Kent “Oz” Nelson is a Ball State graduate whose discipline, compassion, and common sense propelled him in his climb up the corporate ladder at UPS. In 1959, Oz began his decades-long career at UPS just two days after graduating from Ball State. He began as a sales and customer service representative, and he retired as chairman and CEO of UPS in 1997.
In this episode, Oz talks about the professors and courses that inspired him as a Ball State student and how his involvement in a fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, helped him establish the connections that created his opportunity at UPS.
Oz also looks back on some of the transformative moments in his career, including when UPS became the first company to deliver to every address in the United States. He also shares his professional advice to our students and his recollections of how a chance telephone call led to an enduring friendship with President Jimmy Carter.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
Kent “Oz” Nelson is a Ball State graduate whose discipline, compassion, and common sense propelled him in his climb up the corporate ladder at UPS. In 1959, Oz began his decades-long career at UPS just two days after graduating from Ball State. He began as a sales and customer service representative, and he retired as chairman and CEO of UPS in 1997.
In this episode, Oz talks about the professors and courses that inspired him as a Ball State student and how his involvement in a fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, helped him establish the connections that created his opportunity at UPS.
Oz also looks back on some of the transformative moments in his career, including when UPS became the first company to deliver to every address in the United States. He also shares his professional advice to our students and his recollections of how a chance telephone call led to an enduring friendship with President Jimmy Carter.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
GEOFF MEARNS:
So I'm back again today with another episode of "Our Call to Beneficence." And my guest today is Oz Nelson. Oz is a graduate of Ball State University and he has had a remarkable career and he continues to have an enduring impact on our university. Oz was born and raised in Kokomo, Indiana, and after he graduated from Ball State with a business degree in 1959, Oz worked at UPS for nearly 40 years. Oz started at UPS as a sales and customer service representative, and then in 1997 he retired as chairman and CEO of UPS. Through education and hard work, Oz built a successful career that enabled him to influence the way the entire world ships packages. In this episode, I'm gonna ask Oz about his career. I also want to learn more about his friendship with President Jimmy Carter. And I hope he'll share with me, and I hope he'll share with all of you who are listening, hope he'll share his reasons for staying involved with his alma mater and why he is optimistic about the bright future for Ball State University. So Oz welcome and thank you for joining me today from your home in Atlanta, Georgia.
OZ NELSON:
Well I'm very pleased to have this discussion with you and looking forward to it.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Great, well, thank you. So, as I said, just a moment ago in the introduction, I understand you were born and raised in Kokomo, a small city that's just about an hour's drive from here in Muncie. So tell me a little bit about your parents and you growing up.
OZ NELSON:
Well, first of all, my father Clyde Nelson was born in 1900 and raised on a farm in Southern Illinois. And he was the oldest son, having two sisters and two brothers. And he was required to drop out of school at the end of the fourth grade to go to work on a farm so his other brothers and sisters could continue school. And that's what he did. He accomplished quite a lot, considering the handicap from an education standpoint that he dealt with. My mother had a two-year high school degree from Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois, which was just south of Chicago. And they were quite different people. My father was a sports nut. He loved politics. He worked hard. He showed up every day to work. He accepted the responsibilities, and somehow managed during his career to become, after being moved a couple a times, to become the manager of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Factory in Kokomo, Indiana with some 250 employees.
And he loved that company. He loved his job. He missed 2 1/2 days of work in the 24 1/2 years he worked with 'em. He got up early and left the house at six o'clock in the morning and got home in time for the five o'clock news. And worked every Saturday morning. But at noon, he was back home and he was very interested in my brother, Don. I had one sibling. Don was one year older than me. He was very active in our, with us and attending all our sporting events. We were involved in every kind of sporting event that was possible. And he encouraged those things. And my mother on the other hand was a great civic involvement person. She of course, she headed up our Cub Scout den. She became president of the PTA of the school and did a number of civic activities. Encouraged my brother and I to be involved in lots of things. And I'd have to say it took because we followed her advice and my brother played the piano. I tried the piano for one year and begged out of it. I would sit down there, I remember sitting at the piano with that clock on the top of it. I had to practice for half an hour every day, and I'd play about 20 minutes and I'd take my hand and I'd move that clock forward a little bit. So mother only got about 20 or 25 minutes of the 30 minutes from me. And while I was playing at the piano I could hear all the boys outside in front of our house playing ball and I wanted to be with 'em. So finally I said, can I please stop this?
