Stephen Glassman, chair of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, handed in his resignation letter Monday.
Glassman has accepted a position as the president and CEO of Community Design Center of Pittsburgh starting June 13, but will maintain his home in Philadelphia.
The CDCP is a nonprofit agency that offers design assistance through funding, technical assistance and education.
Glassman will be leaving the PHRC after eight years at the helm, but will remain a commissioner.
“I felt that I had accomplished a great deal of my original intentions and that, after almost nine years. It was time to move on to another challenge and offer this opportunity to someone who might be more effective at working with a Republican governor and Republican legislature,” he said, noting the CDCP position is an “ideal marriage” of his architecture skills and public policy work.
Former Gov. Mark Schweiker appointed Glassman to the commission in 2002, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, making him the first out individual in the state to receive a Senate-approved gubernatorial appointment. One year after his confirmation, then-Gov. Ed Rendell appointed Glassman as commission chair.
In addition to overseeing the agency’s investigation into discrimination complaints, Glassman has been a strong advocate for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity into both state and local laws, testifying at hearings across the state for municipal LGBT ordinances, as well as backing efforts to expand the state’s Human Relations Act to make it LGBT-inclusive.
Glassman, a graduate of Brown and Yale universities and Harvard University’s JFK School of Government program for senior executives, owned an architectural firm for 25 years prior to coming to PHRC.
Glassman has accrued a litany of awards, including the Humanitarian Award from Shomrim of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, the local Jewish police association, which will be handed down June 1.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].
© 2011 Philadelphia Gay News
