A Finance Pioneer’s Take on Education, Inclusion and Opportunity - Mary Ellen Stanek, Founder and Chief Investment Officer Emeritus of Baird Asset Management

Building tomorrow’s workforce starts with more than just technical skills—it requires access, mentorship, and leaders willing to invest in students long before they enter the job market.

In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, Mary Ellen Stanek, Co-Founder and CIO Emeritus of Baird Asset Management, shares how one of the nation’s most respected investment firms thinks about talent, education, and inclusion. She reflects on being the first woman to chair a major civic leadership group, the creation of the award that now bears her name for advancing diversity in corporate governance, and how internships are shaping the next generation of professionals.

Mary Ellen also unpacks how AI is changing finance while elevating the need for human judgment, and why Baird invests millions into education initiatives that expand opportunity—programs like Cristo Rey’s work-study model, All-In Milwaukee’s 90% college graduation rate, Aug Prep’s innovative K-12 approach, and major scholarship funds at Marquette.

For educators, employers, and community leaders, this conversation is a roadmap for how business and education can work together to prepare students for meaningful careers and stronger communities anywhere.

Listen to learn:

• How Baird selects 300 interns out of 32,000 applicants each year
• What it meant to be the first woman to chair the Greater Milwaukee Committee
• The story behind the Mary Ellen Stanek Award for Diversity in Corporate Governance
• Why AI boosts productivity in finance but can’t replace human judgment
• How All-In Milwaukee achieves a 90% graduation rate with 84% of students debt-free

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. Internships are one of the most effective ways to build a talent pipeline. Baird received over 32,000 applications for internships this year and hired just 1%, bringing in 300 students across the firm. About 40% of those rising seniors secure full-time roles, proving the long-term workforce impact of investing in student opportunities.

2. Inclusion in leadership transforms organizations and opens doors for others. Mary Ellen began her career as one of the only women in the room, later becoming the first woman to chair the Greater Milwaukee Committee. Today, Baird counts nearly 100 female managing directors, and the Mary Ellen Stanek Award continues to honor leaders driving diversity in corporate governance.

3. Education investments create measurable results for students and communities. All-In Milwaukee reports a 90% six-year college graduation rate, with 84% of scholars leaving school debt-free and 91% employed or in graduate programs. Similar investments in Cristo Rey, Aug Prep, and Marquette scholarships demonstrate how targeted support leads to stronger career pathways and local economic growth.

Resources:

• Learn more about Mary Ellen Stanek
• Internships at Baird
• Cristo Rey Jesuit High School
• St. Augustine Preparatory Academy
• All-in Milwaukee
• Boys a

Instagram - Facebook - YouTube - TikTok - Twitter - LinkedIn

Transcript

Matt Kirchner: 0:08

Matt Kirkner, you know, where would stem education be, science, technology, engineering and math without the amazing champions of STEM certainly, we need phenomenal administrators. We need great teachers. We need visionaries in education, but oftentimes we have amazing people doing all those things outside of education and having incredible influences inside of the world of education. That is certainly the case for our guest today, it is a guest I'm so excited to have on board with us. Her name is Mary Ellen Stanek. That is a name that is ubiquitous in my hometown in Milwaukee. Everybody knows who Mary Ellen is. She's the founder and chief investment officer emeritus of Baird asset management. We're gonna have so much fun talking about her incredible commitment to stem and technical education, to her community and to the United States in general. Mary Ellen, it is so awesome to have you here. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Delighted to be here. We're gonna have so much fun. I'm a huge fan of Baird. I have to tell you, right out of the blocks. I grew up in a house that was built by Robert W Baird, believe it or not, and he's the founder, of course, of what's now called Baird and Company. He built these three houses in Wauwatosa, all three of them right next to each other. He lived in one now, get this, his vice presidents lived in the other two. One of them was a guy named Lee racy. And my parents bought Lee racy's House in the early 80s, and they still live there, as matter of fact. So I grew up in a house that was built by Robert W Baird, and our next door neighbor when I was a kid was Robert W Baird, Jr. So isn't it small, small, crazy.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 1:37

You know exactly where those houses are, do you really? Yeah, we lived in Wauwatosa for many years.

Matt Kirchner: 1:42

Yeah, awesome. So wawatosa, for our listeners, because not everybody, in fact, a lot of them come from all over the country, is the suburb immediately west of Milwaukee. So small world, I thought we kicked that off, but certainly, I mean, Robert W Baird built an incredible company. You built an incredible career. And I want you to share a little bit with our audience, what drew you into finance initially, and you've had just a really long, solid career, and what's kept you excited about it all these years?

Mary Ellen Stanek: 2:06

So what drew me into finance? My father was a community banker. I grew up in McHenry, Illinois, northern part of Illinois, kind of right over the border. Yeah, part of Illinois. And came up to Milwaukee to go to Marquette, but worked in the community bank our summers and Christmas breaks and so that introduced me really to banking and community banking, and really all the avenues of how a community runs financially, in a lot of ways, as I look back on it,

Matt Kirchner: 2:38

absolutely, you know, my dad actually worked In a tiny community bank in southwestern Minnesota, and he used to say, look, the biggest eye opener for him was, he said the people that I thought were like the really, really rich people that maybe had a nice car, big hat or beautiful clothes. He said, Yeah, they were doing okay. But he said the really, really wealthy people in that community were the people that never said anything about it, and you would never guess, and they're just, you know, dirty fingernails and coveralls and so it's amazing sometimes, where where wealth is hiding in plain sight and and I always kind of took that lesson away as, you know, I was an auditor of community banks for a number of years, back in my public accounting days, and that's, you know, several careers ago, but the same observations, it was just incredible. And you get this opportunity to really understand how wealth is built, how generational wealth is built, how it's really the decisions we make through an entire lifetime that enable us to do that and then to do some really, really cool things as we continue to move on in our career, there's no doubt that you've done really, really amazing things. It's so much so that you have an award named after you. That's my aspiration, right? I want, at some point to live long enough to work, long enough to give long enough to actually have somebody say, We want an award named after Matt Kirkner. But this is really cool. It's for over a decade now, the Mary Ellen stanick award for diversity and corporate governance. It's honoring leaders advancing inclusion in a whole variety of sectors. So talk a little bit about that award and what it means to you personally, and then thinking back kind of early on, what did the landscape look like for you know, you graduated from Marquette in 78 rangatahoy. I'm a Marquette grad as well. And you know, what does the world of finance and careers look like for women then, versus how far we've come to this point?