And they said, "Sure, what instrument are you going to play then?" I said, "Well, that's easy, I'll play the drums." Much to my surprise they said okay. So I started taking drum lessons and played the drums. And I played in, as it turned out, I played in numerous bands over the years, any kind of music, anywhere from advanced bands, to jazz music to a honky tonk rock and roll, made a little money doing it. And did the same at Ball State incidentally. Had my drums there for quite a bit of the time. And so that was the kind of encouragement I had from my mother. And was very active in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and so forth. So my parents wanted me to go to school. My father didn't feel very competent about talking about school to me, so he never did. I never remember him ever asking about my grades or looking at a report card or encouraging me, anything other than he wanted me to graduate from college and he enjoyed following my sports and other activities. My mother on the other hand, followed it more closely and was more interested in that. And my older brother was pretty much the same. So it was, I had their support, but the only time my parents ever went to Ball State was my graduation ceremony.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Which I'm sure was a big day for you and for your family.
OZ NELSON:
It was a highlight.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Right. So, in just a second, I want to ask you about why you chose to go to Ball State. But first I asked you this question when we were getting prepared and I suspect a lot of people who are listening, your parents gave you the name Kent, but everyone for many, many years has called you Oz. How did you get that nickname? I'm sure folks wanna know.
OZ NELSON:
Well, I had a close friend that I grew up with by the name of Kirk Berridge and he had a nickname for everybody. And because my last name was Nelson, a very famous radio program at that time was the "Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson Show." It was a radio show about their family. Later it went on TV. But because my name was Nelson, he decided I was gonna be Oz and it stuck. And he called me that and everybody called me that. My father hated it. I remember, I think I told you this story, the phone would ring at our house and somebody would ask to speak to Oz. He'd say which one is that? He never quite accepted it.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Yeah, he probably preferred the name Kent, but as you said, Oz stuck with you all the way through your high school career and all the way through your career at UPS.
OZ NELSON:
That's right, actually it didn't bother me at all. That was fine with me, I didn't care. And my friends from Kokomo went to high school and college with me and then actually from college to UPS with me. So the name Oz traveled right around along with me and the only people would ever call me Kent were my parents who are now deceased. And there are still a couple of relatives that'll call me Kent, that's it.
GEOFF MEARNS:
That's it. Well, and so let's talk a little bit about Ball State. So I understand that when you were in high school, you planned to go to Indiana University down in Bloomington, but after you graduated or actually in your senior year in high school, you chose to enroll at Ball State. Why did you pick Ball State over IU?
OZ NELSON:
Well, you know, I like a lotta people in Indiana, grew up cheering for Indiana University's basketball teams. They were so successful. And I had a brother that was a freshman at Indiana University. He was a year older than me. I just assumed that's where I was gonna go. I went down on the campus at Indiana and visited the campus and spent some time with a fraternity there and came back home and said, "Gee, boy, that's a pretty big school." And two of my close Kokomo friends were going to Ball State. And he said, why don't you come over and just look at Ball State and see what you think of it. I said, okay. So they drove me over to Ball State and I walked around and they showed me around the place and everybody was friendly and helpful. They only had 4,200 students at that time, and it seemed like home to me. So I immediately decided I was switching to Ball State and that's how I became a Ball State Cardinal.
GEOFF MEARNS:
You know, in that story, we hear that to this day, Oz, that students when they come on our campus, they often use that exact same phrase, that it feels like home. So let's talk about your life here at Ball State. You majored in business administration. Why did you choose that program? 'Cause I know you, you had a lot of interests when you were a young man and still do today. How did you pick business?
