S5E5: “We Get to Do Great Things” | (Jud Fisher, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ball Brothers Foundation)

Jud Fisher is a member of the extended Ball family, a family whose vision and enduring philanthropic support founded and has sustained Ball State University. Jud Fisher is also the president and the chief executive officer of the Ball Brothers Foundation. In that role, he serves as living proof of the Ball family’s longstanding commitment to our University, to Muncie, and to East Central Indiana.

In this episode, Jud talks about his childhood growing up in northern Michigan and how he found personal and professional fulfillment after moving to Muncie. He describes the mission of the Ball Brothers Foundation, which this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. And he shares his gratitude in carrying on the stewardship legacy of the Ball brothers by supporting the community and continuing to improve the quality of life in Indiana. 

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

Transcript

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Hello and welcome back to our Call to Beneficence. My first guest of the new year is a member of the extended Ball family, a family whose vision and enduring philanthropic support founded and has sustained Ball State University. Jud Fisher serves as the president and chief executive officer of the Ball Brothers Foundation. In that role, he serves as living proof of the longstanding commitment of the Ball family, a commitment both to our University and to East Central Indiana.

In this conversation, I'm going to ask Jud about his memories of his grandfather, John, and his grandmother, Janice. Janice was the daughter of Edmund Burke Ball, one of the five original Ball brothers. I also wanted to ask Judd about his career before he became a philanthropist, about his love of the great outdoors, and why he is proud to lead a family foundation that this year will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

And as you're about to discover, Jud’s story will remind you that the legacy of our university's founders is today alive and well. And that the Ball family's commitment to community progress continues to this day. So, Jud, welcome and thank you for joining me in the studio this morning.

[JUD FISHER]

Well, President Mearns, thanks for having me here.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

It's good to be with you. So let's kind of start at the beginning. The Ball family had a deep connection to Muncie. But members of your family also have close ties to northern Michigan, where you were raised. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about your childhood growing up in Leland, Michigan?

[JUD FISHER]

Yeah. Thank you. I was, I grew up in Leland, Michigan. I was not a Muncie person to start with. A lot of people think I'm from here, but we'll get into that later, I think. But I grew up in Leland, Michigan, very small town. I think Leland still has a stated population of 250 people or something like that people. Very small. I went to K through 12 there. A lot of outdoor things to do. Grew up sailing, hunting, fishing, those types of things. And so I really was outside a lot. That was, you know, the neatest thing about being up there. There's a federal park up there, Sleeping Bear Dunes. A lot of different places to run around. Very small school. Graduated. It's a public school, Leland High School, when I graduated from my class, was 25 members. So, you know, you knew everyone. And, it was a pretty tight community. Good sports community. Had some really neat things go on when I was growing up with, especially girls basketball and girls volleyball. So a lot of state championships there.

So, I just had a wonderful time kind of running around through the lakes, rivers, shorelines. Leland's right on the western side of Michigan, on the edge of Lake Michigan. And there was a small lake that I grew up on that kind of pinches Leland in the middle of Lake Michigan in this smaller lake. So there's a lot of water time. It was a lot of fun.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. And there are a lot of members of your extended family who still have homes there or have homes there and go there in the summer.

[JUD FISHER]

Yes. There a lot of my uncles and aunts and, my mom and dad are, live on the lake that I grew up on still. A lot of the Ball family started establishing themselves up there long ago. They kind of escaped the heat in the summers of Muncie and Indiana to beat the heat and humidity.

But the, the family really, established themselves, you know, a long, long time ago, 100 years ago or whatever up there. And that made it a place that my dad and mom wanted to be. And so, they moved up there when I was four years old, from Muncie actually. And I just had a kind of idyllic growing up because of that. And then there was always the family members that didn't live there but had a summer home, summer cottage, or whatever that would come up. And so I got to know a lot of my family through that, and that that was my big connection to the Ball family was not through Muncie, necessarily, but through Leland where I lived.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So you mentioned being involved in sports and school and hunting and fishing. But I also understand from our conversations that you had a number of interesting jobs when you were young. Why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the work that you did while you're up in Leland growing up there?

