With his latest donation, $53.5 million, former Hillandale Farms CEO Orland Bethel has continued his tradition of supporting the University of Pittsburgh.
Bethel, who splits time between Greensburg and Florida, has donated nearly $100 million to the university since 2018. The reason, he said, is simple.
“Of course, Dr. Lee’s the real reason,” said Bethel, 90.
Diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2014, Bethel sought out Dr. Joon Lee of Pitt’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and UPMC to address severe hip and lower back pain.
“(Lee) did two operations on me that changed my lifestyle and my ability to live a little bit here through the later years,” he said.
To help Lee achieve his vision of establishing a musculoskeletal research center on Pitt’s campus, Bethel donated $25 million in October 2023. The Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center was established later that year.
Bethel donated $18.5 million in 2024 to help the research center establish its own biological specimen repository, or biobank.
‘So enthused’
The latest $53.5 million donation, announced Wednesday morning, will create three endowed professorships and an award program for mid-career researchers, as well as improve the research center’s recruitment and retention rates.
The donation also will assist center staff in turning their research into market-ready products to help patients.
“As we’ve gone on, so many lengths have been added to it all,” Bethel said, “and the whole staff has increased tremendously. I am so enthused by what these people are doing and what they’re going to do.”
The research center has about 250 patients and 10 fellows, post doctoral or junior faculty researchers who assist with operations, Lee said. The biobank now stores about 12,000 specimens.
The university has about 150 separate biobanks across its Oakland campus, Lee said. Bethel’s funding will create one central storage unit for the biobanks to increase collaboration and efficiency. The ultimate goal, he said, is to increase the research center’s direct impact on patients.
“You take the research and the data that gets generated and translate it into something that is really meaningful for the public,” Lee said. “You really need to engage the (pharmaceutical industry) or the commercial entities.”
‘Another Mellon family or Hillman family’
The research center’s work is being used to address a variety of diseases and conditions, Lee said, including osteoporosis — which weakens bones and leads to a higher risk of fractures. The bone disease predominantly affects women, but it is difficult to predict in patients, Lee said.
“If we can come up with a set of data that can predict somebody’s risk factor to high accuracy of developing osteoporosis, we can take that diagnostic model and apply it.”
Bethel and his family have become one of the university’s largest donors, Lee said.
“It speaks to their generosity,” he said. “You guys may be witnessing another Mellon family or Hillman family that is developing around this very generous city.”
Bethel sold Hillandale Farms to Luxembourg-based Global Eggs for $1.1 billion in March 2025. The company — which produced conventional, cage-free, free-range and organic eggs — has facilities in the Gettysburg area and several other states in the northeast, midwest and southeast.