OZ NELSON:
Well, I considered my father to be a business man running that factory and I did a lot of reading and a lot of business reading and was interested in it. I was interested in lots of things, but politics and business and some economics and trying to understand how the company, country run and ran. And I enjoyed very much the success of some of the CEOs I heard speaking and reading about in the paper. And I thought, gee, that's what I wanna do. I think I could be successful in business. I don't know what I'll do or how I'll do it, but it sounds like a good place to start.
GEOFF MEARNS:
So, but I understand when you were at Ball State, you took a variety of courses. And I asked you recently, you know who were some of your most memorable professors and you've mentioned Professor Satterwhite, who was an English professor. Why was Professor Satterwhite so memorable to you during your experience at Ball State?
OZ NELSON:
Well, it's kinda funny because the first day of his class, he announced to the students that he was, he was not an A student in college and none of us were smarter than him so no one there should expect to get an A in his course. That upset several of the students in the class. Didn't bother me, I didn't give a damn what score I got, I just wanted to attend the class. And grades were, unfortunately I was pretty immature, were not that important to me at that time. I wanted to graduate from college, I knew that and have a business degree and involve myself in lots of things. But he was a very good professor and he challenged us and he spoke to us in a way to, he referenced what we were learning to real life. And he did, one time he told me he was or he told the class that he had walked by the Sig Ep house and he knew I was Sig Ep 'cause I had to wear a pledge hat everywhere at the time. And he claimed he saw some bottles, empty bottles of booze in the trashcan over there. And his image was we're sitting in there drinking. Well, we didn't allow drank it in the fraternity house. Somebody may have been drinking it and gotten rid of the bottle before they came in the house, but we didn't do that. But he had us read a poem and the final line was soothe by Bond and Lillard. And I asked him what's, I don't understand it what's Bond and Lillard? And he said, well, you should look at your trashcan you'll probably see some up there. And then he told me and I got a kick out of that, but he was really an interesting professor. He had a lot of personal viewpoints that he could give relevance to. So he was one. I love my economics teachers in my economics classes. I learned so much. I began to understand how things worked commercially in the country and business and it interested me. And I would say those, I had two economics classes. I worked harder in those two classes than any classes I took. And I did pretty well in them 'cause they interested me. I did well in the classes I liked and I just passed the ones I didn't.
GEOFF MEARNS:
So, as I mentioned, diverse interests while you in the classroom, but also were very engaged in extracurricular activities, including Sig Ep. What was social life like at Ball State in the late 1950s when you were here as a student?
OZ NELSON:
Well, you know, surprisingly, although it was a pretty small school, there was a lot going on. And you could be just as busy as you wanted to be in everything, and I liked everything. So I did get involved in lots of things and the fraternity was a vessel for a bunch of it, but that wasn't the only one. I played sports. I played on the tennis team at Ball State. I played number one doubles and number four singles for three years and member of the B Club. I won the university tennis championship my freshman year. And I played basketball, volleyball, participated in swimming competitions and all that at the university. And I joined the Commerce Club and was interested in what they did. And the tourney itself offered a myriad of things. And I just loved every minute of it. And I spent probably a lot more time on those kinds a things than I did on, not probably, I did spend more time on those things than I did studying. I didn't make very frequent visits to the library.
GEOFF MEARNS:
But it sounds like you certainly did well enough in the classroom, as you say, in the classes that you are particularly interested in. So you graduated in 1959. Your parents came to Ball State to see you walk across the stage and get that diploma. And literally that same year you began what is undoubtedly a remarkable career with UPS. How did you get your first job at UPS? And why did you take advantage of that opportunity? Why did you choose to join UPS?
