S4E8: A Retired CEO and Entrepreneur Reflects on How Ball State Prepared Him For Career Success | (Ron Galbraith, Professor, Consultant, Innovator)

Ron Galbraith is a retired CEO and entrepreneur with a distinctive career path—one that began in academia, continued in healthcare, and ended as an entrepreneur. But before he enjoyed career success, Ron was a Ball State student who, on his first day on campus, walked into the wrong science class. 

Ron’s experiences as a first-generation college student in the 1960s shaped his professional aspirations. Guided by faculty mentors who encouraged his love of learning, Ron became a professor at Vanderbilt University. He then pivoted professionally to working for the Nation’s largest healthcare system before founding his own consulting firm. 

In this episode, Ron talks about how he found his calling at Ball State—and why he’s inspired now to reengage with his alma mater. He also discusses his impressions of our campus today, after returning for his first visit to the University in years. 

If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show. 

Transcript

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Today's guest on my podcast is a distinguished graduate who is reuniting with his alma mater during a recent visit this month back to our beautiful campus. Ron Galbraith is a retired CEO and entrepreneur. For a time he also taught as a professor at Vanderbilt University. His impressive career reflects his courage, his innovative spirit, and his commitment to excellence, all of which are enduring values of our University, where Ron earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees.

In this episode, I'll ask Ron about his experience as a first-generation college student, what it was like to come of age as a college student during the 1960s, and how his Ball State education prepared him to become an expert in management and leadership on behalf of our nation's health care system. We'll also talk about the mentors at Ball State who guided his professional aspirations, and we'll discuss Ron's impressions of our campus today as we welcome him back for his first visit to the University in many years.

So, Ron, welcome and thank you for making the journey north to visit Ball State and to join me today in the studio.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Absolutely a pleasure.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So why don't we kind of start at the beginning? I know you've spent much of your adult life in Nashville, Tennessee, but you're a Hoosier by birth. Where did you grew up in Indiana? And what high school did you attend?

[RON GALBRAITH]

I actually started in southern Indiana, very small town, 700 people. I had the same first grade teacher my father had had, and my grandfather was the—his father had the grocery store, only grocery store in town, the kind with the gas pumps out front of long ago. And he was a postmaster in that town, moved to Indianapolis, really, and grew up mostly in Indianapolis, still making visits to relatives who had farms and businesses in southern Indiana.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And when was that? When did your family moved to the Indianapolis area?

[RON GALBRAITH]

When I went into second grade, they moved. So most of my time was in Indianapolis.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Okay. And where did you go to high school then?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Broad Ripple.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

What was Broad Ripple like back at that time?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Oh, thank goodness. It was a great, it was a great academic school. As I remember, they used to brag about, you know, 80% of the students went on to college from Broad Ripple. So it was a good academic public high school, obviously. And it was ...you don't think much about it when you're there. And I was a, a solid B student at best. It was not that—because I had skipped a grade in elementary school. When we moved from the country school that I mentioned to the city schools, one might think that, you know, that was going to be a real challenge. Turns out the country schools were well out of the city. School. So I kept being moved. They had half grades, and I was moved a half grade and then a whole grade. And, that slowed me down a bit. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So talking about going to college wasn't necessarily a topic that was discussed at your dinner table. What was that decision like for you to decide after you graduated from high school to come here to Ball State?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Well, you're right, it wasn't talked about. My family, what was talked about was hard work. There was a strong work ethic. My grandfather on my mother's side was a master carpenter until the Depression, and he had four kids. So, he actually went in to work at a factory and a factory then that he was with, that really produced a lot of war material for World War II.

So he had steady employment, but he missed being a master carpenter. A wonderful man. And my grandfather on my father's side, of course, stahed in southern Indiana. Had that grocery store forever and a small farm. So working and work ethic and that was, that was at the dinner table. But no one had ever gone to college. And it was never, it was never once discussed as the next step for me.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So how did it come about that you shared with your parents, “Hey, I'm going to college and I'm going up to Muncie, Indiana to go to Ball State.”

[RON GALBRAITH]

Obviously, at Broad Ripple, based on the number I just gave you, most of the kids brought up going on to college. So that was the buzz, you know, starting in junior year.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

That was the conversation in the lunchroom.

