2026 40 Under 40 Honoree: Caily Grube (36)
“I want someone to see an executive director in a blazer picking up litter and rethink what they assumed this work looks like, and who it’s for.”
PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA
Caily Grube
Executive Director, Allegheny Cleanways
Caily Grube is as comfortable hauling tires from a creek as she is sitting in a meeting trying to change the system that put them there.
As executive director of Allegheny CleanWays, Grube helped lead the Immaculate Collection, the sweeping cleanup campaign ahead of the NFL Draft that brought government, businesses and residents to the same table.
But she is interested in what happens long after a cleanup ends. A mattress abandoned on a hillside, she argues, is both an individual choice and evidence of a system that made dumping it easier and cheaper than disposing of it properly.
Grube’s instinct is to work from the bottom up. She picks up litter herself, sometimes carrying a bucket and trash picker to walking meetings; her belief is leaders should understand the work they ask others to do.
That conviction extends beyond CleanWays. A longtime Amachi Pittsburgh mentor, Grube learned that “consistency is its own kind of care.” At Glitterbox Theater, where she is a volunteer, she helped turn a former mechanic’s garage into a DIY community stage.
Across it all runs one idea: lasting power is built “one block, one policy, one relationship at a time.”