OZ NELSON:
Well, it was a kind of a funny thing. We had a pay phone at the fraternity house because that way we didn't get long distance calls made by people who were in a house that we had to pay for. So we had a pay phone and I was walking by the pay phone and it rang and I picked it up, said, "Sig Ep, Oz Nelson" and on the line was one of my graduated fraternity brothers. And he said, "Oz getting time for you to graduate now, have you found a job yet?" I said, "No, I've been interviewed by three companies. One of 'em I'm kind of interested in, why?" And he said, "Well as you know I'm working for this new company in the state, United Parcel Service."
And another one of my fraternity brothers was working there too, said, "We think it's a great place to work. We'd like to have you come and interview for a job with us." And I said, "Well fine, that sounds good to me. When should I do it?" He said why don't you come and we set a date. I called my dad and I said, "Gee, I'm gonna interview with UPS. What do you know about UPS?" And my father said, "Well, you know, they're just new in the state of Indiana." He said, "All I know is the delivery man that comes to our factory every day is the fastest, hardest working person I've ever seen. And the service they provide is so much better than we've ever had before. And we call at three o'clock in the afternoon from Kokomo and we have our deliveries the next morning at nine o'clock in the morning. Used to take two or three days with a post office to get 'em down there. So I'm very impressed."
And I said, "Okay, that's all I wanted to know." And so I went to the interview and I had the short, I told you I had the shortest interview in history. The sales manager that interviewed me, he said, "Oz, I understand you're a fraternity brother of Luke Kessler's and Charlie Arch." And I said, "I am." He said, "Well, if you're a half the man they are, we want you, you're hired." And I sat there stunned. I'd been through three interviews that were quite expansive. And I said, "Well, okay, I'll take the job." I didn't even know what the pay was. And I didn't care because I knew enough about the company, its growth and potential, that that's a good place to start, I thought. If it doesn't work out I'm gonna have to go into the service anyway, pretty soon, 'cause the draft was still on at that time. So I went down to work the second day after I graduated from Ball State. I drove to Indianapolis and started working. And the first day they put me on a package car and had me ride with a driver to see how customers received our services. Before the end of the day they had me auditing packages that drivers picked up to make sure they're prepared properly. And the district manager who was three or four levels above me, came out to see me and talk to me for awhile. He says, "Well, what are you gonna do?" I said, "I'm gonna do this, audit these packages." He said, "Come on, I'll join ya." He took his coat off, came down and did it with me. I was stunned. But then when we're all finished and got it done, he said, "Come on, let's go across the street and have a beer." And so we did and we had a nice talk. And that first week I was there, I knew that was where I was gonna work the rest of my life. 'Cause the wonderful policies and practices they had there.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Yeah and the culture. Maybe we'll get a chance to talk a little bit about your responsibility in sustaining that culture. So, I did a little research. So, in 1975, you've been at the company, I guess about 16 years, UPS became the first package delivery company to deliver to all addresses in the continental United States. And I think it was called the Golden Link. Tell us about what it was like to be at UPS when the company achieved that historic event.
OZ NELSON:
I can tell you that was a very proud moment for us. Our goal all along, from the day I got there was to serve all of the United States. And we had started out in Seattle, Washington, moved down the West Coast and then had regional operations around the country. And our goal was to tie them all together and serve every place. And when we finally got it done and it was a lotta work and I was involved in lots of legal hearings in all sorts of states where I might be away for months gathering witnesses, to testify to get the rights to operate in those states. And we got to the point we could do it all and we were very proud of it. And we were the only company that delivered every place in the United States. We delivered places the Post Office didn't deliver. And we were very proud of that. And it was a proud achievement for all of us.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Yeah, so fast forward, a little bit further. In 1989, it's now 30 years after you've graduated from Ball State, it's 30 years after you began your career at UPS, you are selected to be the Chairman and CEO of this, what is now an international company? Tell us, to what do you attribute that extraordinary career progression? And I know you're modest by nature, but I'm gonna encourage you to be a little immodest in telling us how this happened.
