Estelle Gould spent all of her more than 36 years at WTAE-TV, Channel 4, off camera, but as a pioneering advocate for women and minorities in a fledgling television industry she was a big influence on whom viewers saw on camera at that station and other Hearst stations across the nation.
Ms. Gould was hired at WTAE just days after the station began broadcasting in September 1958 and went on to become an industry trailblazer for women and minorities and a mentor for both women and men until her retirement in 1994.
“She was an advocate for women and provided guidance for some very powerful women and their career tracks. She believed in women helping other women and made it her mission to protect women in the workplace,” said Sally Wiggin, a Channel 4 news anchor who retired in November 2018. “She was a force for women and for all people in the world of local television.”
Ms. Gould, 90, of Bethel Park, died Tuesday of complications from a heart infection.
