Newsmaker: Peter Kracht

Noteworthy: Recently named director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, effective Feb. 1.

Age: 54

Residence: Prospect, Butler County

Family: Wife Ellen and daughter Caillie

Education: Bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also did graduate work at the School of International and Public Affairs/Harriman Institute for the Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University.

Background: He began his publishing career at Oxford University Press and, after holding several positions in scholarly publications, joined the University of Pittsburgh Press in July 2005 as editorial director. He added the role as director of electronic publishing in 2007. Through his leadership, the press has received A. W. Mellon Foundation grants to support a Slavic studies program in collaboration with two partner presses and to start a publishing program in collaboration with the university's Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the university's World History Center. He also has played an important role in obtaining financial support for individual books from such grantors as the Buhl Foundation, the Allegheny Foundation and the Polish and Russian cultural ministries.

Quote: “In the future, books will be entirely digital with an option for consumers to have a print edition if they want. We just respond to what people want.”