OZ NELSON:
Well, it took the help of a lot of people for me to get there. It was never my goal to be Chairman and CEO of UPS. What I did wanna do is do the current job I had as well as I could do it and learn as much as I can, I could about the company. And even the parts of the company that I didn't work in, I nosed around in and found out about 'em and learned about those too. And then I wanted to also understand our competition and our customers. And I worked at those things. And since we promoted from within, at UPS, everybody had the opportunity to take the next step and I was always looking to take the next step. And I figured to do that, I'd have to be as good as anybody else or better at what I was doing. And I tried to do that and I worked long hours and I did some things maybe others didn't do. I did a lot of studying of the competition and the industry and spent some time doing other people's jobs at UPS in my spare time just to understand how they worked. And it all came together and helped me.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Yeah, and it's interesting that you mentioned that the focusing on the job you're in, I recently for my podcast interviewed Renae Conley, another Ball State graduate who's now chair of our Board of Trustees who also had a remarkable career. And one of the things that she shared during our conversation was that, relatively early on in her career, one of her bosses and one of her mentors gave her that specific advice. Don't look too far down the road, focus on being excellent at what you do, and those other opportunities will come. So do you share that advice with current Ball State students or young Ball State graduates?
OZ NELSON:
I do. I think the most important thing you can do in your job is make all the other people around you successful. That's not just your boss or the people that work for you, but the people you work with and your peers. And if you can help them all be successful, you'll be successful yourself. And if you are only looking out for yourself, then you are frankly, in my opinion, in the right organizations, not gonna go very far.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Yeah, so let's talk for just another moment that that's an important leadership lesson that you just shared. And I need to, in full disclosure to the folks who are listening, I've called you from time to time over the last 4 1/2 years when I was serving here as President of Ball State to ask you for some advice and some guidance as a leader. What other—what are the other one or two other important attributes of an effective leader in your experience and in your judgment?
OZ NELSON:
Well, I think you have to, first of all, keep your word. And if you don't keep your word, then you don't have trust, and trust is extremely important. And I didn't meet all my goals and I didn't achieve everything I wanted to achieve, but I'll tell you if I didn't achieve it my boss heard about it first from me, instead of from somebody else. And it usually was with, jeez, I really thought I was gonna get that done and I didn't get it. Here's what I'm gonna do now to get it. Here's the next step. Do you have any advice? And I found that was very effective and honesty is important. And you have to have concern for all the various audiences you deal with. And you want your customers to be successful. You want your company to be successful. You want the individuals you deal with to be successful. And if you think that way and act that way and display that way, people will understand you're somebody they can trust and believe in and would like to work with.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Good. Well, I appreciate that and speaking of important achievements, I wanna ask you something, I wanna ask you about one of the, perhaps most historic decisions that you made during your tenure as CEO and that was relocating the headquarters of UPS from Greenwich, Connecticut to Atlanta. Why did you make that move? I'm sure it was somewhat controversial at the time.
OZ NELSON:
Yeah well, Greenwich, Connecticut is a beautiful area. It's an extremely expensive area. It's frankly, it really didn't match up with the personality and the nature of UPS, which is pretty down to earth, friendly, promotion from within. It was hoity toity, so to speak in my opinion. And when we had to transfer people into Greenwich, it was so expensive they ended up buying homes, 30, 40, 50 miles away that they could afford and commuting to Greenwich, which was a commuting city. So it wasn't in our employees' best interest to be transferred there. When we asked them to come, they would come because we had a very loyal group, but they did reluctantly. And it was hard for us to compensate them appropriately for the higher cost of moving there. So Atlanta proved to be, after studying, we studied all sorts of cities and one of 'em, and had it down to Cincinnati, Atlanta, and Dallas. And we went on a little secret trip, the management committee, the 13 people who were on the management committee without any identification and went through all those cities, the school systems, there are other things, the civics, the buildings, the facilities, met with the Chamber of Commerce. They didn't know who we were. We removed all identification. We just told them we were a Fortune 500 company and that's all they needed to know. And we went on buses and drove through the neighborhoods and looked at homes and the prices for people and the cost for buildings and so forth. And when it was all over, I asked each of the people to take two days and then give me a note saying where they think we oughta move the corporate headquarters to, and much to my surprise, I thought we were gonna pick Dallas, all, every one of us individually, picked Atlanta. We liked the friendliness, the homes, airport facilities, the cost of living, all that and that's how we ended up in Atlanta.
