FROM MILLVALE TO MOSCOW:
Rote Blazes Trails for Women in STEM
SUSIE CRIBBS
Patti Rote came of age in the small borough of Millvale, just north of Pittsburgh. Her working-class family never had a car, and she clearly remembers walking “halfway to town” to hop a bus into the city. Yet decades later, the founder of Girls of Steel in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute has traveled from Millvale to Moscow and everywhere in between, breaking barriers for herself and the generations coming up behind her.
Patti Rote pictured with CHIMP, the CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform robot.
Rote, who has done everything from helping tech companies grow to training high school students to build robots, retired earlier this year after a career fueled by grit and an adventurous spirit.
Although she came from a low-income family, Rote attended Catholic schools on scholarships and graduated from Millvale’s Mt. Alvernia High School before taking a job with the H.J. Heinz Company. After a short time, she found a new home at another Pittsburgh institution, Westinghouse. The company paid for her bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Pittsburgh, and, after its acquisition of CBS in the 1990s, supported her MBA work at Duquesne University.
Rote notes that she “grew up” with Westinghouse. But it’s also where she started breaking gender barriers. Westinghouse began a trading company during her tenure, and Rote was a buyer on the team.
“Every Monday morning the buyers had a meeting,” Rote said. “And my boss said, ‘I need someone to go to the Soviet Union, make a couple stops in Taiwan, and circle back and end up in Brazil. Do I have any takers?’ I looked around. Nobody raised their hand. So I did. And I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know what I just did, but what the heck?’”
That “what the heck?” outlook launched her into two decades of international travel, mostly to Russia, Asia and countries throughout South America, researching topics like why young people didn’t listen to American music in their cars. Though she spoke none of the local languages, she was drilled on cultural protocol, which she says was far more important. She always traveled solo — and was often the only woman in her field doing so.
After about 20 years of globetrotting, Rote became a consultant and began working with Tim McNulty, then an associate provost at CMU and now associate vice president for Government Relations. Her job? Regularly travel to Capitol Hill, know the hot robotics issues in each congressional district and give presentations on those topics to congressional staff. In less than three years she delivered 200 presentations and became intimately acquainted with technical companies — especially in robotics.
But how did she start helping kids build robots through Girls of Steel?
“I can’t believe this. Where are the girls? They could do this if they had the right mentorship!”
“I used to judge robotics competitions just because I liked technology,” she said. “I did that for three years straight, and every time I came back home to my husband and I said, ‘I can’t believe this. Where are the girls? They could do this if they had the right mentorship!’ And he said, ‘Quit complaining and go do something about it.’”
So she did.
Still in her consultant role, Rote met with William “Red” Whittaker, Founders University Professor in the Robotics Institute and director of the Field Robotics Center. She pitched the idea of fielding a primarily female team in the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international program that prepares young people for the future through inclusive, team-based robotics programs. Whittaker liked the idea.
“He said, ‘Go find me 25 girls and $25,000 and you got a deal,’” Rote said.
She got to work, getting most of the initial funds from the Grable Foundation. But Girls of Steel was so important to her that she threw in her own money, too.
“We had nothing. We didn’t even have pencils. So I thought to myself, ‘How am I going to jumpstart this? I should at least throw in a thousand dollars so someone really believes that I want to do this,’” Rote said. “I would never start a program, say ‘this is a great idea,’ throw it over the wall and hope it happens.”
“We had nothing. We didn’t even have pencils. So I thought to myself, ‘How am I going to jumpstart this?”
For that first Girls of Steel cohort, Rote recruited from CMU neighbors the Ellis School and Oakland Catholic. With funding and participants locked down, all she needed was a roboticist to take the technical reins. She found that in George Kantor, research professor and associate director of education in the Robotics Institute.
Together, Rote and Kantor co-led Girls of Steel for more than a decade. Rote eventually joined the CMU staff part time, and Girls of Steel expanded its offerings to include programming for both middle and elementary school students. After 14 seasons of growth and countless successes, Kantor recently relinquished some of his role to former Girl of Steel Liz Kissell. Similarly, Rote realized that the organization was in good hands. She trained parents to fundraise and keep the business end of things in shape. She has the right mentors in place to motivate the team and move it forward. So she retired in June of 2023.
Rote’s contributions to CMU, Pittsburgh and the larger technical community go well beyond Girls of Steel. She led CMU’s participation in the National Defense University for years, and recently helped launch a first-of-its-kind program, AI for Teachers, that brings high school educators from across the country to CMU for a week of training from artificial intelligence experts Stephanie Rosenthal and Pat Virtue. She’s tirelessly fundraised to turn ideas for improving STEM education into a reality and helped transfer countless technologies to the public sector.
Rote notes that she “hates being at home,” which should surprise no one, so retirement won’t mean a life of leisure. She still plans to volunteer with Girls of Steel during their busy months. And while she’s had enough of international travel, she hopes to spend more time in one of her favorite places, Nantucket, Mass.
In typical fashion, though, she can’t leave a good cause alone.
“I have to be doing something all the time. And people that know me are worried about that,” said Rote, who now lives in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood. “I love tennis, and the Frick Park courts in Pittsburgh need to be redone, and the building needs updates. A good friend asked me if I wanted to give a hand, so that’s on the horizon.”
Looking back on her time at CMU, Rote fondly reflects on what inspired her each day.
“It’s a compilation of things. It’s meeting scientists. They’re unbelievable. But it’s also realizing where people like me, who are not scientists, need to help them,” Rote said. “I want to help. I like to help people. Whether it’s kids — the teenagers that you hope get on the right path — or researchers. And you can do that easily at CMU.” ■
“I want to help. I like to help people. Whether it’s kids — the teenagers that you hope get on the right path — or researchers.”