A Green Republican–she is vice-chairman of the board of the Environmental Defense Fund—Heinz has left the outdated dichotomy of environmental protection versus economic development in her wake. The widow of U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III (of the H.J. Heinz food company), she chairs the Howard Heinz Endowment, which funds urban renewal projects in Pittsburgh, and the Heinz Family Foundation, which awards $250,000 to each of five people yearly to honor them for exceptional achievements in various fields. She views her prolific philanthropy as a way of “fixing things” that is more effective than political campaigns, which she calls “the graveyard of real ideas and the birthplace of empty promises.”