GEOFF MEARNS:
And shortly after you made the announcement that you were relocating to Georgia, you received an unexpected call from a pretty famous Georgia native. Please tell us about that call.
OZ NELSON:
I was sitting in my office in Greenwich. I had a card table and a card table chair and a file, a cardboard box of the files that I actually had to use and a phone sitting on my desk, 'cause everything was moved and on its way to Georgia. And the phone rang and I picked it up 'cause I always answered my own phone. Anybody called for me, they got me. If I was there, no secretary ever answered my phone, unless I was outta town. I picked up the phone and on the other end I heard someone say, "Well, hello is this Oz Nelson?" And I said, "Yes it is." He says, "Well this is President Carter. And I just wanted to talk with you."
And I thought, in the back of my head, somebody's pulling my leg, I'd never met Jimmy Carter. I knew who he was. And he asked another question and I recognized the voice. I said, gosh, that's really him. I said, "Well, President Carter, I'm just surprised and pleased to hear from you. What can I possibly do for you?" He said, "Well, I understand you're moving to Atlanta and I wanna welcome you to Georgia." Said, "I'd like to come up and welcome your people at Greenwich before they come down there." I said, "Boy, that would be wonderful. I mean, we would all be thrilled if you would do that." I said, "When did you have in mind to do it?"
And I didn't know Jimmy Carter at that time and he was a very specific person. And he said, "Well, I have ... and he gave me a date and the time he would be there. And I sat there and sweat broke out on my forehead. I said, "President Carter, could we possibly change that date? Because on that date I'm giving a speech in LA . People have paid $400 a piece for it and that's when I'm giving the speech and I can't be here." He says, "Sorry, that's the time I've got to do it." I said, "Well, would you come and meet with my management committee anyway, even though I can't be here?" "For sure, be glad to." So that was the plan. I flew to California. He flew to Atlanta, I mean to Greenwich, met with my 13 management committee members and did whatever he was gonna do and then I flew back the next day.
And I got into the office about 7:30 in the morning and all the management committee people started filing into my office. And I said, well, how'd the meeting with the President go? And they just raved about him. They loved him. He just wowed 'em. And I think the thing that really locked it up with them is he talked about the Atlanta Project he was working with in Atlanta and it was gonna do so much for poverty and help so many people. And it was a kind of work that my management committee people did with the Annie Casey Foundation.
We worked with communities, five major metropolitan areas in the country, to try to do that work and it was hard. It was difficult. And we weren't trying to do a whole city. We're taking inner city blocks and trying to do them. And so anyway, it became a good relationship. A few weeks later when I moved to Atlanta, I picked up the phone and called Jimmy and he answered the phone and I said, "I owe you a visit. I'd like to come and see you." So I drove over and sat down with him and we had a long talk. And then he said, "What do you think about the Atlanta Project?" I said, "You're gonna fail." He says, "What?" I said, "You're biting off too much. Can't be done." I said, "I've been doing this for a long time now with Annie Casey Foundation. If you took a section of the city, you'd have much more chance and then build and go from there. He said, "Well that's my commitment, and we're gonna do it." I said, "Okay, I'll help. Give me a section to work with and UPS will join you in that section." And we became friends going forward and they asked me on the board and so forth.
GEOFF MEARNS:
And you've been friends with President Carter ever since that first phone call. And you've been involved in so many different organizations—the Carter Center, The United Way, Annie Casey Foundation. How do you—and your time certainly was very valuable when you were CEO of UPS—how do you determine which organizations you should invest your time and your philanthropy in?
