 We are so excited to have you. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure. This is the official University podcast, so we're thrilled to have you. So you were born in New York. Yes. You've lived overseas at one point growing up. Exactly. What brought you to Purdue? How did you find out about Purdue? Well, just to kind of reiterate a little bit, I spent about seven years of my youth in Europe in the Middle East. Wow. And just characteristically, I never spent more than two years to anyone's school until I came to Purdue. And so when I arrived at Purdue on a day on campus, I absolutely fell in love with the place and its people. And I had majored... I wanted to start off in majoring in the engineering program, giving my background in math and science. I thought that's why I wanted to be. But my first two years at Purdue were an abject failure academically. And I barely got through school. And it was sort of a lesson it says to, if you ask for a prospective student, coming into Purdue, understand that college is a learning experience. And it's just the beginning of your life learning experience. And for me, changing majors, struggling, and then ultimately deciding my interests, met my beautiful and wonderful wife, Purdue. And then ultimately I was able to better understand myself by strengths, my abilities. Ultimately succeeded academically, went on to graduate school at Purdue with a double major in prime masters and then went to law school. So late bloomers, so to speak. But part of the learning process of feeling and getting up to the mat characteristically, my father always told me that life is a 15-round fight, which means you must have that persistence and willingness to try to strive and achieve in life. And if you were to ask me what my perception of Purdue was, culture, it gives sort of these sort of adjectives, serious, conservative, modest, hardworking, striving, persistent. And so that sort of giving up was never an option to me. And I think of Purdue as a sport of makers, that's my enthusiasm for Purdue sports. Sport of makers, definitionally, are another dog. They apparently do not have the abilities to succeed, but for sure, below determination, they are a success. And that sort of character marks my life in terms of sort of not what started Purdue, but then catching stride with myself and meeting my wonderful bride and then from there going on to having a reasonable success in business. And when you think back about your time at Purdue, is there any professor or mentor or class that really stood out? Well, I really caught, thank the question, really economics. Professor Jim Holmes at Clarence School, and he is one that really attracted me to economics. And that's ultimately what led me to going to business and having a business career. And so I would say economics was the one that was most important to me and most compelling me to be good at what I'm trying to do. And you had this wonderful time at Purdue and you had some challenges that you overcame, and then you get into the real world after graduation. You had a wonderful career, you've served as CEO of multiple companies. How did Purdue prepare you for all of that and everything in your career? Well, you know, it was a play against sand sort of experience. When I went into business, I was very fortunate at RETGE and a sort of fast track management development program and I went through a series of management assignments and ultimately became involved in strategic planning which really required me to develop skills which I didn't really acquire at Purdue but I did have the determination to strive to learn to be better and thus picking up finance and accounting and the companies I ran were financial institutions. So in that sense, I think the experience I had initially at Purdue prepared me to move forward in business. And then of course, my mentor was a great friend and a great leader in business Jack Weld and I was his strategic planner and then moved on from there in terms of ultimately running the operations for GE credit or GE capital time. And then from that point, what really struck me was I began turning around companies and so each of the several Fortune 500 companies that they brought brought me in. It was a feeling business. And it required a little bit of Purdue spirit of never giving up and acquiring a sense of vision and strategic direction for the business, developing a culture and having individuals in the company realize that their dreams could be realized by the success of their endeavors in that particular company. So it's a sort of never give up attitude. I would say that I started to learn as my experience at Purdue and which gives characteristic of quote unquote, the sport of makers. And that probably is one of your questions and that is, you know, why my wife Karen and I giving to Purdue is that we want to perpetuate the culture of Purdue and what it meant to me in terms of learning never to give up and always striving to achieve a month and that by funding the Crannet School, the liberal arts school and Purdue athletics and so forth is a way of being able to give back and hopefully the role that Purdue could play as being instrumental in the lives of the individual students. When you look back on, you know, you've held all these roles and after you graduated from Purdue, like I said, you've been CEO, you've been part of Fortune 500 companies. Is there a certain lesson in leadership that really strikes you that you've learned throughout your career? I think, well, that's a great question. There are several takeaways. One is I think every successful enterprise or organization has its own unique culture and a leader of that company must be able to walk the talk to