We grew up with a nice home in Paris, Ill. Mother was a typical homemaker who worked hard with gardens and canning and trying to keep up with three boys.
My father ran a small orthopedic appliance business, which is artificial arms, legs, hearing aids and other parts. He had had his two legs cut off at the age of 16 when he was working on the railroad and the (train) backed up when he was on top without signaling, which caused him to lose balance, fall over and they ran over his legs and cut them off. Pretty traumatic injury at 16. You can imagine, life looks like, if not over, then considerably challenged.
It was the years of war where people were coming home without arms and legs, and occasionally there were other railroad accidents as well. So he was somebody that could inspire and relate to people who were having those kinds of challenges.
We would sometimes help with business, where he was calling on somebody that had a need for an artificial arm or a leg, so we got a chance to see kind of real life as well, when you’re visiting people that are maybe depressed or really challenged by that. And you couldn’t help but feel that you were doing something that was important, helpful to somebody’s life.
We lived just outside the city limits by maybe two blocks. I was a lifeguard at the lake near our house, kind of the head lifeguard to watch out for people, keep kids under control so they’re not going to do something bad. I was in college at the time. Saved some lives along the way. Four times. One was two people at once. Two sisters — one was a weak swimmer, and the other could not swim at all.
They were in a roped-in area at the lake but their friends were out there jumping off the rafts. And they’re right on that edge, kind of bouncing a little bit. All of a sudden the young one who can’t swim is in trouble, grabs the other one that swims not very well and they’re both drowning. So I went after them and I pulled them both out at the same time.
I was interested in business from the beginning. You tend to look at trying to understand the market. Understand the choices that people are making. Look for the things that cause the business or service to develop and grow and do well.
I did marketing studies for businesses early on, while I’m still going through school. When I was in my Ph.D. program, I was doing things to help small businesses. I was doing things with nonprofits. In all those cases, I was building competencies and building my problem-solving skills.
It helped me to be a better teacher because the concepts I was researching I really learned. It’s a question of your competency rising and you’ve got lots and lots of present examples that you can give in the classroom. It’s not just a concept. It comes alive — your classroom can.
I like to go to Canada for fishing. I like to get out on the water from my youth to now, where it’s blue sky and seeing nature. The problems of the world don’t follow you out on the water.
I came to UT in ’84. I happened to see an ad for the endowed chair of American Enterprise. They wanted somebody to start the marketing department at UT and I’d been chairman of the marketing department at Bradley (University). For me that’s a slam dunk. It’s easy to do. But coming here in January of ’84 — unfair recruiting. We had a blizzard in Illinois, and I can recall eating, sitting out beside the pool at a faculty member’s house. It felt pretty nice. The temperature swing was 100 degrees here versus minus 30 or whatever it was in Illinois, so it certainly made me look harder at it, but I saw the potential at UT when I came.
We knew that there was going to be more growth in the Sunbelt, so would you rather go where it’s all on the upside, or where it’s flat or on the downside? You’d rather go where you’re growing and developing with the market.
When I first came in as president, I started working on a capital improvement plan and a campus master plan. We did not have one. Maybe understandable why we didn’t have one. You know we were struggling. Enrollment was declining. Everything was old.
You’re gonna have to rebuild much of the campus. But from a positive point of view, you get to rebuild much of the campus and do it in a way that will attract students, families.
When I came in, the reported endowment was $6 million — $6 million is hardly a heartbeat because you only spend a portion of that … so it wasn’t helping our operation at all. Today, it’ll be about $150 million. We still need a zero on the end of it, but we’ve moved the needle.
We were starving for applicants in some of those years. Enrollment was spiraling down. This year for fall freshmen, we’ll have 40,000 applicants for 3,000 seats. We rebuilt everything. It’s an outstanding educational experience. It’s a vibrant campus, high quality teaching and learning. Despite all the growth, the class sizes are basically the same. We kept what we valued about being small while we were becoming a larger private.
I’ve always been a planner. I think about the future. I feel like if you’re not thinking about a future, how can you have one?