OZ NELSON:
Well, I think first of all, I've been on 17 nonprofit boards over the years and I've been very particular about the ones I've been on and they have to have relevant and substantial effect for me to be willing to put the time in for them. Some are bigger than others. But United Way, for example, is the major non-profit that served all the United States like we did. So that was a natural. And we [UPS] became, after joining, got involved with United Way, their largest donor in the United States, providing some over $50 billion a year between our employees and our company and working with them. And later on public health became a very strong issue. So the Centers for Disease Control became very, very important. And we did a lot of work with them and Emory University and the work they do in, civically and in public health and health are important. So I eventually chaired boards for all of those organizations, their foundations, not the boards of the companies themselves. And they were substantial and they were important to us and our employees. So that's how I chose 'em.
GEOFF MEARNS:
So, you've also remained very engaged here at Ball State in many different ways. What's prompted you to remain involved in your alma mater?
OZ NELSON:
Well, first of all, I owe so much to Ball State. And I feel that they were responsible for so much of my success and the people they introduced me to and I got to know, and the people who taught me, gave me so much that it would just be impossible for me not to wanna keep going back. I admire what the university has done so much. Their leadership has been extremely good and I've learned so much from their Presidents and serving on their boards and with the foundation and raising funds for Ball State.
And I've given a million speeches. I think I've raised over $2.2 billion in funds for campaigns that I've chaired, Ball State being one of the biggest of the ones I've done, also for the CDC. And Ball State is doing ... And I'm really frustrated this last year, not being able to go back. I'm used to going back about every couple of months and doing something and being involved with something there. I really feel so bad about that. But I love the university. I think they are doing a good job. I think they are reputable. I think their growth has been what it should be. I think they have made leadership decisions for other universities just empowering their system, and Ball State's a good example. And I could go on and on about my love and respect for you and the job you're doing and your predecessors.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Well, thank you, you're very kind. And once this pandemic recedes a little bit further, I know you and your wife are appropriately being very careful about staying safe and staying well and we certainly respect that, but we're looking forward to having you back as soon as it's good for you to do so.
So then let me ask you my last question. And it's really a question that I ask at the end of all of these conversations with all of my guests. And it's about Beneficence. Beneficence is the statue that is the iconic symbol of Ball State University. And Oz, as you know, and as you've lived, beneficence means the quality of doing good for other people through service and through philanthropy. So as you reflect on your remarkable career, as you reflect on your extraordinary life, what does beneficence mean to you?
OZ NELSON:
I look at beneficence as an opportunity. And I think of an opportunity to do more than maybe you might normally do to not just pay back, but to go beyond pay back, to set examples for others and encourage a better life for this world and all the people in it.
And I see that being done at Ball State, by their wonderful administration, and their activities. I see their students graduating and making huge contributions to society and coming back to Ball State, many of them continuing the love affair they had with the university as I have.
And it means so much to me and you can't do enough of it. I mean, you would just, you'd like to do more and more and more and more, but you do as much as you can at the time. And Ball State has just broadened me beyond my wildest dreams. And unfortunately, one of my closest friends from Ball State died yesterday morning. Dick Hudson, who was a very involved alumni at Ball State, and it was a very traumatic thing to me to hear that yesterday. And I think about him at Ball State and the number of notes I've received from fraternity brothers and friends from Ball State about his passing and thinking how much he loved Ball State, as I do. And it all ties together and it makes me feel better about life in general.
GEOFF MEARNS:
And Dick, as you know, was another remarkable Ball State graduate who embodied, truly embodied, beneficence and he will be missed. But his impact on our university and on so many people will endure for many, many generations to come.
So thank you Oz for spending this time with us. Thank you for all that you've done for Ball State University, and thank you for all that you've done to make our world and our country a better place to live. So thank you Oz, be well.
OZ NELSON:
You're very welcome. And I wanna throw that right back at you. Thank you. I'm so proud of you and the work that they've done there. Keep it up.
GEOFF MEARNS:
Thank you, sir, be well.