Mary Ellen Stanek: 4:10

So we've come a long way. But first, to answer your question about the award, I chaired the Greater Milwaukee committee in 2011 2012 a two year period, I was the first woman to chair the Greater Milwaukee Committee, which is a leadership group in Milwaukee. And the typical sequence was upon, you know, as the baton was passing, they would find a gift that was meaningful to the outgoing chair. And they surprised me by announcing they were creating this award, and they would provide the award and celebrate the recipients on an annual basis, and it was meant to really highlight the work and celebrate the work of those who were championing diversity in corporate governance, both at the board level. Level and at the executive level. So to say I was speechless, which doesn't happen very often, is an understatement, but it really touched me a great deal, and is, in a lot of ways, a living award. I have one recipient at one point send me. I was relieved to find out, as I was reading your bio, that you were still alive? I said, Yes, hopefully much alive. But to your other question, I grew up in the beginning, early days of my career as the only often went by myself in rooms where I was the only woman or one of only one or two. So now I look around, and we've got, I believe, 94 female managing directors at Baird, out of how many, out of it's several 100. But we've made just huge progress, and we'll continue. And you look at the pipeline of talent, and the pipeline of talent is very robust, no question, women and men, and we continue to champion the concept that if you work hard, if you're talented, there's lots of possible career avenues here for women and come and really build your life here. So we find being employee owned, privately held, that we attract a lot of talent to grow, develop and reward it, and consequently have very low turnover and a lot of interesting in coming to work for

Matt Kirchner: 6:30

us, which really, really speaks to the the incredible culture that's been built in an organization like Baird. One of the things you said early on in that last answer, Mary Ellen, that actually surprised me quite a bit. So the Greater Milwaukee committee, if I'm right, goes back to what the 50s or so, 1950s Yes. And it was, it took until 2012 2011 2012 to have a woman that was the chair of that organization.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 6:49

And so, as my husband would say, tell her that it's a positions never been held by a woman. And of course, no matter how busy she is, she'll figure out a way to do it and say yes. But I got an opportunity, and I'm really grateful people like Ed Zor, who is Northwestern Mutual, CEO Mike Grebe, who is rally foundation CEO John Daniels, of course, who ran quarrels and Brady Ted Kellner, I was sandwiched in between those other four leaders, and they were all great champions, not just my ability to take that position on as a volunteer leader, but also that it was more than time. And so consequently, now there has been another female chair. Who is that? Peggy Kelsey, one of the corporate leaders at Weck energy. And I no doubt there will be more,

Matt Kirchner: 7:41

no question about it. Yeah, we've come so far. And my, you know, my, I talk about this a lot. My wife, Renee, She's a graduate of Marquette University as well, did her undergrad and her graduate degree in Biomedical Engineering, and talks about being one of four engineering students in the engineering school. And this was in the late 1980s so it wasn't that long, right, exactly. And now, of course, in we've had so many advancements in STEM, so many opportunities for people of all backgrounds. But certainly you know women well, well represented in STEM today, and it was in large part due to Trailblazers like you that were willing to be one of a couple in a boardroom and stand up and be able to set that example and and I think, inspire, you know, other young women toward really, really cool careers. No doubt that's in part why you were recognized with this award that now bears your name, which is really, really cool, and you're doing such great advocacy. Mary Ellen for careers in finance, careers in investment banking, of course, Baird being a huge investment services firm, an international one, by the way, I think a lot of folks, if they come from outside of the world of investment banking, you've got this image. Well, it's, you know, it's stock brokers and it's investment bankers, and that's the job. We both know that there's all variety of careers in an organization like Baird. Familiarize our audience a little bit with some of those careers might look like. And maybe our students, and we have a lot of students that listen to the podcast, may not recognize that those are the opportunities that they could pursue.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 8:57

There are so many avenues. So certainly, in fact, the largest number of associates at the firm are really on the private wealth management side. So financial advisors, their teams of people, whether it be customer support advisors to all the way to the full, fully licensed financial advisors, analysts on their team, operations specialists, and then you go to the institutional sides of the business, like asset management, the area that I'm in, the mutual fund side, certainly investment banking, equity and fixed income research on the capital market side, private equity. And then there's all of the corporate resource roles. Think legal, compliance, finance it. We have a huge it effort internally and so on, marketing and so we have so many roles, and typically there are internships to early career positions that allow you lots of different. Revenues foundationally, that can either allow you to continue to progress with that same team or potentially prepare you. And we're big believers in hiring from within and offering those growth opportunities to our own employees. So a firm like Baird, we've got a 5050 500 employees worldwide, and lots of opportunities, big internship classes, we're just finishing up this summer round of interns. We hosted over 300 interns throughout the firm, yeah, and there's a different vibrancy and energy and attitude in the firm. It's fun to have those interns around, for sure, and they're doing very meaningful work, and getting a great look at the firm, a great look at a career in finance and, in our case, investment management, and we're getting a great look at young talent to see if there's a fit there. Super,

