Lou Duco didn’t hesitate.
A few years ago, when a female hockey fan dropped her cell phone beneath the retractable seats at PPG Paints Arena, Mr. Duco rustled through the dust, dirt and trash to retrieve it, ripping his suit in the process.
“Wouldn’t everybody?” Mr. Duco said. “That’s what we’re here for.”
Truth be told, Mr. Duco’s here for a lot more than finding lost phones or any of the other tasks he performs nightly as the concierge at Suite 66, the high-end club across from the Penguins’ dressing room that the organization uses to entertain its top clients, co-owners, upper management and players.
Mr. Duco, 65, of Lincoln Place is a retired union carpenter with a thick Pittsburgh accent. He’s also active in his Roman Catholic church, St. Maximilian Kolbe in Munhall, and every summer travels to rural Kentucky to lead a group of 130 or so volunteers to build a house for a less-fortunate family.
It’s an endeavor the Penguins are proud to have supported.
“He’s the guy who, if you ask him directions to a gas direction, he won’t point; he’ll say, ‘follow me,’ and he’ll take you to where you’re going,” Penguins president/CEO David Morehouse said. “He does it here every day.”
Mr. Morehouse said Mr. Duco once drove a fan who was hit by a puck to the hospital, then visited later that night. Mr. Duco has shown up unannounced to Mr. Morehouse’s son Jackson’s hockey games and willingly works on his off-days if there’s a concert at the arena and co-owner Mario Lemieux’s daughters want to go.
On game nights, Mr. Duco’s duties range from greeting guests to explaining memorabilia to making sure a player’s parents are comfortable if they’re in town.
The environment is not exactly typical for a carpenter, but Mr. Duco has functioned like this for years. After he got out of the U.S. Air Force in 1972 and was working as a bartender at the Pittsburgh Golf Club, Mr. Duco got to know members of the Hillman, Scaife and Frick families.
Soon, the relationships escalated to the point where he began working house parties for them.
“You learn a lot about service with the ‘blue bloods,’ ” Mr. Duco said. “Serve from the left, take from the right. When to take a coat, when not to. I learned all that.
“Younger people now, they’re waiters or waitresses. They never learn about that old style of service.”
While his buddies were doing side work within their trade, Mr. Duco preferred to do something else. His “changeover,” he called it. When his shift ended in the afternoon, he could shower, change clothes and become a new person.
Literally.
“It’s refreshing,” Mr. Duco said. “Something different.”
He started as an usher back at Civic Arena and eventually found his way to the suite level. He even worked for a time as a carpenter.
But when PPG Paints Arena opened in 2010, the Penguins wanted Mr. Duco to be 100 percent devoted to Suite 66, named after Mr. Lemieux and the number he wore during his Hall of Fame career.
“All of our employees are great, but if I were to hold up a model of someone who best represents our customer service approach, I couldn’t think of a better person,” the Penguins’ chief operating officer, Travis Williams, said. “Lou’s tremendous.”
And busy.
The house-building trips began about eight years ago when the Rev. Dan Sweeney, the pastor at his church, on a whim asked Mr. Duco if he would like to give it a shot.
After supervising a group of about 15 people and presenting the keys to the new homeowners, Mr. Duco knew he had found his calling.
“It was touching moment,” said Mr. Duco, who has been married to wife, Marcia, for 31 years and has three sons: Keith, Tony and Bob. “I knew I was hooked.”
The group raises about $150,000 a year through various fundraisers. That covers the cost of the house plus food and travel for the 130 or so that go.
Father Sweeney purchased land a few decades ago where the group lives for the 10-day trip, always around the Fourth of July.
There are four showers, and Mr. Duco and others sleep in tents, but they get breakfast, lunch and dinner made by the food crew that shops and cooks for those working.
“We half-rough it,” Mr. Duco joked.
As a carpenter, he spends the winter analyzing housing plans and ordering materials. There’s a trip in April to check out future job sites with a Kentucky-based coordinator.
During the build, one group may dig a water line while another paints. Mr. Duco has a hand in most tasks. Especially important is that construction isn’t the biggest lesson.
“The program is to show the youth the Christian way, how to help people and what to do,” Mr. Duco said. “It can be a reality check.”
It’s a way of life for him, the same as running underneath the stands to retrieve a lost cell phone.
And remember that suit Mr. Duco ripped?
The Penguins bought him a new one, a small consolation for how much he adds to the atmosphere around the rink.
“There’s nobody happier,” Mr. Morehouse said. “That rubs off on people, and it’s valuable for us. He’s what I think about when I think about a Pittsburgh guy. Tough but kind. Bighearted and smart.
“He’s really a Pittsburgh story.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com or on Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: December 26, 2016, 5:00 a.m.