Pittsburgh lawyer and businessman Richard G. Jewell is a 1967 Grove City College graduate and longtime Bethel Park resident. In the fall of 2003, he left his Pittsburgh position as a director of the Chicago-based Navigant Consulting Inc., the nation’s largest forensic accounting firm, to assume the presidency of Grove City College.
Prior to joining Navigant, Jewell was a senior administrator in applied research at the University of Pittsburgh. He served as executive vice president of the University of Pittsburgh Trust, the holding entity for five of the university’s applied research companies. He also was a member of the university’s senior management council and president of Pittsburgh Applied Research Corporation, the for-profit operating company of the one-million-square-foot University of Pittsburgh Applied Research Center in Harmarville, Pa.
Jewell is also well known for his civic activities. He has been chairman of the boards of the Pittsburgh Downtown YMCA, National Kidney Foundation of Western Pennsylvania and the St. Clair Hospital Foundation. He also was vice chairman of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan YMCA and served on the boards of St. Clair Hospital, the Pittsburgh Youth Golf Foundation, Civic Light Opera and the American Wind Symphony.
In addition to his civic work, Jewell has been active in politics. Among other things, he was finance chairman for the Republican Committee of Allegheny County and chair of the Murphy for Congress campaign. Jewell has recruited many significant political leaders to speak on public policy at the College, including senior adviser to President Bush, Karl Rove, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher, former U.S. Attorney General and Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh, and former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating. Additionally, Jewell has recruited significant judicial figures such as Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hon. Clarence Thomas.
Jewell, first elected to the College’s board of trustees in 1974 as the College's youngest-ever trustee, received the school’s Distinguished Service Award in 2001. He is past president of the Alumni Association and was co-chair of the College’s first-ever capital campaign, Change & Committment.
Jewell graduated cum laude from Grove City with high honors in political science. In addition, he was captain of the 1967 swim team and a two-time Penn-Ohio College diving champion. He was the editor-in-chief of the College's student newspaper, The Collegian, president of the Student Government Association, elected Grove City College Omicron Delta Kappa Man of the Year in 1967, and he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Phi social fraternity. Jewell was inducted into the College’s Swimming-Diving Hall of Fame in 1989.
He graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1973 with a Juris Doctor degree. A veteran, Jewell served in the U.S. Army from 1969-1971.
Jewell also holds faculty rank in the business department as professor of business law and public policy. He is Grove City’s eighth president since its 1876 founding.
Jewell, and his wife, Dayl, a retired PNC Bank vice president, have an adult daughter, Jessica.