Matt Kirchner: 10:55

super important. And we, in our smaller companies, you know, orders of magnitude smaller than the work that you're doing. LOVE having interns around. It's like the and we did summer internships for for years. Continue to do them. I think two summers ago, we had four interns working in our office and and number one, you're right, it just brings this level of energy and excitement and wonder, I think, in some ways, to the office that you wouldn't necessarily see. And then I think about come middle of August, when they're going back to wherever they came from, and it's so quiet. And, you know, you just miss I'm like crazy, but then we sit and want you look at, you know, and whether you never know what degree of an influence you had on career paths, but there's always something there, and in some cases, more than others. But young people going to BSG, we've had kids go to Deloitte, we've had kids go to Ernst. And young, when I say kids, college kids, of course, and some of them have stayed in our industry, and it's just super, super rewarding, if our listeners are listening, if you're in industry, if you're in manufacturing, if you're in business, and you have an opportunity to provide that kind of an opportunity for these young people, you never look back and regret it. It's just so much fun.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 11:55

No, you get so much there's a return on investment, certainly, to build your own talent pipeline potentially, but it's also a way to give back. And as you say, there's an energy and an excitement. Some of the interns will come back. The local college kids will come back during the school year and intern part time with us, which is a way for us to get even deeper, look and grow and develop them in further so we really are big proponents. Little fun fact, we had over 32,000 applications for internships, 500 of them, and we hired over 303 25 so it was about 1% Yeah. So literally, about 1% got hired. We end up of the rising seniors, we average somewhere around 40% eventually get a placement somewhere in the firm. That's amazing. We don't hire 100% of them full time, but the thing we are very committed to is giving young people and meaningful experience and and real work to do so. So much of it is deciding and understanding what you do want to try to pursue as much as, no, this isn't for me, I really and learning those aspects and answering those questions is really important at that point in their lives.

Matt Kirchner: 13:14

Absolutely, absolutely is. We had one intern in one of our companies. His first name is Ben, and Ben actually wanted to come back for he had been here for, I think, three summers anyway, and one, and one of them was in high school, and he's like, I want to come back another year. And I was like, Ben, you have to go find something. I know you like it here, but you have to go try something else, and you can always come back. We would love to have you. We actually sent him to another company owned by friends of ours this summer to get a little bit different flavor. Because, to your point, you're getting exposure to those opportunities. I like to say that, you know, every company has a culture, every person has a personality, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that they're good or bad or right or wrong, it's just that, where is that fit. And so you know the fact that you've got up to 40% of those young people that are that are choosing to have a career at Bearden, and then as you talk about the number of people who stay, and I can just tell you firsthand, I've got a lot of friends that work in and around your organization, and once they're there, they stay forever, which really speaks to the incredible culture that Baird has and the commitment it has to its team and the opportunities that you're providing to them. So all really cool. You know, the other thing we've done with our interns, Mary Ellen, has had them focused around data data science, artificial intelligence. More and more of that the last several years, can't go a day without hearing or talking about AI and so I want to, I want to work. And we love it here on the TechEd podcast. As a matter of fact, as we record this, I'm five days away from going to China for a week just to study. We're 26 companies doing really cool stuff in the AI space. I'm just absolutely fascinated by it. So let's talk about that a little bit. You know, you talk about these incredible careers available to so many people. And it's not just investment banking and stock workers, not that those aren't awesome careers as well, but there's this whole set of, you know, other support and important leadership roles in and around finance. How is AI transforming that? And then how do we need to be thinking about that in terms of careers for our young people?

Mary Ellen Stanek: 14:56

You know, AI is certainly a super. Significant force. It's a tool at its core, and what it is versus how we're using is going to be really important. One of the things that we are still committed to is being fundamental analysts. And the tool, the AI, for example, you get a potential securitization, and you get a 50 page document, it can very quickly give you a summary of information, and then the analyst, who's got the history and the judgment, can go through and help pinpoint some areas you'd want to go deeper and do your own work on. But what it isn't is going to be a black box, is going to give you all the answers. So one of the things, particularly for leaders with younger talent, or all talent, is be careful to be overly reliant on it. And one of the things when we were growing up, I'm one of six kids, and my father would always say, Katherine, these kids all brains and no common sense. And I'd think, what does he mean by that? And I repeat that so often, because in investing there is a lot of common sense. Do you have that judgment to say? Does this make sense, and the reasonability check and all those things at the heart. We've got to be problem solvers, and we've got to understand how things where, where's the impact? What are the key drivers? And so that's where AI is going to be a game changer in terms of enhancing productivity. But it isn't a substitute for the judgment the human talent, and I think that the best analysts will figure out that balance the art and the science of it and leaders who've been trained and through our long careers with fundamental tools, right? And we thought spreadsheets, right? But how do we then encourage people who can use these tools and will gravitate and grow up with these tools? Are they still at the heart, doing the problem solving, the creative thinking themselves that allows them to go and use these tools in a more robust way?

Matt Kirchner: 17:20

So that's a great reflection. One of the things we did in one of our companies, and we're actually really proud of it. We had a couple of data science students that built us a model that projects, you know, EBITDA, which, of course, as you know, is not cash flow for the organization, but for our audience, and it's now projecting it 14 months in advance. And last year, its accuracy was within one and a half percent, you know, on the bottom line of the business, which was super, super impressive, right? I mean, you can take a lot more risk, you can at least kind of understand what's coming at you, and you can look that far out into the future and think about where your business is going to be super, super valuable. But at the same time, as cool as that is, there's all the nuance that goes into whether it's investment banking, whether it's running a distribution company like we do, and it's all about relationships and building trust and looking somebody across the table in the eye and having decades of experience to know, does this feel right? Does this not feel right? And an AI doesn't have any ability to do those kind of things,

Mary Ellen Stanek: 18:14

no. And the and the people piece, there really isn't a business that has a huge impact, or there could be potentially a huge impact, positive and negative, on building relationships and the right people, and pulling together the teams and engaging those teams. So the whole EQ, when working through relationships is so important,