[JUD FISHER]

Sure. And I always thought it was normal to do these things, and maybe for some it is. But, you know, today I don't see as much of this with my kids and everything. You didn't see these types of opportunities. But my first job, I think it was 11 years old, I started working in a horse stable, mucking out stalls, and that was my job. And I took lessons at this place. Learned how to ride horses, too. But that was my first job was going in and cleaning stalls in a horse stable. I went from there and I did a little bit of charter boat fishing, where you take people out for salmon and trout, out off of Leland and so that was, I would fill in a little bit then in high school for some of the captains, but not really a full time, well, summer job. So I did that. And then in, college, I did do the charter boat fishing for a summer. I did also work in the orchards up there, and I started that when I was 15. And so there are cherry orchards and it's well known for cherries. And that was the big farming around that area.

And so I started working in the cherry orchards for my family on the Ball side, and then for my family on my mom's side. Had some ties to the cherry farming, agricultural community. And I did a lot of that, from walking in the fields where I literally took a tennis racket and would scoop leaves out of a big super cold water tank where the sour cherries were being dumped into off a conveyor belt in the field. So you have these shakers that shake the tree, cherries fall, they go on a conveyor belt, and one of the machines goes up into a tank, and I would sit for 14 hours a day with a tennis racket and scoop leaves out. And so that, you know, that was tough work. It was really warm out and you had to wear a foul weather gear because that water splashes on you it can shock you. So that was my introduction to the farming world. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. You described it a moment ago as idyllic. But it's hard work.

[JUD FISHER]

It's very hard work. And, you know, I graduated in the orchard work there, you know, started driving tractors and then eventually drove. I would get up, I would get to one of the orchards I was working at, about 8 o’clock at night and help sort the last few sweet cherries that were being loaded into a refrigerator truck.

And then I would drive a truck, from northern Michigan into southern Michigan throughout the night, take them to a co-op, you know, get the farmer there at the co-op to take all the cherries out. And then I’d drive home. I’d get home about, I don't know, 8 a.m. or something like that, and go right to bed for several hours before I'd go out on the lake for just a little bit.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

To relax a little bit. [Jud: Mmmm-hmm.] So now we're going to talk a little bit about Muncie. And I know you've obviously lived here for a while. You and your wife Carey and your family, but why don't you elaborate? If you would tell us a little bit more about your connection to Muncie as a kid and as a teenager?

[JUD FISHER]

So when I was, you know, kind of high school age, well, younger as a kid, I was introduced to Muncie early on, obviously. As I said, I did live here till between 2 and 4 about, but I don't remember that—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

I was going to say, not too many memories—

[JUD FISHER]

Not a lot of memories there. There are some, but really, it was, uh, growing up in Leland, we would visit Muncie for Thanksgivings. And every once in a while, we'd go to a, you know, a family wedding. Eventually, my grandfather retired from Ball Corporation as the CEO in the mid 80s. So we came for that. But those were my only connections, to Muncie, really. I didn't grow up here. I didn't know a lot of the history, except through some of my family members telling me the Ball family history and the company history and things like that. But I really was kind of arm's length from it. So it wasn't really a tight relationship with the Muncie community.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So I mentioned in the introduction and you alluded to it a moment ago, your grandmother, Janice Fisher, was the child of Edmund Burke Ball. He was one of the five original Ball brothers. To help us, why don't you tell us about your linkage back to the one of the five original Ball brothers? Tell us about that lineage.

[JUD FISHER]

Sure. So Edmund Burke Ball and Bertha Crosley Ball were my great grandparents. They had four children. My grandmother, Janice, was the youngest, and she grew up with only a brother and sister because another brother had passed away before she was born. So the four siblings. But they're really, you know, three that that lived for a while.

