Reserve native remembered for work helping Pittsburgh HIV/AIDS community

After being diagnosed with HIV in Delaware in 1987, six years after graduating from Shaler Area High School, Bart Rauluk was given a book with what was known about AIDS at the time and told to get ready to die.

“He refused to read the book,” said his niece, Arianne Eichner, 35, of McCandless. “He didn’t want to fall into reading it or believe that that’s all he had left to give. He felt he had more to give and offer.”

Over the next 40 years, in addition to enjoying a career and a life, Rauluk went on to mentor many in the HIV/AIDS community, some of whom Eichner met at her uncle’s viewing and funeral.

“He went about his days with this force of compassion and love,” she said. “He wanted to help any way he could.”

Rauluk was president of the board of directors of Allies for Health + Wellbeing, formerly the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force.

“Bart shared his story of living with HIV freely to help eliminate stigma and make others aware of the virus and its impact on individuals and the community,” Allies for Health + Wellbeing CEO Mary Bockovich said. “He did it all with a sense of humor and wry wit. I feel privileged to have worked with Bart for 20 years, and I am humbled by his service to the community.”

Bart Rauluk, a resident of Mt. Lebanon since 1998, died July 9 after a long illness. He was 61.

An antiviral medication Rauluk took in the 1980s had severe side effects to his liver, leading to liver failure, said Eichner, who considers her uncle a guardian because he helped raise her.

“He never wanted anybody to know he wasn’t feeling well,” she said. “I had no idea growing up with him that he was ever sick. I had no idea he was having a tough time until two years ago with the liver condition.”

Rauluk grew up in Reserve and graduated from Shaler Area in 1981. He studied theater arts at New York University, graduating with a degree in history and computer science, and later completed accounting and business administration courses.

He worked as the controller and director of client services for a public relations firm, Veritas Communications Advisors, for more than 19 years. He was active with St. Patrick-St. Stanislaus Parish in the Strip District, serving as business manager and project manager for the renovation of the church.

Rauluk had a more than 20-year career as an international banker, leaving the industry in 2005. While working at national and foreign banks, he lived in New York, Boston, Miami, Delaware and Amsterdam.

Rauluk returned to Pittsburgh in 1998 and began working for Mellon Financial Corp.

His presence in the Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS communities was expansive.

He was the fiscal director at Persad Center, an LGBTQ+ community mental health clinic, from 2008 to mid-2013.

Rauluk was a champion, adviser, donor to and supporter of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force and Allies for Health + Wellbeing since 1994. He served multiple tenures on its board of directors, totaling 13.5 years, including 7.5 years as board president.

In 2006, he was a management consultant for Arizona, providing recommendations for its Ryan White Part B, an HIV/AIDS program that provides federal grants.

In 2018, he received the Kerry Stoner Award, named after one of the founders of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, in recognition of his work helping those living with HIV and AIDS. Stoner died of complications of AIDS in 1993.

Rauluk was one of the founders of Alpha Pittsburgh, an advocacy group that works to raise awareness of the challenges of living with HIV and ensuring that the voice of the HIV-positive community is heard by policymakers at every level of government.

Rauluk made numerous advocacy visits to Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., on behalf of Allies and was a guiding force behind its expansion into medical care in 2016.

“Bart was a vanguard in the realm of HIV advocacy and a passionate and dedicated supporter of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force and Allies,” Bockovich said. “He will be deeply missed.”

Rauluk called himself “the accidental activist,” Eichner said.

“He was a great asset to the city,” she said. “He worked tirelessly. Through his last days, he was working and trying to help people.”

Rauluk decided in recent years to share his own story of living with HIV.

“I kind of took the posture of, I’ve seen all this go on, I’ve been dealing with it myself, and I want to become an advocate,” he said in a 2023 interview. “If you’re bored, or you feel like you have any sense of value, then get involved. There are so many ways you can get involved.”

William Slater II Funeral Service in Scott Township handled arrangements. Services were held July 15.