Bill Strickland was a struggling high school student in Manchester, a Pittsburgh neighborhood devastated by the steel industry’s decline, when he met Frank Ross, a ceramics art teacher who became his mentor and friend. Ross taught him about clay and introduced him to jazz and the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Bill was inspired to “bring that light into my neighborhood to people who deserve it as much as anybody else, and who would respond to it as wholeheartedly and creatively as anybody else.”

In 1968, Bill founded Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG) to offer an arts program and exhibition space. In 1971, he assumed leadership of the Bidwell Training Center (BTC), a vocational training program. In 1986, a new 62,000-square-foot facility opened with art and recording studios, computer classrooms, a music hall and an industrial kitchen. Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC) holds and operates these and other subsidiaries, which are nationally recognized models.