And I think, you know, that that was another thing just being in Leland, I didn't really think about the, you know, the five Ball brothers in this company and all those types of things. So it was really when I moved to Muncie, that I learned more about my family. But I did have relationships with my obviously, my grandmother, but with her siblings. Adelia was her sister. We called her Aunt Diggy. Spent countless hours on a trampoline she had on the shore of Lake Michigan at a cottage she had, so I got to know her, growing up, which was amazing. And then, Edmund F. Ball, Edmund Burke’s son, my great uncle Ed, and his wife, Virginia, my great aunt Virginia, knew them very well. They lived a long and prosperous and productive life and got to know them and have a relationship with them. So that was really neat. And, you know, those were fun times growing up. I guess, you know, you don’t think about it then, as a young person, teenager especially, when you're seeing your great aunts and uncles and your grandmother all hanging out together, talking, you know, having a relationship, it was very special. And was very fortunate to be able to get to know them a little bit. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. And you didn't tie it to Ball Corp. These were just your personal relationships. Both of your grandparents were blessed to live into their 90s. And they had their own legacy. Tell us a bit more about —about them, what they enjoyed, what their causes were professionally or personally, what they were passionate about.

[JUD FISHER]

They were really interested, especially with the philanthropy, things that personal things they were interested in was, were education, health care, and just general community types of things, environment. They really helped out with some organizations, some non-profits that do things for conservation and things like that, especially up in the Leland area.

Here they did a lot of education—grants, donations, things like that. They really supported Ball State, obviously. They were really into the university. They were very much volunteers with, uh, their time for the hospital system and they, you know, that was built into their life. So they're always doing things to try and better the communities they were in. 

And my grandfather went to University of Tennessee, so he gave back a lot to Tennessee, throughout his life. He spent a lot of time, I think he did over 50 years as chairman of the hospital here. Ball hospital, Ball Memorial Hospital that's a part of the IU health system. And so they were really passionate about those types of things.

They gave the largest grant ever to Ivy Tech. I don't know if it is now, but when they passed away they donated the old Ball Corp. Building, which they owned, to Ivy Tech. And it's now part of the Ivy Tech system here in Muncie. Ivy Tech Community College, for those that don't know. But it was, at that point, the largest donation in the history of Ivy Tech.

So they were really into education and trying to make sure people had opportunities for education. Always worried about people's health and trying to make sure everyone had an opportunity to be in good health or have good health care. And the neatest thing with them, though, and I've read and I can't, you know, I don't remember these things that well but I've read like, F.C. Ball, I've read his memoirs, things like that.

And then listened to my grandfather, read some things my grandfather talked about with he and my grandmother, Janice, in terms of their family, how they believed in family. And FC wrote in his memoirs about how, you know, family was important. My grandfather and grandmother for our, sort of, Fisher family, always trying to get people together. Would take us on some trips, but it was always the kind of Sunday lunch at Leland, at their cottage, was really special. Bring all my uncles and aunts, cousins, all that together. And it was just something you know, to me, it was normal. We just always do it. But you don't see that a lot now. It's tough to do. You know, families are dispersed across the Midwest or the country or whatever. For anyone. But for us, at that time, it was the love of family and trying to bring us all together and just have that time to, you know, keep our relationships up, keep that family relationship together. And that was really special to me. And that's how I really knew them the most. I didn't know all the great things they were doing with their philanthropy. And my grandfather was in manufacturing for forever, and he was a demanding guy. He was innovative. He liked innovation. You know, he always like to see what the next thing, that was, you know, something that could make something better in manufacturing and science and all those types of things.

He always would talk about different things out there. The Hubble telescope. I don't, you know, some listeners may know some of the Ball connections to that. But he was always interested in those types of things. He was a pilot. My grandmother on the Ball Corp. side, she was always interested in making sure the clients, vendors, all those folks that were coming into Muncie were well taken care of. Again, that relationship side of things, kind of the same kind of things they used with our family. They always wanted to make clients, vendors, everyone feel comfortable and understand who they were dealing with and understand where the, you know, the headquarters in Muncie were and what that meant to the Ball Corporation and then project that out and make sure that the those relationships stayed up. So my grandma was really involved with that, trying to make sure the people coming in from out of town were always taken well care of. So I always take lessons from those types of things. It's really neat to be able to have that to draw on.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So you mentioned that your grandfather was a pilot. I understand that when you were growing up, you actually wanted to enlist in the Air Force, but something prevented that aspiration from being fulfilled.