[RON GALBRAITH]

In the lunchroom, of course. And I could have gone. I had, I did end up as a merit scholar later in my, high school life. I just wasn't—it wasn't discussed at home, and I wanted to do something else. I didn't know what it was. I didn't I didn't want to stay in school. It was not that I had a firm decision. It was mostly I was not clear, and I was 17 when most of my peers were 18. So.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So what did you do next?

[RON GALBRAITH]

I went in the military.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

What branch of the service?

[RON GALBRAITH]

I went into the Air Force, ended up in the Strategic Air Command, assigned to an isolated duty base, eventually, in Goose Bay, Labrador. And about that time, so I'm about a year into my military commitment, college became very attractive.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

[laughs] Because the service was pretty rigorous.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Well, I don't know that it was rigorous. It was a little bit boring. And it's just, as you begin to figure out, as a now 18, 19 year old, you know, what is this going to look like? What? What is it? And I then I really knew I wanted to go to university.

I still had a commitment to finish with the Air Force, but I knew I wanted to be at a university now, at this point. And so what I did was feeling like I was not prepared, even though I had a good fundamentals in high school. I began to study, I guess would be the best way to phrase it.

We again, isolated duty base. I created a book club of four guys who wanted to read some classics. And because my rank had increased, I set schedules for some other people, and, I found out who was really good at math, and, um, miraculously set the schedule so that he was available to tutor me.

And so I just kind of organized because I didn't know what college was going to be like. I was both excited and pretty determined that that's what I wanted to do, but I really was worried whether I was prepared for it. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. So you were a little anxious about coming to Ball State at that time. And so I understand that, uh, you've shared a funny but perhaps anxiety inducing story about your first day on campus. Why don't you share that story with the folks who are listening?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Okay, so now I've finished my military career just weeks before I arrive on campus, and I am, as has anybody would be and you could imagine and referenced, I was excited but at the same time I was worried. You know, am I going to be the same kind of student I was, which was enough to get by? Or am I really prepared? So I've got both equal parts excitement and anxiety. So I go into my first class in what was the science hall. And, it's a science class. It's a basic science class, part of the general studies requirements at that time. 

And there was no way I belong there. The language that they were talking about, the references they were making, the, the—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

It’s all just flicking right over your head.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Oh, at best. This is coming at me in kind of waves and I'm going, what have I done, where am I?

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And this is your first class. On your first day.

[RON GALBRAITH]

First class, first day. I mean, I found the science hall, but, you know, then I go into class, and it is—it's as if it's a different language. I mean, I knew basic sciences, but I had no idea what they were talking about. So I leave thinking that may be my last day at Ball State that if everything is going to be like this. Walk over to the admin building where the freshman counselors were. And turns out they'd put me in a third year physics class. My mistake.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

(laughs) You're in the wrong class.

[RON GALBRAITH]

I'm in the wrong class. So yes, that was my first day.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

An inauspicious start to your Ball State career. Okay, putting that story aside, did you know what you wanted to study or what you wanted to major in when you arrived on campus?

[RON GALBRAITH]

I did not know for sure. You have to at least declare something or you did then. And I thought, okay, I'll be a business major.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Seemed to make sense. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

Yeah. Why not? And, But I really didn't know. I just knew that I wanted to be at a university and having a selected Ball State, I wanted to be here, having survived that first day. But I figured out, in fact, I had asked before this current visit— I asked, is there still a scramble corner? And there is. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yep.

[RON GALBRAITH]

So my second, going in actually into my third quarter, I'm standing coming out of a class in the Emens building. And you've got a great view down— I mean, I can't forget this.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Slide hill that looks down to the scrambled light.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Down at a corner. Well, by this time, I had long since left my—I don't know if it was still a declared major, but I knew I wasn't going to be a business major, not because that wasn’t interesting. And had had a couple of introductory classes in that. There's just too much else going on, because by that time I had some great teachers.

I don't know whether I got lucky beyond that first class. I don't know whether I got lucky or whether that was the standard, but I know I had some great professors my freshman year. And it may sound a little corny, but I fell in love with learning. I mean, the teachers continued to spark that, I knew I belonged, and I came out on a sunny day, and I stopped, rather than rushing down and over to scramble corner. And I looked down at scrambled corner, which is great view when that happens between classes, and I thought, I'm going to teach at the university level.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So who were those instructors, those professors who served as that source of inspiration and also served as your as your mentors?