Matt Kirchner: 18:37

the importance of that. So I think you're right. It's all about balancing data, artificial intelligence, the tools that we'll have available to us, we're going to be way more productive in the age of AI. There's things that we've done historically. And to your point, I remember sitting at Marquette University Learning lotus, 123, which is like the most rudimentary spreadsheet you can imagine, and thinking it was like the greatest thing in the world. And now, you know, now we're putting stuff into Azure Data Factory and running it through linear regression. And Microsoft Azure, and, you know, the black box, doing things that sometimes you understand, sometimes you don't. So it's all about nuance and it's all about balance. But as for me, I love technology super, super exciting, but excited about what the future holds. We have to hang on to that human element, and we have to hang on to the importance of education, which is something that I know. I mean, you're super passionate about it. Baird in general is super, super passionate about it. So talk about just beards philosophy in general, about all the investments that you're making in and around education, why you're doing it, and why it's important.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 19:33

So education has been a core priority for us for a long time. We are a services business, so we're only as good as as our people, and so I've made your commitment to both attracting the best talent, but also developing and retaining and continuing to grow that talent and reward that talent is really, really important. Our former chair and CEO, the. Late Great Paul Purcell was very committed to education. That was his passion. He believed so passionately that every young person deserved a shot, and the best way to level the playing field was through education. And so he'd often say to us when we were considering different projects to support for our foundation or volunteer time, he'd say, are kids winning? I'm sorry I don't see how clearly kids are winning or not enough kids are winning. And so we'd very quickly adopt that mantra, and that was a very precise lens that we could quickly start looking at how we were going to prioritize. And so upon his passing five years ago now that long while, yeah, and we created the Paul Purcell kids win foundation and annually fund grants. I think this year's grants were about a million and a half going directly to educational organizations or programs, and it's a way for us to continue to invest in Paul's passion, if you will. But it's also been a great way for us to think really clearly about where can we move the needle and how can we move the needle. And sometimes that's through a financial grant, other times it's us getting in ourselves as volunteers, and I'm a big believer in getting close to the work and close to the kids, because if you are close to the young people, you see all the obstacles more clearly. You see that that is not a big obstacle for you or me to solve, but it can be a game changer for them, and so we can get in there and use our resources, use our advocacy, use our talents to be able to build bridges, to help them, and, in the end, improve outcomes. And that's what Paul did throughout his life. He certainly he was very involved with Christa ray in Chicago, helped introduce the concept here and Milwaukee, Cristo Rey is celebrating its 10th Anniversary now, and of course, the work study program, where the kids come and work one day a week in an employment situation, and then the employer is paying, effectively, a stipend, which pays their tuition, and they're getting Jesuit college prep education, and we end up finding that they get great mentors and great life experiences. Our original crystal Ray intern, a young woman, Victoria, started when she was a freshman, 10 years ago, worked with us all four years of high school, then became a Marquette college intern with us for four years, and is finishing her second year professionally, and now has worked for Baird bonds, Baird advisors for 10 years.

Matt Kirchner: 22:54

Incredible. Yeah, in 10 years and she's 24 years old. I mean, what an incredible experience. I think is it possible I saw a video on her at some point. Yeah, I remember that story, but

Mary Ellen Stanek: 23:03

her story was the original one, but there's been so many more that we've been able to continue to help. Not just here in Milwaukee, Crystal Ray has got a national franchise now, and so they're in many different cities and markets, but it's a great model. And the founder, Christa Ray, said, as great as the education is, and of course, the Jesuits are known for being great educators, yep, but he said what they underestimated was the impact of the work study program and the mentors and all that, the dedication, the rigor, you know, the discipline to get up and Get to work on time and be a productive employee, all of those skills they're learning in high school, that's

Matt Kirchner: 23:46

amazing. I often said, and I was, I was actually a Milwaukee County lifeguard through high school, and had another number of other jobs that I did. That was always one of the things that, you know, my parents, you weren't allowed to you weren't allowed to sit around, right? I mean, you had to be busy, you know, even, even before we were old enough to work. You had to be at a camp. You had to be at swim team practice. Yeah. I mean, whatever. You weren't allowed to sit that's probably the bane of my existence today, because I can't sit still anymore. So I have them to thank for that. But I was often say the things that I learned in you know, whether it was lifeguarding, whether I did some really cool projects in college for Milwaukee County through an internship that was as meaningful for me, and no discredit to any of the educators that I worked around as meaningful in terms of shaping my career and the way I thought about work as the academic side of it, all

Mary Ellen Stanek: 24:30

the life lessons, right in terms of how to deal with people, how to help manage situations, how to show up yourself, exactly right, yep, and your own self awareness about what's My responsibility in all of this, and how can I improve,

Matt Kirchner: 24:44

and to have that as a freshman in high school, that's a really, really meaningful opportunity and reaching students, I'm assuming, in fact, I think I know that might not otherwise have those types of opportunities. So absolutely, yeah, really, really cool. So the grant program that you talked about that's named after Paul Purcell, how does that funding work? Who? Gets to make the decision. I know we'll have educators saying, How can I learn more about that?

Mary Ellen Stanek: 25:03

So on our website, they open up, I believe it's late in the year. Decisions are usually announced in the spring, and there's an internal group committee who reviews the applications, and we support all of many markets, really, throughout the firm,

Matt Kirchner: 25:21

amazing. Yeah, that's, I mean, what a cool opportunity for educators to be able to take advantage of that incredible benevolence on the part of Baird. And it's all important, right? Funding grant programs is important. Work study opportunities are important, but you're also making significant investments of your own treasure. You and your husband committed over and don't want this number to be lost on people. Over $2 million to our joint alma mater, Marquette, university scholarships, academic programs. Talk about that investment and what you're hoping to accomplish there, that's, I mean, that's a significant amount of treasure and credit to you and your husband for making