[JUD FISHER]

Sure. And that’s, you know, life takes turns. I was a really bad student in high school to start with. My freshman year in high school, I was not quite passing some classes and had just, you know, just it was, uh.... I didn't know it was in me yet, but I had to get through some things.

And by sophomore year, I really wanted—I started getting on this kick. I loved basketball, and I was playing basketball on our high school team. Loved it, but I wasn't very good. And I just I always wanted to fly. And I decided I was going to try and join the US Air Force Academy. I wanted to join the Air Force, but I wanted to try to go to the Air Force Academy. So I started reading about how do you do that. Kind of, some things started clicking. Lots of different things—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Started to realize the academic standards—

[JUD FISHER]

Kind of important. [GEOFF: Yes.] And I, you know, my dad had been a pilot, not very long, but he'd gotten his license. My grandfather, some other friends, uncles, they're all flying. And I just loved the idea of flight and really wanted to fly. And I really wanted to serve my country. And so I kind of start on this path to try and figure out how to get into the Air Force Academy.

Figured it out. Actually lined up some...to try and get some of the letters, you know, from congressmen, senators, things like that in Michigan. Had some help getting ahold of some people, was calling long-distance. I never visited the Air Force Academy during this period of time that we're talking about. And, just, got to the point where I was talking to admissions there. They’re telling me, you know, all the things you need. And it was great. And then my junior year, I had an accident. A hunting accident. I was shot. And, that, you know, it wouldn't have done it in totally if I was just kind of, you know, flesh wound or something like that. But I got hit in the eye with a shotgun pellet. I got a 12 gauge shotgun blast, and one of the pellets ended up rupturing my left eye and kind of ruined the vision in my eye. And when I talked to admissions again, and this is a long time ago, so I might be getting some of this wrong, but I talked to the Air Force Academy. I was telling them about this, and still trying to get through the process of application and all that, and they're like, well, you're probably not going to fly for the Air Force with, you know, bad vision.

So I kind of switched up there. And plus there was a healing time after that, during my junior year. My school was great. I had to take a month off, and they didn't count absences, things like that. People were wonderful to me. But it took a little while to heal up, and, um, got to the point where I decided to switch up and I wanted to play basketball in college. And again, I wasn't very good, but I really worked hard at it. Got through my senior year, did some visits to D3 schools, had one D1 school looking at me. Ended up going to DePauw University, one of the schools that I visited.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. And you actually played basketball at DePauw, a little bit? 

[JUD FISHER]

No. [GEOFF: Not quite?] That's another life lesson. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Okay. So tell us that lesson and then also tell us what your experience was like at DePauw.

[JUD FISHER]

Sure. I went to DePauw. I had a coach there that had recruited me and he called me in the summer before my freshman year and told me he was leaving for East Carolina. And then a new coach came in. And subsequently I was in Europe, doing a People to People trip in Europe that summer. And I did not run. Not just did not pick up a basketball, I didn't run. So college is a little different than high school, I don't know [Laughs]

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah, yeah. Yes, I do know that from personal experience. Yes.

[JUD FISHER]

I’m kidding. It's very different. And when I got to DePauw you know, it was a smaller school but was big for me because of where I'd come from in my high school. So I got there and I thought, okay, I'll get there. And then I'll get back in shape and all that. Well, things kind of started as soon as you got there. Even though it was football season, basketball was ramping up and I was woefully out of shape. There was a lot of good players, too. You know, not just that, but my skill level wasn't up to snuff. Went through a month of tryouts and everything and then got cut and I didn't go back and talk to Coach Y or anything like that. I just went on to being a student. DePauw went on my junior year to go to the national championship. They had a really good team. But, uh, junior year I was in a class with that head basketball coach and he saw me playing basketball. And he goes, Why didn't you try out again? I said, I didn't know you could. So life lessons. But DePauw itself, wonderful time. I was a double major there in geography and English composition. So I know when my letters are going. But I had a great time. And I think that the smaller class size and all that, just talking to my friends that were at Big Ten schools and Ball State and things like that were wonderful.