essentially be credible in terms of the value system of that organization and be able to promote its values and for the individuals involved and the company to a sense of being in part of something great and people like to aspire beyond themselves to achieve something. And so part of the lesson is to be able to relate to people, convey a sense of values and purpose in terms of what they're about. Also, in my particular case, my strength probably was in terms of strategy and vision. I was Jack Welter's strategic planner when I was at GE and so a combination of a mold in the culture of an organization to augment and enforce the strategy and future vision of the business and then to make sure that you as a leader of that business is accountable to the people. The people are the most important resource of any organization and should not be themselves any better than the guy downstairs or the guy downstairs, but ultimately that they were all part of one organization trying to achieve something. So we have a clearer category to the people in the organization in terms of their welfare and for them to aspire to leading in their careers and accomplishing something. And going back to Purdue, what makes Purdue unique in your eyes? Well, it's really that never-get-about attitude, the sense of honesty, hard-working people, not arrogant, striving to achieve, to make something of themselves. It's a sort of feel and attitude that I think is so important. And it's a real sense of family in a sense of I really want to accomplish things together but also not thinking too highly of yourselves but more importantly what you want to accomplish as a person and as a result I think my Purdue experience taught me that. Karen, thank you for joining us now. We're talking to your husband about both of your loves for Purdue. Yes. So what would you say this community means to you after all these years? The Purdue community. It's always meant so much to us. We traveled and we moved many, many times and it was like every time we'd come back to Purdue for football games and everything, it was like coming home. And it was like we dropped all these years and we went back to feeling kind of like we were in college again. It was such a wonderful feeling so when we actually moved so we could be that close to Purdue it was really a gift. What was it like having your kids and now your grandkids carry on this legacy at Purdue? Well, it's just such a blessing. I mean, really, people can't believe it. They'll say to us, what do you mean all your grandchildren are now going to Purdue? And we haven't really twisted their arms or there's been no monetary attachment to it or anything saying you have to go to Purdue. But they just, they grew up because they've been growing up in the Indianapolis area. So they would go to games and they would see how much we loved it and how much their parents loved it and they didn't really want to look at other campuses. We forced them to kind of go and make sure they saw other places but so far they have opted for Purdue and we've been so, so thankful. And when you think about the President's Council and both of your involvement in that what does that family mean to you both as you just continue to give back to Purdue and to, you know, maintain all these relationships? Well, I mean, they're very special relationships. I mean, you could not see these people for, you know, maybe a year or so but every time you see them it's such a commonality. It's knowing that they've had the same experience that we have had or maybe a little different but they've had the same university. They love the same university. You know, you come together around the sports and around all of those things and it's just like close friends. They continue to be close friends and I continue to be close to my sorority sisters. We still do things together and have reunions. Yeah, it's been great. Okay, so your husband told us the story of how you met but I want to hear it from you. I want to hear your side. Okay, so my side, well, it is true that we had met, I don't know if you told them this, but we had met two times prior to that brunch. Yeah, right. And one of the times prior to the brunch my pledge class came over to his house. Did you tell them that? No. And he was a year older and so we were dancing in the downstairs area and he came through and he cut in on who I was dancing with and we had one dance which he says I went in circles and circles and circles and he walked out and that was it. So I guess it was the next year that I was sitting at brunch next to him but also next to my date and our conversation just took over and from there he was very persistent. He probably told you about jumping out of the bushes and... No, no. Okay. No, you didn't tell me. No, I didn't tell me. Okay. Well, now we want to hear. Well, here I'll give this little part. After I was talking to her date at the brunch and I would have said I've designed my date and we have an issue with it. Let's take care of it. But that was a bold initiative on my part. But then I didn't know how to get a hold of her and I didn't really want to call her on the phone. I didn't know how to hand her from there. But I was short. I was running late to a physics class and she was walking down and I'm going to physics class and I said, wow. And so I walked right by and I didn't say anything. I was too nervous and then I said that but I knew when she was doing this so I cut the physics class to meet her and I walked by and I still couldn't bring myself to say anything. So the third time I said I'm going to work on a physics class if this continues. So I decided I was hiding behind a hedge because I was waiting for her to come down and I was getting on my car and