Steel mill
Gust Avrakotos was born on January 14, 1938 in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, the son of Oscar, a Greek American soft drink manufacturer from the island of Lemnos, and his wife Zafira. The couple also had a daughter. Gust graduated valedictorian from Aliquippa High School in 1955 and attended college at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT); he briefly worked at Jones and Laughlin Steel mill in Aliquippa to earn money for his studies, but left CIT after two years because of a strain on family finances.