A veteran television executive with ties to Pittsburgh and San Francisco died Friday after a lengthy illness, TVNewsCheck reports. Carolyn Wean, a longtime exec with Westinghouse Broadcasting, was 68.

The Baltimore native was best-known for her ties to Pittsburgh and Group W flagship station KDKA-TV. She was the station’s news director in the 1970s and became its vice president and general manager in the 1980s — the first woman to hold that position in the Group W organization.

In his appreciation written for TVNewsCheck, Arthur Greenwald writes: “The phrase ‘first woman’ is unavoidable when recalling her career. It appears three times in her obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But that distinction fails to do her justice. That same obituary contains five occurrences of the word ‘award’ — as in ‘Emmy,’’Peabody’ and ‘Edward R. Murrow.’”

Wean also spent time as VP and general manager of Group W station KPIX-TV in San Francisco, later being named VP of news production for the group. She returned to Pittsburgh in 1995 as head of production for PBS station WQED, leading to a number of awards for the station.