[RON GALBRAITH]

First of all, I had a woman for my introductory English class. You know, every freshman takes at some point. Her name was Barbara Jackson. She was she was an ABD—didn't know what that meant at that time, which she she was.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. All but dissertation. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

All but dissertation.

[GEOFF MEARNS

On her way to a doctorate.

[RON GALBRAITH]

And she was also a paraplegic. So that was the first thing you obviously notice when she wheels into the class. She was great. And I was just absorbing everything because I really was, at that point, a sponge. She then gave me an early exam, a couple weeks into the course, which I didn't know any different. I thought maybe that happened in every course and doesn’t of course. And so I thought, I am so ready for this exam. How do you take an exam? It's my first exam at a university. How do you prepare for an exam? Well, I thought I know how you prepare for an exam. You create the exam you know she's going to give you in your head and you—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Study that material.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Yes. And I did that.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

How did it work out?

[RON GALBRAITH]

It didn't. She handed the papers out in class ... iit wasn't a big class. And then she parks herself by the door as students are leaving, and she asked me to wait a minute because I had failed that exam. And her first words to me were, don't ever do that again. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Wow. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

Obviously didn't really in retrospect, you can imagine all kinds of responses. I didn't know what to say. And she said, I know what you did. You created an exam. And you created the answers and you passed for the—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

For the exam that you administered. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

But that was not the exam you did. You didn't really give the answers to my exam. So you're going to do fine, but don't ever do that again.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

That was a good learning lesson.

[RON GALBRAITH]

No kidding. 

[GEOFF MEARNS] 

Yeah. So I understand from our conversations that, that Victor Lawhead had played a significant influence on you. Tell us about Doctor Lawhead. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

I met Doctor Lawhead... by my sophomore year, I had been invited into the honors program and I took a course at his home. And that's when I first met him, having no idea that he would become a mentor. Even become my boss at some point because I worked at the university at his request when I graduated, and he just became a friend as well.

[RON GALBRAITH]

But he was a clear mentor for me as I moved into a master's program. Warren Vander Hill was a real advisor and mentor and became a friend. So those are two that I would put under that classification of mentor. In terms of people who were strong influencers on the kind of, academician that I would become, there were a number of others from Neil McMillan and Dwight Hoover and Bob White, and I could name others because I ended up with doing almost a triple major in history and literature and psychology, with a minor in French. And that was.... none of that was I didn't pay much attention to what my major was. I was literally just in love with learning. And I had great people who kept pushing that along—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Who fueled that fire. And so you stayed here at Ball State to earn your master's degree, as I understand it.

[RON GALBRAITH]

I did. I made a deal with Doctor Lawhead on that because I was headed off to another university. I had been accepted at three. And he was trying his best to convince me to stay here, and work on a project with him. That was his vision. And we went—we were ...we had the kind of relationship we could go back and forth on that. And so finally, we made a deal. And the deal was, if I could create my own master's program—you I know me well enough it's not going to be frivolous, but I want it to be interdisciplinary. And there is no interdisciplinary option here at Ball State. If I can pick my professors and pick my courses and have them approved, then I'll stay. And I also want to teach at least one class. And we made that deal. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So after you completed your master's degree here, you left Ball State to earn a doctorate degree. Tell us, where you went to for your doctorate and what were you studying there?

[RON GALBRAITH]

I went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and I went there based on certainly their reputation. But I went there based on how they structured their doctorate. They structured their doctorate. And remember, my goal was teaching at the academic level. They structured a doctorate, not just focused on a sharply focused area of study that produced a dissertation, which often few people read.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Other than your advisors. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

And my mother.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

(laughs) Right.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Instead, they emphasized that you needed not only to produce a dissertation. And that process was somewhat unique because it was rigorous. But you also had to demonstrate writing. You had to be able to have something you had written in a published, peer reviewed journal in order to complete your requirements. And you also had to demonstrate that you could create, literally, an inquiry-based teaching model at the academic level.

So not didactic, interdisciplinary, preference was anyway. Now that's why I went to Carnegie Mellon and it was a fantastic experience. Married well with what I had experienced actually at Ball State and had been able to do am, and then I ended up on a fellowship that sent me to study at the Lab for Human Development at Harvard, because I got involved in cognitive theory in terms of how the brain and reasoning develop around ethical issues. Of course, I had figured that out my freshman year here. I know exactly. I mean—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. As soon as you figured out which is the right classroom to go to, you moved on to that expertise. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

Right. No idea I’d end up there. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So while you were finishing up your academic work, you got a phone call about a new opportunity, a new position at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Tell us about that opportunity and why you chose to take it.