You just had a really good relationship with your professors and you could talk to them almost any time. And it was just a very close campus in terms of relationships with the other students and the professors and faculty and staff there. So, it was a really neat thing. And I love the way that my life went that directed me to DePauw. And then at the end, I know, you know, I never thought I'd do this, but my friends talked me into playing football my senior year. I had an extra semester to stay—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Okay. So I knew you were an athlete. I had assumed it was basketball, but no—

[JUD FISHER]

I wasn't much of a football player either, but my high school didn't have football. I never touched football in my life. Any organized football or anything like that. But some of my friends were captains of the football team going into senior year. They said, just come on out and I did, and I loved it. And then I had an extra semester for that second major that I had taken on. I didn't drop a major, I took an extra one on. So I had one extra semester. So I played two years and made some of the best friends of my life. Still talk to them all the time.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And what position did you play?

[JUD FISHER]

I was a tight end.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Okay. So after college you first went to Chicago, but then a few years later you did come to Muncie. And it's my understanding your first job here was at Ball Memorial Hospital, which you mentioned just a moment ago. Tell us a little bit about that first job at Ball Memorial and maybe, you know, you've shared along the way some life lessons. What did you learn from that experience at Ball Memorial?

[JUD FISHER]

I was on my way to start a company in Utah with a buddy, and I learned of an opening and Muncie for a job at the hospital for an experimental research and development physical therapy unit that they were...they were sort of spinning up.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. Perfect for an English major.

[JUD FISHER]

Yes. Exactly not what I studied for. [laughs]

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right.

[JUD FISHER]

And they needed someone on the business side, and they wanted a person to be the chief operating officer of this new division, I'll call it. And so I had this chance to interview and I had no intention of taking this job. Again, as I said earlier, my grandfather was chair. You know, there's a Ball family person coming in here. It was one of those things where you're just like, I'll go do it because my grandfather asked me to take a look at it. But since it was experimental, the hospital was not promising anything past like a year. They had a doctor named Tom Severe, a great guy. He was going to be the medical director and kind of the head of this division.

And then they needed someone to do the business aspects of it. To take out this new—it's not a new form of physical therapy, but they're using these kind of new tools—and they needed a software system built for capturing results from the physical therapy. And so I interviewed and I loved Tom, Doctor Severe, and some of the other people at the hospital that I was interviewing with and ended up just saying, this is what I want to do. I did three interviews and I just, it was fascinating. We worked with athletes. We worked with people that had different problems with scarring. You know, if they had a surgery and then they scarred up really badly. You could use these instruments. It's called augmented soft tissue mobilization.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

You still got it.

[JUD FISHER]

And so you're trying to do noninvasive work on the places on your body that have problems. And I did it for five years. It was fascinating. And I just loved it.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So I'm going to not continue on the chronology just yet. But I understand that, you once said you are never going to live in Muncie, and now you've been here 20 years later. What do you think your grandparents would think about that? Do you think they'd be happy?

[JUD FISHER]

Well, they told me they were pretty happy that I was here. And I did say that, told a couple of friends that. And I've told you. You know, there was not a lot of solid base on the hospital job from the start. It was experimental, and it turned out working out okay, really well. 

And so I didn't think I would be here. I said I never lived here before. I didn't know much about Muncie. Everyone assumed I knew everything about my family. I couldn't answer questions about some of the Ball family stories and things like that.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

And you're probably still learning a lot of that history.

[JUD FISHER]

I didn't feel like completely part of this community. And then slowly it got engrained in me and, I really I loved it. My grandparents, you know, they would tell me, we love having you here. You know, a lot of the family has gone out into other places in the world, there's hundreds of Ball family members and there weren't any more here, really. There's a few. But so I just, I learned to love it. I've lived in several different places. Muncie is the perfect size. It's got everything  that I love to do, either here or nearby. You can get to airports easily. I can get back up to Michigan pretty easily. Muncie is fantastic. I don't like big cities. Muncie is the perfect size.

 [GEOFF MEARNS]

This suits you. So in addition to, you know, having Muncie become a part of you, you and your wife, Carey, have really become a very active part— vibrant part —of the Muncie community. Tell us a little bit about the way you personally, you and Carey, engage in the community.