Mary Ellen Stanek: 25:56

that investment. Well, we feel so blessed. And we met at Marquette between both families, there's over 20 Marquette degrees. So lots and lots of at once, Scott will say we are Marquette. We are literally Marquette. But we were asked to co chair the most recent campaign the time to rise campaign, it was a seven, $50 million goal, and over many years, and we said, Okay, we'll step up and we'll try to help here and again, getting closer to the work we thought we knew Marquette well, and we did in some aspects. But when you get even closer, and some of the things like how the scholarships were rolling out, there was a scholarship fund called Bridge to the future, which had been started in the last economic crisis. Oh, wait, and what they found was what to us would be fairly small grants, but where, if someone lost a part time job, or someone whose car broke down or suddenly had food insecurity needs that they could come and get a smaller grant might be 1000 to 2500 to $2,500 kind of grant. And by developing a pot that could be used by advisors to support kids, they could help stabilize the situation, and most of the time keep kids in school and continuing to go and what they found is often, if they didn't meet that need, kids would drop out, thinking they'll come back and they don't. It's hard, it's hard to get back on the ladder. So we got motivated to start doing some scholarship work with bridge the future, and then started both a static Family Fund, and my maiden name is Bulger, and to honor both sets of parents who had made sacrifices to send us and then traditional scholarships. There's one now that we're supporting that honors Mike Lovell, the of course, President Marquette, who passed away a year plus ago and cared deeply about the health and well being of students,

Matt Kirchner: 28:10

former guest on the podcast, by the way, too. No, he joined us, amazing, yeah, and he was actually my neighbor, so he lived right up the block from us, and a huge, huge loss for the community,

Mary Ellen Stanek: 28:19

it really was, but it's a way to honor him and celebrate that work and highlight and so there's so many wonderful things that have come about, but at the core of it all is being Jesuit educated, and I did not appreciate I'll be the first to admit, and I think my husband would say the same thing when we were there undergrad, the Jesuits have a belief that you've been educated, not just for what you can do yourself with your education, but what you're going to do with it to improve the world and in service to others. So we look back both of us and that was just a great philosophy for living, or how we were going to try to live our lives. So in a lot of ways, whether it's the contributions to Marquette for largely scholarship and program related or other things we've done, it's really our way to give back because we've been so blessed, and to continue to serve others, both in volunteer work, but also of financial resources when we Can

Matt Kirchner: 29:19

unbelievable. You mentioned the emergency Well, you know, I kind of reading into it the emergency fund. I serve on the foundation board at Gateway Technical College, and I it was a huge eye opener for me. Mary Ellen, the number of students like, literally one, one mishap away from having to drop out of school. And whether it is, to your point, you know, a food insecurity issue, or it's a card, car trouble, daycare, family related issues, all that, and doing the same thing at Gateway, where there's a fund available for those students. And maybe you shouldn't admit this, but the first time I got on the board, and I was like, really like that, you know, there's a student that needs to come and get a $50 gas card, yes, and it was an eye opener for me that goes back probably. Probably 10 years, something like that, of the numbers of students that really have challenges like that. So credit to you and your husband. In this what they're working on, $750 million

Mary Ellen Stanek: 30:09

right to Yeah, and they raise, we've raised over 800 million. That was That's incredible. Mike level had a lot

Matt Kirchner: 30:14

to do. Of course he did. Yep, absolutely, yeah. Just an incredible leader. Miss him like crazy. And Amy, his wife's such a wonderful human being as well. So wish their family well, and obviously Marquette well in the future, as it moves in, moves forward under under new leadership, I have tremendous amounts of trust that they're going to do really, really well. I know the other thing that you don't take lightly is the support that you have for for teachers and education through your work with all in Milwaukee, I was at a charity event maybe six months ago, learned about it for the first time. You were in the video. That's what actually sparked our interest in having you join us here. Mary Ellen, talk about all in Milwaukee. It's really, really cool organization. I think it's a

Mary Ellen Stanek: 30:50

story that needs to be told. So there's a tie to our Marquette days, Darren and Terry Jackson. Darren Jackson is the retired CEO of Advanced Auto Parts. Was CFO of Best Buy Nordstrom. So never heard of any of those pedigree career and he was on the Marquette board with me. Actually, I chaired the board, and he followed me as board chair. So we worked very closely together and our friends and he came to me about, it's little more than five now, about six years ago, and said, Terry and I have an interest. We were big supporters of Cristo Rey. And he said, you know, as great as all that work, we've got to be able to improve the ultimate outcomes. And so I've been looking at programs. And there was a program in the Twin Cities, wall and partners. It was over 30 years old, and it's a combination of scholarship support, but advising, and then potentially career and internships and all tied together. And he said, we really want to get this started in Milwaukee and improve the outcomes here. Will you help? And of course, when he said, someone with a track record and somebody who's a good friend and we respect a ton. And then he said, and Terry and I are going to contribute a million dollars to get it started. Needless to say, it was all right, we're all in. So I called popper Sal at the time. He also knew Darren from the crystal Ray national network board. And I said, this is the concept. We want to get it started. Decent. Well, it sounds like we're all in, I'm in, you're in, Bearden, so literally, I went on the board. The initially still said on the board. Paul got involved on the advisory board side, and we literally started supporting it from day one and again, got close to the work, got close to the kids. Scott and I personally support a scholar in each of the classes, and have gotten to know firsthand both the wonder and the challenges those kids face. And the firm got behind it too in a big way. And just last week, we had nine all in interns in the summer at Baird, and I was able to sit down with seven of the nine before they left to talk about their summers and their experience and just awesome,

Matt Kirchner: 33:11

so cool. So what does it feel like from the students perspective? I mean, what is the process for them? Tell us

Mary Ellen Stanek: 33:16

more. So they are nominated by a partner, so maybe their high schools, it might be Boys and Girls Clubs. It's the youth serving agencies and schools who UCC might nominate. And so they'll come in and apply, and then they're accepted. Depending on the number of spots we have, we've been expanding the number of spots. Now, currently there's 600 kids students in the program, and what we're able to do then is basically support them. They get assigned a counselor and last dollar scholarship support. We also work with the schools. You have to go to school in Wisconsin because you've got to be able to have that firsthand, meaningful support, advising support, we find that's really important, and so we assign a counselor, and then they go to work with them. And the schools provide a lot of support in terms of academic advising, but they also provide the best opportunities and packages for these kids,

