Edward A. Kostelnik ’60

Born and raised in Connellsville, Pa., Ed attended Connellsville High School, where he was class president and valedictorian, and lettered in football, basketball, and track. At Princeton he earned a BSE in aeronautical engineering and played freshman and varsity football, earning All-Ivy League recognition. He joined Cottage Club and roomed there our senior year.

Ed went directly into industry with Mobil Oil, where after six months of training he moved to Liberia and then for a year to Khartoum, Sudan, where he met and wooed Nicole Marko. Back in the U.S., they married in 1963. Ed left Mobil in 1968 to seek entrepreneurial opportunities. After several preliminaries and a move to Houston, he founded KW Industries in 1972 as a manufacturer of outdoor lighting poles. Ed continued as its CEO through 1993 and chairman through our 50th.

He and Nicole retained their earlier enthusiasm for travel, visiting Western Europe many times among the four continents that attracted them. In Texas, they took up “hobby” cattle ranching, Ed’s term, in the town of Comfort in the Texas Hill Country, where they settled permanently in 2002.

Ed died Nov. 15, 2020, of COVID-19. He is survived by Nicole, three sons, and their families.