[RON GALBRAITH]

I had no intention of moving to Nashville. I had just finished my dissertation, had actually finished writing a book on the same topic, and, my wife and I thought we would probably stay in Pittsburgh. Had one opportunity in California, something in Pittsburgh. I got a call from a woman that I had worked with, a colleague. She had done her work at Ohio State, and, we had done a paper together. And Janet called and it was actually Peabody College for Teachers. The semester that I arrived, it became part of Vanderbilt. But she said, we've got this perfect position for you. It's heading up a brand new center on economic, social science research and teaching. You’re perfect for it. And she had been there a year, maybe two. And I said, thank you. But I'm not interested in moving right now. I'm sure that you and Ed are happy, and, uh, but no, thank you. Well just send your CV to the chair of the search committee, and I declined. A week later, I get a call from the chair of the search committee thanking me for my CV.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Who had sent?

[RON GALBRAITH]

She did. She had an old copy of the CV from the paper we did together. She went ahead and submitted it anyway. And so I— talking to this man. Wonderful man. I knew him only by distantly, by reputation. And, I'm sure I sounded like a babbling... I'm trying to be professional and courteous and figuring out how he got the CV all in a conversation.

I agreed to come down for a day and a half of interviews. Turning to my wife in Pittsburgh saying, don't worry, not a chance that we're going to move to Nashville, Tennessee. All my stereotypes are operating, of course.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So at that time, you've made a couple of referenced references to your wife, Faith. So you returned from Nashville and tell us how that conversation went with her when you said, well, forget what I told you three days ago. Maybe we are moving to Nashville.

[RON GALBRAITH]

I’ve tried hard to bury that moment in my memory.

[GEOFF MEARNS

Was it a difficult moment?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Well. I don't know that it was difficult because she's very understanding. In many ways, but she's a strong character, and she said, are you serious? We're moving to Nashville. I said, haven't made a final commitment, but it—and it was—it was a great opportunity and we didn't even know it was going to be merged immediately into Vanderbilt, that was in the works. But it was great. I got to essentially start a brand new center.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So Faith helped you say yes to this opportunity, and saying yes to that opportunity led to another one at Vanderbilt, where you were introduced to the Frist family. Tell us about how one decision led to another opportunity.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Heading up this center, which was intended to be a national center, especially in the economics area, and looking at how you could do a better job both at research and teaching. I had an advisory board. And I had an advisory board, a couple of economists nationally, local CEOs and you have an advisory board because it's really not governance, but it's great. They have the names on the letterhead, and it's also great to convene them twice a year and get advice from them. One of the men on that advisory board, was also the CEO of the largest bank in Nashville. And he came to me at one point and he said, you need to be at HCA. Tommy Frist need you at HCA.

I didn't know what HCA was, and I certainly didn't know Doctor Frist. And he said, no, you need to be there. I'll set it up. Well, in those days, you set it up by having one assistant talk to another assistant.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

First of all, interject, what is HCA Healthcare?

[RON GALBRAITH]

HCA Healthcare is started by the Frist family—Dr. Frist senior and junior, in the mid to late 60s, about the time the Medicare/Medicaid legislation was done. And so there was going to be federal funding for health care. And they set it up first with one hospital, almost, because I know the whole inside story, started as really wanting one hospital that could perform with their values and medicine and their values focus on patients. And it grew eventually into 580 hospitals that HCA either owned or managed as a corporation.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So, huge. Okay, so go back to, the conversation with one of your advisors says you need to meet Doctor Frist.

[RON GALBRAITH]

And so I, I did my homework on HCA, obviously. Prepared for what I thought would be a very nice 15 minute—because he was going to honor his colleague’s request. And I was going ....I really thought it would be a bit of a formality. Well, it turned out, at one point during the interview, he put his hand on my arm because we were sitting in a corner talking, and he said, you know what your problem is?

[GEOFF MEARNS]

He was about to tell you...