Matt Kirchner: 34:25

sure. So this is post secondary, right? So, right. So the goal

Mary Ellen Stanek: 34:29

is to not just get kids into college, which was a lot of the programs have done a great job of that, but this is what Darren really wanted to try to engineer, was get them through college with low or no debt, and then add on the opportunity to begin and explore careers and stay in this market. So today, 90% of the upperclassmen are on track to graduate within six years. 84% of the students have no debt and. 91% of the graduates, 91 of the percent of the kids who have already graduated have secured jobs or are pursuing graduate school in Wisconsin. So you think about it, it's a win, win, win. And this compares to 18 and a half percent graduation rates to two or four year programs by MPs students that are not involved are not involved in the program. Now you might say, Well, are you just picking top students? And you know, it's easy to work with those kids. 100% of the kids come from limited income. 98% are students of color, and 84% are first generation,

Matt Kirchner: 35:41

amazing, first

Mary Ellen Stanek: 35:41

generation college students, so really starting to move the needle and have greater impact. But one of the things we're excited about is particularly this retention here. It's not a program where they're going somewhere else and don't come back, but they see their future here with us and with the various employers. So you see many of the largest employers are literally all in and sitting on the board and getting very involved. So we're excited. You know, these results we projected they would be good, these are even extra sure

Matt Kirchner: 36:19

when you look at those, yeah, when you have numbers that start with nines, I mean, that's

Mary Ellen Stanek: 36:23

and then now we'll start getting and tracking the kids from a longitudinal vantage point. What kind of success will they have longer term, we at Baird have six full time employees who came through as online scholars. Really, five of the six have been with us for more than a year and were eligible to buy Baird stock. So they're now Baird shareholders and part of the ownership of the

Matt Kirchner: 36:49

firm, amazing. Well, and think about that, that full circle idea right here you have students that are growing up in and around the area that to your point, it's one thing to get into college, which is awesome, and when you think about some of the challenges facing students in various areas around our city, that's a Herculean effort and an accomplishment, just that, right? But then it's like, okay, now I get there and I got in the door, and now what? Right? So we're providing these young people all the kind of support and wrapping our arms around them with not just economic and financial support, really, really important, but also with with mentoring and coaching and getting them the support that they need as they're working their way through 94% I think was the number graduating in six years, and then staying in and around the city of Milwaukee, working for employers, and then investing their own treasure and the benefits of their work back into our organizations. And that's how we lift an entire community. So I think that's just a really cool example,

Mary Ellen Stanek: 37:40

and a whole ecosystem works together. You look at the donor side, people who have been generous doing big scholarship programs themselves, are saying, I don't know what my outcomes are. These outcomes look even more impressive the universities these kids were exactly the kinds of students that they were trying to reach, and they were not doing it as successfully as they would have liked. Absolutely help them do that. And from the community vantage point, we can't do it alone. Bear can't do it alone. We're working with Northwestern Mutual jobs, controls, Deloitte, you know, freighter and on and on, children and US Bank The list goes on and on and growing with each passing day. And so you're creating this community that gets behind its young people and then gives them opportunity, not just career wise, but hey, come in and help with all the projects. Absolutely. And we encourage the young, the all in graduates now, to come back and mentor the students who are coming through as interns. And what's really fun to see is how they're the elder states from now, they're a lot closer in age and experience level, and can give great advice the

Matt Kirchner: 38:58

credibility that you have, and as somebody that you know, I'll mentor anybody, right? I tell people, I just absolutely refuse to say no to a young person that says, Can I come in and meet you for 30 minutes? I had so many great people, names you would recognize here in Milwaukee from 3040, years ago, when I was getting my career started. And I've just always said what you know, you can't help every one of them, but anything that I can do to help make a connection point you in the right direction, more than happy to do that. On the other hand, you only have, as in my case, a 50 some odd year old guy from Wauwatosa, only so much influence or credibility with someone that may come from a different community, different background. Here you have students that have been through the program know exactly what this younger person is going through, what they have ahead of them, so that incredible opportunity for them to be a mentor, and then so the other side of it is just the I've never had a boss one time that said I never hurt myself by helping other people, right? So there's that, that benefit that you get as someone who's putting the time in to help somebody else change their life for the better. It's certainly rewarding, just personally, but it makes you a better person as well. I've got to believe you say it the same

Mary Ellen Stanek: 39:59

way. Yeah. Very much so. And another comment I would make in all the fields, but particularly the STEM fields, can be very tough and very intimidating. And so having the universities work with us, the dean of engineering, the dean of nursing that you know, how do we get these programs and what courses and what sequencing should there be some summer, a pre summer program that helps as an on ramp, and just that ability to get people who can break this all down into bite sized pieces and and then you start seeing the graduates, and you show if you can see it. You can be it right? Exactly, yep, and that's exactly what this program is starting to do, and we're starting to see it in greater numbers and very strong results. So it's an exciting you know, certainly give Darren and Terry Jackson a ton of credit for their idea and their initial financial support, but the community has really gotten behind this, and I think we're starting to see it, much like a lot of the economic development efforts over the last call it 1015, years have been in a coordinated way, not private sector versus public sector, not Milwaukee County versus Waukesha County versus Racine and Kenosha, but we're all working as m7 together. This is the talent part of our cohesive strategy for the region, and it's it's paying dividends.