[JUD FISHER]

So we have, over the years, gotten really involved, especially at Ball State. You know, Carey my wife Carey, she grew up here. And she has been involved in, like, Cardinal Varsity Club. Done some other things with Ball State. We've helped with some fundraising things. Just gotten really involved. She went to Bowling Green State University, so she was a MAC competitor of Ball State.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Very similar really, in terms of the size of the community and the proximity to a larger metropolitan area.

[JUD FISHER]

It is. And Carey was a volleyball player in high school, and she loves it. She won a couple state championships at Burris. She's been involved with volleyball since I've known her. She's currently the head coach at Burris Laboratory School for their volleyball program. Well known program throughout the country. So she's doing that now. She still works for her family manufacturing company. She rides horses competitively. And so she’s involved with a lot of those things in the community that have to do with the sports and different—she's getting more involved now, too, in some of the manufacturing. She's been to the Muncie Manufacturing Alliance, starting to do some things there.

But we've always been really involved with different things here. We've been on several boards. You know, I serve on IU Health's North Region, which has Ball Memorial Hospital involved in it. I'm actually on a couple different things with IU Health. And I love doing that and trying to help out in that arena. The Indiana Commission for Higher Ed, I know it's not local, it's a state organization. But the Indiana Commission for Higher Education at the state level, I serve on, and so, try to, you know, do those types of things that are meaningful and try and volunteer my time and not get too stretched thin. But just trying to do things that help the community.

I just joined the chamber again. I was on the chamber 12, 13 years ago. Just joined, had my first meeting the other day. So that that's been the types of things that we try to get involved in. And we'll do all kinds of, you know, smaller fundraising type things, help smaller nonprofits around. I was involved with Redtail Land Conservancy for a long time. I'm not. But I still, you know, Carey and I try to do things to give to those types of organizations that we have passion for. And, it's just been a wonderful place to and, you know, obviously, my wife, Carey, is one of the reasons I stayed. And I'm very happy I stayed, and changed my mind about Muncie, too.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. Good shout out, Jud. 

[JUD FISHER]

That was a big shift there when I met her. And we have two boys that are wonderful, 24 and 21 at this time. And one of them is a junior here at your university.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. So those themes, it's interesting as we reflect on the conversation, the themes about engagement with education, engagement with health care, engagement with the outdoors and civic life, those do trace its roots. Those are those are part of your family's DNA. So, speaking of that, you after the hospital, you worked at Old National for a while. And then there was an opportunity to work at Ball Brothers Foundation. How did that opportunity or that transition come about?

[JUD FISHER]

I was working for Old National Bank at the time, and I was just transitioning into a new job within the bank. Inside the bank. And it was literally a couple of weeks after I was starting this transition to a new job that I was approached by a board member and the current director of the foundation. And so Ball Brothers Foundation is a family foundation. Private family foundation that does grants, mostly in the in the East Central Indiana area. Got approached by the board member and the director at the time to ask me if I wanted to, if I would be interested in coming in and eventually taking over. And going through a process there of several years—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So it was an intentional kind of succession planning strategy?

[JUD FISHER]

Yes. And I had no idea. I was on a Ball Brothers Foundation Board, uh, committee at the time, a very small one. And I really didn't know much about Ball Brothers Foundation. I was just learning about the foundation, didn't know the impact it was having necessarily, even though I'd been here a few years at that point. Knew it was very important, very important to the family, very important to the quality of life in this area. But I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. Took the job, transitioned out of Old National, went to the foundation, and it was a different world. And ended up going to IU Lily school, to get my masters and learn more about the nonprofit world in general. And so just, it was just a wonderful transition.

Could never have imagined how incredible being able to be part of this foundation has been in my life. It's just enjoyable and feels like we get to do great things—working with Ball State University, working with a lot of much smaller nonprofits, just trying to help out with different things in the, in our community.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So what you have just described is, you may know, in our mission statement, what we talk about, what we hope to prepare our students to do when they graduate is to have fulfilling careers and meaningful lives. And certainly, you are fulfilling that aspiration. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what the Ball Brothers Foundation funds—are their particular priorities, philanthropic priorities, that the foundation has?