[RON GALBRAITH]

Yeah, right. And thank goodness I shut up and listened because he said, you're a young university professor. Young university professors typically don't think a lot of large corporations, he said. And large corporations typically don't think a lot of young university professors. But he said, you belong here. He wanted an internal university created. And so that was my job. I came in to do that.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And what do you mean by that? An internal university inside a large healthcare—or what was a small but going to be a large healthcare provider?

[RON GALBRAITH]

When I joined them, they had 109 hospitals. They hired, if you looked at just the CVs of the people they hired in senior positions, so at that time they were called administrators. Eventually CEOs, people who ran nursing. All the people who essentially managed or led and their physician leaders and their boards because for the manage side of the business, they still had boards for those hospitals.

So he said they are smart. They are honest, and they have great credentials in their field. But he said, I'm not sure that all of them are aligned around what it takes to give leadership with the values that we feel and embrace and deal with some of the things they have to deal with in communities. Because they had a lot of small community hospitals at that time, and you had to deal with the culture in those communities, many of them, if not most of them at that time in the South. He said, we need an internal way of doing that, and especially I want something that can officially be recognized and certified, by national bodies in terms of an educational and that was the challenge.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you accepted this opportunity and how long did you work at HCA?

[RON GALBRAITH]

It took four years, really, to create that. I was there six years. And then I got the urge to start my own company.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And tell us a little bit about it—your own consulting firm, I think it was called Management 21.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Right at the time it was called Management 21.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

How old were you at that time?

[RON GALBRAITH]

I would have been 42, I think. Yeah. I wanted to create a way—my approach to education is not a didactic approach, starting right here at Ball State, learning that. But a way of letting other people kind of guide their own education. And that sounds like a cliche, but it's really challenging people to ask questions about what they're doing, why they're doing it, building in any technical skills they might need or discipline skills. But actually, how do you create something that's almost self-sustaining and driven more by mission than by curriculum? And so with that, creating a company that emphasized that, I also realized that CEOs, from my experience at HCA, CEOs don't have people they can be honest with. It sounds strange, but they don't. They have to play a role. They sometimes have literally have or perceive that they have their own inadequacies. Who do they talk to? So we created a focus on working with board leadership CEOs first, and giving them what they needed to do that. What I found is that was a great idea. It worked, but it was not sustainable as a business.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Why not?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Because you couldn't make money from it. We had a very—and there's a whole story behind our fee structure at the time, working with senior execs. But we gave them personal attention, and it was an annual contract basis. So it was not episodic. So if we gave them what they really needed and we felt good about the results we were helping them with, how do you scale that?

And so the first thing I did was doubled the fees. Not a problem. They paid it, but it was still not going. I was not going to be able to grow. If I only wanted a consulting business with me as the primary person, maybe a couple of others, that's sustainable. If I want to build a business that served many clients, we had to do something else. 

So we then dropped down and we created a quality improvement process that then could be used through organizations. I created a whole board development and leadership process. We then went on and created a quality process, saw a whole series of systemic kinds of support, and we built a company around that, eventually morphing that into an online presence and a portal, so to speak, that you could measure strategy.

I created a strategic planning process that was a registered process called Design Your Future. And led boards through that. So then it was a sustainable business.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

How large did it grow in terms of the number of people who were working with you?

[RON GALBRAITH]

The most people we had working with us, at the—we had several offices—had about 40 people, I think, at the most. We leverage that, was also part of the philosophy by creating people that stayed in the organizations and who were really the mentors, the coaches, the people who felt accountable to keep that process alive.

So in that sense, it was much larger. But in terms of direct employees, 40 is plenty, by the way. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. 

[RON GALBRAITH]

I don't envy you how many you have.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

We've got about 3500.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Right. (laughs)

[GEOFF MEARNS]

I'm going to move on to some more personal reflections. And so with that, I know you also went into business with your wife, Faith. Let's use that less about the business. And just tell me about your wife. Tell me about your family.

[RON GALBRAITH]

We have two daughters, both teachers, one special ed and one the world's best elementary teacher, I can say objectively. Faith has always been involved professionally. In Pittsburgh, when we met, and she ran a not for profit, medical foundation in Nashville, and then we did something that I actually did not want to do, which was have Faith become part of the company.