Matt Kirchner: 41:32

It is, you know, m7 of course, being the seven county economic development engine here in southeast Wisconsin. For folks that may not be familiar with that had both Dale koyenga, who's the president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, former guest on the TechEd podcast before him, Tim Sheehy, another Milwaukee legend who, by the way, his line when he was on the podcast was kind of the exactly the same point, but the words in a different order, when he was talking about young people, who said, If I can't see it, I can't be it. And that's exactly right. We have to let people see, young people and people of all ages really see the opportunities in front of them. And I do sense. And maybe it's just maturing as a Milwaukee in and somebody in Southeast Wisconsin that there is a lot more cohesive coordination. You know, I think back to I worked for Special Assistant to Milwaukee County Executive Dave Schultz, actually, for a little bit right after, kind of during and after college, lots of great efforts going on at that time, but still, maybe a little bit more finger pointing than we see now. And I think we have a realization, for whatever reason, that we're kind of all in this together, and we can disagree around the edges, but the truth of the matter is that stronger education, stronger young people, a stronger future, those kinds of experiences, that makes us a better community. And that's a lesson not just for the folks here in Milwaukee, but I think for anybody in any urban area. And

Mary Ellen Stanek: 42:45

I think established leadership here is very open and willing to support young talent coming in and working side by side. And I know I was a huge beneficiary of a lot of people before me, like you were mentioning who cared to take the time, who cared to support me, who cared to say, All right, let's go do this together and treat me like a peer, even though I wasn't. And I see that over and over again now in so many ways, and it's this welcoming sense of, come on in, jump in the swimming pool with us. Pick

Matt Kirchner: 43:21

your lane. Super and it's super, super important. And we say this a lot on the podcast. If you're a young person and you're like, Well, you know, Mary Ellen stanick would never return my phone call. Or, you know, so and so would never Yes. I mean, if you have a connection to that person somewhere, they will and they'll help you. They want to help. Don't be afraid to reach out. There's so much support there for you. And super, super important, lots of support for all kinds of initiatives, one of which I know you and I are both fascinated by, huge supporters of, and that we're really close to. In fact, we've had the CEO of the institution on our podcast. It's OG prep more, formerly known as St Augustine Preparatory Academy, really, really cool K 12 program that's gotten started here in the last 10 years in Milwaukee, building a brand new, beautiful campus, transforming the former Cardinal stretch campus. And Abby andridge has been on, of course, the CEO, her brother, Austin Ramirez, who is CEO of a major Wisconsin employer. Their father, Gus, who's just been incredibly supportive of the entire program, incredible vision, who recognized on a huge scale, the same kinds of problems that you and I had been talking about in his heart, wanted to make a difference for, you, know, for the people that needed it most. So talk about your support of our prep. I know we share that. We're huge supporters of it as well. Yeah,

Mary Ellen Stanek: 44:33

very much. So and Paul Purcell and Gus were friends and worked on a lot of education was their shared passion. And Paul would say to me, you know, both of them also shared an intolerance for not trying to do better. And so he'd say, Paul would say to me, periodically, better order more China. Gus is breaking some plates. And to Gus credit, Gus and Becky. Founding generation, certainly of the Ramirez family as Gus decided that he just wasn't going to get the progress working through the system, that he would create it himself. And so the original the South Side school has been amazing. They added a second building and have served very successfully kids there. And the whole concept has been about this holistic education, and it has been very, very successful. And so grateful to the Ramirez family for just huge, enormous support. And of course, Abby is Gus and Becky's daughter, it's that project was catalytic for that neighborhood. And I remember going on a tour with Gus and looking before the building was done, and looking around and saying to him, this is going to change the neighborhood. This is going to invite other investment in. And you can see that's absolutely happened. So roll had the clock, and Gus and Becky were invited to a graduation ceremony for grad plus and all in Milwaukee that was going to be held at the cardinal church campus. And Gus said he was sitting there looking around, thinking all of this for, you know, the announced cost of what it would take. And so he quickly went about trying to acquire it, and did pretty quickly. And then, of course, has been investing heavily ever since to get the north side. And the whole vision is to continue to have a melting pot of kids from all backgrounds, but yet, use the same formula they've used with the South Side school. And so we're excited. We're investors with them. And again, Gus is somebody that doesn't just talk about a problem, and mostly he does something about it on a scale that very few could even imagine doing it's mind boggling. But then they tied the Ramirez family scholarship funds are now part of all in Milwaukee, and it's a way so again, this virtuous cycle that you're seeing our prep grads getting all in scholarships and now migrating successfully through college, and it's that kind of momentum that we're getting and excited to see what we're able to do on the north side, it's going

Matt Kirchner: 47:32

to be huge. And I prep is a full court press, right? So it's, it's certainly academic, it's formal, right? Students are wearing uniforms. They're very, you know, it has the feel of of a really formal Preparatory Academy, I think, in a really, really good way. So tons of discipline, mental health, support, not just for the student, support for the family. I mean, it is just a complete, absolute, incredible organization, and to see the scale in which they think. I mean, if you can't, if you haven't seen it, you know, think about, you know, building a high school, building a K 12 district, a small one from scratch. And you know, 100, 500,000 students are going to be on the maybe more are going to be on the campus on the north side of Milwaukee, and then reaching into the entire community, but certainly to the north side and to some of the, some of the folks on that side of the city that need it the most, and these are all and not ours, right? There's some great things happening in MPs, great things happening in other private charter schools and so on. And for me, it's just all about we need them all. Yes, what's right for the student, what's right for the family, what's right for the future, and we have to support them all as well. So certainly don't want to sing the praises of Og prep at the expense of any other great organization that's doing great things, but it's just another example of how, if we put our heads together, we put our treasure together. Someone has some vision. It shows how an entire community can rise up. And so

Mary Ellen Stanek: 48:51

two quick stories on that. They're highly collaborative. So Rodney link, who runs Howard fuller Collegiate Academy, told me that Abby and rich and the team there is incredibly supportive, awesome. Isn't that great? We'll invite him in to see the back of the office operation, you know, back of the house operation, all the supporting services. What else can we do to help you? Yesterday, when Jeff Snell, CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs, was in our office, one of their largest after school sites is OG prep on the south side. Over 100 kids a day are doing and it's a combination, including the after school, the homework help, the reading, all of it, and he said, and support with English, because often English is a second language, and so it's just so cool. And one of the things Jeff is such a champion of, and Abby certainly lives in, is they're great partners. They think partnership. They don't think, Hey, I'm competing against you. And that's what they're really thinking with this new North Side school. So many people on the south side. I'd said, how many of these schools do we need? We need them all. And they're all thriving Exactly. They're all doing well. Kids are doing well, and the families are doing well, and we're hoping that they're able to take that experience and really leverage it to the benefit of the north side.