[JUD FISHER]

We do arts and culture, health care, education. We have, community vitality is big—and that's a big bucket, kind of. But that involves all kinds of different things, whether it's, you know, YMCA, different organizations that are helping out in the community and provide different services. But we try to do, um, a lot of these larger organizations as our strategic giving. Ball State, the hospital, places like that. Then we have Minnetrista, gotta mention them; that’s our largest payout goes to Minnetrista, which is a museum and garden here. And it's got a 40 acres or 44 acres, I think, and a lot of different programing and different types of things that programing you can go to throughout its whole campus. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. It's an extraordinary cultural asset for Muncie and all of East Central Indiana.

[JUD FISHER]

Yeah. It's a wonderful, I think, amenity for us. But then we try to do a lot of, you know, human service type organizations. So we're really, we have a pretty open scope of places that we do our pay out. And just try to get ahead of some things. We get a lot of over the transom grant requests, but we are always trying to fund and deploy dollars to organizations that are bettering our community. There's some really neat things going on in the community. We're doing some neat stuff with cybersecurity, doing some neat things with housing, just helping out these nonprofits that are on the front line of doing those types of things, trying to make sure we're looking at the future for our community.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So in my experience, and I want to, I'm going to ask you to share with the listeners a little bit more. To me, one of the most innovative, ambitious, maybe most courageous initiatives that was started by you and the foundation is called Optimus Primary. Why don't you tell the folks who are listening what that is and what you and all of us want to achieve with that initiative?

[JUD FISHER]

Optimus Primary, that started it was a codename that we just kept and has endured over about a decade. The first year, it was really about nine years ago, Doctor J. Hess, the head of the IU School of Medicine, which is the largest school of medicine in the country. Doctor Hess, Doctor Jeff Byrd, who just retired from IU Health.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Our good friend, Jeff Byrd. 

[JUD FISHER]

Our good friend. He just retired, but he was then the chief medical officer of the region and then Darren Bishop, Doctor Darren Bishop, who is the IU School of Medicine, Muncie director, came to me and wanted to talk to me about some of the issues they were having with, we are one of nine sites in the state for med-ed training— for four year training for the med ed side of becoming a doctor. And the interest in coming here wasn't particularly high. We'd only been a four year campus for just a little while. It used to be a two year, and then you'd go somewhere else after that to finish your four years. So we became a four year slightly before that. Doctor J. Hess had just come on board with IU School of Medicine, and they talked about some things that we could do to shore up, um, to help out with getting the med-ed students more interested in being here and then building up some programing.

So we gave it this name. We worked on housing. We worked on some testing of med-ed students, you know, doctor heal thyself. If you become chronically ill your second year of med school, you're not, you know, you're going to struggle. And a lot of students are having that with the stress and everything.

So how can we mitigate that side of things and then build out some other programing that would get the med students who, you know, they're not doctors, obviously, until they graduate, but during their four year time here, what kind of programing can we do, build out, where they get some experience of being in front of, you know, people that are going to that are patients so that they get in the room. And Ball State's helped with some programing there with the Healthy Lifestyle Centers. They get to do some other programing. The med students get to do some other programing that puts them in an interdisciplinary role where they're working with other people, so that when they come out of med school, they're not, you know, working with a team of nurses for the first time. They kind of get that built in a little bit more during their four years. And so that program has just been an incredible talent development program that we expanded into nursing. You have a nursing school here at Ball State. We're working with them. And then some other higher ed institutions. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Right. Working with Taylor University, with Ivy Tech here locally.

[JUD FISHER]

Yep. And so nursing, med-ed students and some other medical industry professions that have been just an amazing process to watch that you could, Ivy Tech spun up a program with our friend, Dr. Byrd, on sonography for, I think it was 11 students that started the pilot program several years ago, now it's like 3 or 4 years ago. 11 students came out of that. They're all hired immediately. There's a huge need for it. And so Optimist Primary was used as the base for helping out with that funding for that program, and the discussions and the relationship building between all the partners. So Optimist Primary is just amazing. We're an eds and meds area. We have the education here, the higher ed with Ball State University and Ivy Tech Community College. And then some of the smaller higher ed institutions around us. And then of course, you know, the hospital here is one of the largest employers and a lot of people working there. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you've got Ball State, and then in health care you've got Meridian, you've also got Open Door as well as Ball Memorial. You’ve got the two large anchor institutions. Again folks who are listening, if you want to learn more, I suspect you can find more information about Optimus Primary on the Ball Brothers Foundation website. As I said, it is a creative, innovative, ambitious and courageous initiative.