And the only reason I didn't want her to do it was not because she didn't have the skill and the work ethic, it’s because I didn't want work to be the topic of our conversation at the breakfast table or dinner table. I watched that happen in her family, and she told stories of how everything– her father had a huge retail business in Ohio. And I didn't want that. I wanted our personal life to be separate from sometimes what you have to worry about as a business. But my partners, my employees kept saying, as we're growing, why aren't you letting Faith come in and do some of the work? Because she's overqualified. So then she did as a contract person for a while, we kept that separate, and she never really reported to me.

But then we set up a consulting business that she could do on her own and truly be separate. And then when I started preparing to sell my company, I then came in and I guess I worked for her at that point because it was—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Probably a good decision, in terms of the organizational hierarchy.

[RON GALBRAITH]

I think it is. When I sold the company, I kept three clients. I kept Vanderbilt University. I kept a part of HCA as a major client as part of our on negotiations as you sell a company. And I kept a large system in the Middle East that I continued to work with, but then we did it through Faith’s company. And so, yeah, I had to get approval from her on things. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. Difficult process. (laughs) So, let's rewind the tape a bit. So reflecting on when you were an anxious and ambitious freshman here on our campus, did you ever think you would be coming back now? Retired after a very successful career both in education and health care? Was that in your vision at the time?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Not at all. I was busy because I had to pay my own way through school. So I worked, for my undergraduate time. I actually didn't have time to think about that. Again, my experience was great, obviously, and if I had fallen in love with learning a little bit prior to getting here, I really embraced it fully here.

Coming back, though, at some point and prior to coming back for this trip, some others kept telling me you won't recognize the campus, so it's really grown. You won't recognize the campus. And I thought, I'm sure that's right. Of course, I didn't recognize the campus. It is beautiful, the thoughtfulness and now the campus has grown. Because I've been on plenty of other academic campuses. And that thoughtfulness was not there. Sometimes constrained by being an urban university. But not always ... but the thoughtfulness, the beauty. And then everybody we have met because Faith didn't go to school. Her undergraduate was not here. And I can't tell you how many times in the last two days she had said, people really do want to be here. This is not just the marketing people. They really ....from students to faculty to programmatic leaders. So of course, I had no idea that that was—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So what prompted you ...you've shared your impressions of being back here. What prompted you to reengage at this stage of your life?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Well, it's always been important. And I've stayed in touch with Doctor Lawhead and his wife, Doris, over the years, especially when we lost Vic, ten years plus ago. And Warren Vander Hill for the, you know, the time that he was here. And so I've always had those connections. I've been able to, contribute some modest amounts, especially to the things that that Vic and Doris are committed to or the innovative teaching that's going on. But then just contacts and kind of watching things emerge. And I think it was just more opportunistic than anything that someone said, we ought to come and see us. And then you were in town for the Vanderbilt-Ball State game.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

That football game just last fall.

[RON GALBRAITH]

And we were able to meet. And frankly, when we were going to meet, I thought, well, that'll be very nice. And we left that brief meeting with you and your wife and Mark and his wife, Carol, thinking, wow, these are really solid people. And there's some good things going on. We do need to learn more about that. I mean, it was that simple.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Well, we're delighted that you chose to come back. So, I want to wrap up our conversation in the way I end all of these conversations with my with my guests and talking about Beneficence, that's the beautiful statue that represents the connection between the university and our community. It's a reflection also of the generosity of the Ball brothers and their family that continues to this day.

Beneficence, as we understand it, is really the essence of it is the quality of doing good for other people. So as you reflect on your career and your life, what does beneficence mean to you, Ron?

[RON GALBRAITH]

Well, of course I do Beneficence as Benny.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. Our students still refer to her as Benny. That's correct. (laughs)

[RON GALBRAITH]

And I don't think that I thought much about it at the time. But over the years, certainly. And one moment in which it was connected in an obvious way, but not so clearly until it happened. In my faith tradition, there's, a tenant that is very meaningful. And it's essentially a commandment to repair the world. Which is, look out there and figure out what needs are out there. And I remember one time as I was sharing that concept with another, it was actually a board that I chaired. I thought of Benny. That was the first time in all these years, and this was probably 6 or 7 years ago that I made that clear connection. So I interpret it a bit that way. You get so much—what do you give and what's your obligation to give? And I'm not even talking about money. What do you give back? What do you repair? Who do you pay attention to?

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. Well Ron, thank you so much for returning to Ball State University and thank you for what you do for us. And thank you for joining me this morning.

[RON GALBRAITH]

Absolutely a delight. Thank you.