Matt Kirchner: 50:18

And no question that they will. You know, it's interesting. I spend my fair amount of time on LinkedIn when Howard fuller course former superintendent schools in Milwaukee, and just another Milwaukee, right? And just incredibly gave it, you know, gave his entire career to bettering the City of Milwaukee and children of the City of Milwaukee. Buck bucked some trends and took some challenging positions a lot of times, in a really, really good way. He was just somebody that that absolutely believed in what he was doing, believes in what he's doing. In what he's doing. I remember seeing a LinkedIn post where they made an announcement about his academy, and Abby was like, one of the first ones to comment and say, and I think, repost it and say, you know, welcome to the community. And we're so excited to have you something. I'm paraphrasing but, but to your point, I mean it. They're all ands not ors, we're all in it together. And it's amazing when we put our heads together and and pull in the same direction the results that we can create.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 51:05

You see how catalytic Howard fuller Collegiate Academy has been right literally across the street from thrive on King, which is where the new great Milwaukee Foundation headquarters is so awesome. Yeah, it is. And you're seeing, you're literally seeing a lot of investment and vibrancy going on in the neighborhoods. It's

Matt Kirchner: 51:24

just incredible. You walk in the door and it feels like a little bit like a walk through time, right where they've got the old storefront and the big windows and the tile floor and the in the big wooden doorway is absolutely beautiful. And then you walk in and there's all kinds of great things going on there. I think first city has a facility. It's really, really cool.

Mary Ellen Stanek: 51:41

I was that's where they are training the phlebotomist. Now, is it really Yes, and they want to have, and part of the issue too, is they want to be seen culturally as acceptable, because just being able to take the blood draws and get diverse donors, you've got to find and meet them where they are, basically, and then they're also wanting to provide careers. So they have the, I think it's an eight week training program, and then they have the in their scrubs identified as diversity employees in the neighborhood. And it's just so great. Medical College of Wisconsin has a couple of floors there. Awesome. Yeah. So there's just, you're seeing this community just springing up with a lot of dynamic activity,

Matt Kirchner: 52:31

lots of work yet to be done, but great, great things going on. And you know, on the subject of kind of the future and more and more work to be done, you've mentioned Mary Ellen so many different great things that Baird's doing, things that you and your husband are doing, things that others are doing, and we'll do our best. There's been so many to link them all up in the show notes and give our producer, Melissa a little bit of work to do there. But with the help of AI, I think we'll be able to do that just fine. So if people heard things that they're interested in, we'll make sure that they're linked up. So two last questions for you. We've had such a great conversation here that are questions we love asking every one of our guests here on the TechEd podcast, first one has to do with education. We've covered a whole bunch of education topics here. We all have our views on education. You know, unique aspects to it. Is there something you think about education or believe about education? Mary Ellen that would surprise our audience, I

Mary Ellen Stanek: 53:17

would say, having grown up with in faith based Catholic schools, certainly some kind of formation that is grounded in moral, ethical faith doesn't have to be obviously Catholic, but I think that helps, think believe that helps, and so I very much have a bias that way,

Matt Kirchner: 53:41

absolutely, that's a great answer. And as someone who's spiritual myself, don't necessarily advertise it to the world, but really, really important part of of who I am, and being able to use that to help make decisions. And almost like the core values in a business, you have your own core values you can kind of measure against and use as really a standard for how you make a good decision, really, really important, and have those guiding principles. One final question, you're growing up in McHenry, Illinois. It's Mary Ellen Bolger, did I get that right? Yeah. Okay, so, so let's go back in time to that sophomore year of high school, maybe 15 years old. You've got this incredible life ahead of you. Of course, at that time, you knew for sure that you were going to be a history major and then go on to have this incredible experience and career in finance, of course, maybe not, if you could go back and you had the career, but maybe didn't realize it when you were 15 years old. If you could go back in time and give that young lady one piece of advice, what would that be?

Mary Ellen Stanek: 54:38

I would say, and I will tap my mom's advice when I called home and said, You know, I was going to change majors, and, you know, Oh, honey, God's got a plan. Yes, just trust it. And in so many ways, you know, I look at my career, I was given an opportunity at 27 years old to take the top job. And. You know, I second guessed. Was I ready? Was I and often opportunities come when you don't expect them, but to embrace it. Absolutely, go ahead and just commit to it, and don't underestimate what you can do. You know, you're plenty capable, you'll work hard, you're smart, and go for it and enjoy the ride.

Matt Kirchner: 55:21

Absolutely enjoy the ride. Go for it. You've certainly done that. God has a plan. Trust it. Certainly a small part of that plan was having you come in, Mary Ellen, and join us on the TechEd podcast. And when I say a small part, we get tremendous leverage out of telling stories, hearing people's amazing backgrounds, your career, the great things that Baird is doing, the incredible commitment that you've had throughout your career to education, to the next generation of not just young people and people of all ages here in Milwaukee, but but all over the country, you've had a huge, huge impact to the extent that you even have an award named after you really, really impressive. I can't thank you enough for taking some time for us. Thanks so much, man. I enjoyed being here. This was absolutely wonderful to have. You had so much fun with Mary Ellen Stanek, talking about, as we suggested, all of her background, the incredible investment that she has made throughout her career in the future of America, the future of Wisconsin, the future of my hometown of Milwaukee. Really enjoyed spending that time. We had so many resources, we maybe have set a record on this episode of The TechEd podcast for the number of different resources that came up, as we mentioned before. We will link those up in the show notes. We will put those at TechEd podcast.com/stanic that is TechEd podcast.com/s, T, A, N, E, K, of course, also check us out on social media, as I mentioned a little while ago, I love LinkedIn, but we are all over. Not just LinkedIn, we are on Facebook, we are on Tiktok, we are on YouTube, we are everywhere. When you find us on social media, reach out, say hello. We would love to hear from you. Until next week. I'm Matt Kirkner on the TechEd podcast. Thanks for being with us. You.