So a couple last questions. So as I mentioned in the introduction, the Ball Brothers Foundation, you're celebrating your 100th anniversary this year. So I suspect there's some fun plans to celebrate this centennial milestone. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're hoping to do?

[JUD FISHER]

We're going to, uh, we do three board meetings a year. So around our, second and third board meetings, we're going to do some celebrations here in the community with partners. And we're going to have a, it’s not formed up yet, but we're going to have a celebration at Minnetrista in May. And then in, at the start of October, we're going to go to Indianapolis because there's, there's been some things we've done throughout the state, and we're going to celebrate a little bit more at the state level and do an evening with some partners at the Indiana State Museum.

And so those will be our big things. We're not doing any special grants or anything like that. We're just going, just grinding away at the normal kind of competitive grant cycle and trying to make sure we're getting ahead of some of the issues in our community. And then sustaining some of the things we've been sustaining forever. We will talk a lot about our 100th and use that to highlight our partners.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So, I'm going to ask you the same question that I ask all of my guests. And I know you've listened to some of these conversation, and it's about Beneficence. As we walked over this morning, we walked right by Beneficence. As you know, but maybe not everyone who's listening knows, Beneficence is a beautiful statue that is on our campus. But it was a tribute. It was a tribute from the Muncie community to the impact of the Ball brothers. And Beneficence, as you know, is symbolizes doing good for other people, doing good for other people through philanthropy and service. And it is not just a tribute to your family from 80, 90 years ago, but it's a living legacy for what you and your family and your colleagues are doing every day.

So, as you reflect on your family's legacy and your own contributions to that legacy, what is beneficence? What does doing good for other people mean to you, Jud?

[JUD FISHER]

To me, it means, going above and beyond. You know, a lot of people they'll have the, you know, the dollar amounts and stuff that they'll give to different non-profits, things like that. They'll make those charitable donations. But I think with philanthropy and beneficence, when I think of it, kind of a higher level as doing the above and beyond—doing good for no other reason than that good will bring good down the road.

And, I think that's how I've tried to operate; learned that early on from my parents, grandparents, and other family members. I've always tried to do the volunteer thing. You know, if you don't have the dollars, you can always volunteer. You can always help a person out that's in need. And so I think it's just going above and beyond. It's not just doing some of the normal things to give it the office or whatever. And I'm not downplaying that at all. It's just trying to go above and beyond to make your community better. There's a lot of businesses that you know that do really well. And I've heard about ‘em, good friends, talk about, well, I own this business, I employee these people, I'm doing great things for this community. Well, I'm just glad that there's a lot of folks out there, like the Ball family, that have a great company, you know, contribute in that way to employing people to, you know, doing some things through the business, but also you have to go above and beyond that.

Edmund Burke Ball, you know, he gave the 3.3, I think, million dollars when he passed away, asked for it to be put towards something for philanthropic purposes. And it became the Ball Brothers Foundation through some other family members that are still alive. Put it together. And, you know, instead of going and giving that to the family, it was put into the, you know, the greater good of the community through a family foundation.

And that's just one example. But, those are the types of things that I believe in is, is you have to go above and beyond. And sometimes that means, especially if you're a leader and anything you do, is putting yourself third, fourth, fifth and making sure things are getting done in your community that need to get done and lending a helping hand.

It can be money. It can be, you know, time and all that types of stuff that we know about. But it's going above and beyond.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So Jud, I'm grateful. And on behalf of Ball State University and all of the people and organizations in the extended Muncie community who are the recipients of your philanthropy, thank you. Thank you for what you and your family and your colleagues do for all of us. And thank you for joining me this morning for this conversation. I enjoyed it.

[JUD FISHER]

Thank you, President Mearns. Glad to be here.