ciuksza ultimately decided against purchasing the company, but learned a business lesson you can only learn in Pittsburgh.

"When I hung up the phone, I realized if I was in New York, George Steinbrenner wouldn't have called me back," he said.

Though it's tough to believe because he lacks an accent of any kind -- he doesn't sound like a Southerner and he doesn't sound like a Pittsburgher -- Mr. Ciuksza is a native of El Paso, Texas. Because his parents are from Pittsburgh, he spent summers here growing up and knew he wanted to go to college here. He went to St. Vincent College in Latrobe and never left.

He cites the Pittsburgh work ethic and the fanatical devotion to the Steelers as reasons to believe in this city.

"There was a ton of wealth created, and it was created by people who started from the ground up," he said, noting that his grandfather was an apprentice in a steel mill who raised six kids, put them through college and still took vacations in the summer -- a story that likely rings true for a lot of Pittsburghers who have stayed here generation after generation.

Using Elsie Hillman as an example, he noted that community leaders at the higher levels show the same determination and tough work ethic that the blue-collar workers do.

"It is ingrained in the DNA," he said. "It's infectious."