stepped forward and asked her out for a date. So I jumped out of the bushes scared to put Jesus on her. And then I tried to move right into a conversation about how about a date? And she consecutively turned me down one weekend after another weekend after another weekend. And the story goes on. But it took a while. But it was good. Because he jumped out of the bushes and scared her. So he told us that when he's watching Purdue sports he's all in. He's all in. What? So you just don't, you stay away from it. You don't talk to him. No, I'm all in too. In fact, I'm probably yelling so loud. I mean, we're very, we're dialed in. But in football, yes. He's in the corner and no one talks to him. And it's embarrassing. And so people come in and they're trying to be very social and everything. And so I can't be as dialed in because I have to catch them before they get to him and make sure that, you know, I talk to them and I kind of say, well, he's kind of preoccupied with this game right now. But right? Right. Is there anything else you both want to say about the Purdue family and community and that boiler maker spirit? The boiler maker spirit I think is unusual. I mean, every college has their spirit. That's for sure. But I think the boiler maker spirit is it's, what should I say? No matter what happens, it's not necessarily that we're like the top team or anything else, but whatever happens, boiler makers are there for their school and for their teams and everything, I think. And kind of through thick and thin, I mean, it's, I don't know. What would you say? I think that's exactly right. I mean, we're not going to decide not to support. I mean, when I was, when I was a CEO of one of the companies, I was privileged to have a corporate jet. And so what I would do is, and I didn't want to take advantage of anything, so I'd always have a nearby business meeting and reason to be there, which was legitimate. But it would have had to be in a close proximity to wherever the game was being held. So it could be close to Lansing, it could be close to Ann Arbor, it could be in Chicago, but for literally, I don't know, 12 consecutive games, we hadn't won a game. And I still went to every one of the games. And we hadn't missed a game. I remember, I was back when, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago or so. We had almost a year and a half of that win. And a year and a half. No. 10 years ago, or so. But anyhow. No. 20 to 30 years ago. 20 to 30 years ago. Tom Flasman, you had me fine. But anyhow, I went lost, no, I'm a bullet maker. I'm there to support my team. It's there to support the school that I love. That's simple. And he's quite a salesman. So every year he would sit down in the stands and he turned around to everyone and say, this is the year. This is the year. And everybody go, okay, okay. And then we'd have a losing season. But it didn't dawn on him the next year. He'd be right there. I have a feeling this is the year. So how do you feel this year? And they mean this year will be the year. Yes. I mean, this season was great. And it was. And he went to the Music City Hall. Oh, it was. So excited. Yeah. We were very happy. Okay. Good. I'm glad you got a good year. What about basketball? Love basketball. Well, crazy about basketball. I mean, for example, tonight we could have gone to the watch party. Yeah. But I think we're both embarrassed because we didn't scream so much. We did what I make complete fools out of ourselves. So we're going to go home and yell and scream like crazy at the game. We'll know it's you guys. Yeah. And she's worse than I am. I know. I know. Yeah. It's exciting though, isn't it? Oh, it's so fun this year. Yeah. I was, I went to school when it was the Robbie Hummel era. Oh, yes. So that was heartbreaking because we never really went there. I know. And he had to tour in ACL. I'm struggling to keep my level of expectations. I know. We're trying not to try to be modest or don't try to get to it. Yep. But hopefully. Even if we make the final four, I'll be thrilled. I will too. I will too. I'll be disappointed if we don't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Coach Painter is doing great things. He is. He's a great He's a great leader and mentor of young men. Yeah. He runs a very honest program. They play his trust and he's obviously very good at what he does. So it could be more proud of him. And Jeff Brown is the same. Yeah. I agree. And Katie Gerald's doing a great job at what he's done. I just interviewed Katie Gerald. What a wonderful person. She is. Tony is the coach of Purdue wrestling. Okay. He's come from nothing. We're now ranked 12th in the country. Yeah. I mean, he's doing a great job. And volleyball. Yeah. Dave Shadel. He said terrific. Yeah. A lot of reasons to be excited about it. Anything else about, you know, just what this family means to you and to your whole family? Well, I think now that there's so many different generations involved, it means even all the more, really. Yeah. It's so much fun to talk to them and have the grands tell us about, you know, different classes and walking here. And you know, even the weather situation and it takes us back to, oh my goodness. And unlike me, kind of when I struggled to initially get into Purdue academically, every one of our grandchildren are outstanding students. Yeah. Yeah. They all have four point GPAs. One's a junior, one's a sophomore and one's a freshman. Wow. So they're thriving at Purdue. So they're thriving and they love it and so that's great. That's really special that you guys can share your love of Purdue with them. Yeah. I don't know how I don't know that I would have talked to them. Well, we can't thank you guys enough for joining us. Our pleasure. Thank you.