Ohio University Leader Lounge

Building Bridges: Dr. Jen Traxler's Journey in Leadership Development

• Alex Winnenberg

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In this episode of The Leader Lounge at Ohio University Dr. Jen Traxler shares her background, starting with her experience at Whirlpool Corporation and later at Marathon Petroleum, where she focused on talent and leadership development. She also highlights her passion for helping young professionals transition into leadership roles. As the Executive Director of the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership (The Walter Center), in OHIO's College of Business, Dr. Traxler is in the business of developing students and young professionals.  The Walter Center, endowed by a gift from Cardinal Health, has the core mission to "develop leaders to who earn leadership by creating value, inspiring others to follow and acting with integrity.”  Dr. Traxler combines her significant industry and talent background to further the impact of students as they embark on their own leadership journeys. 

The Walter Center plays a significant role in the College of Business at OHIO.  It offers cutting-edge programs, curriculum, assessments, mentoring, networking, and executive engagements designed to help students develop into next-generation, servant leaders who are sought after by top companies.

Dr. Traxler emphasizes the value of combining technical skills with leadership capabilities and the importance of understanding analytics in various fields. Overall, Dr. Traxler's journey, her connection to Tim Reynolds (the former Executive Director of the Walter Center), and her passion for leadership development have led her to her fulfilling role at the Walter Center.


For more information about the Ohio University MSM Program, click this link!

Check out the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership program here.

OnBrand Podcast Studios produced this episode. Special thanks to Audio Engineer Alex Winnenberg, Producer Nick Winnenberg, and Marketing Specialist Cori Stokes.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to episode two of The Leader Lounge here at Ohio University. So I'm joined here today with Dr. Anne Bianco and Dr. Jen Traxler. How are you doing today, Jen?

SPEAKER_03:

I am awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And congratulations on the new doctorate.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

That was pretty recent.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, back in August. Back in August. But I graduated from another Mac school. We won't hold that against you. I know. But

SPEAKER_01:

my loyalties are here. We are so excited to be in The Leader Lounge which is part of the Robert D. Walter for Strategic Leadership, which Jen is the executive director of. But I'd like to hear a little bit about the background that got her here, like the pre-doctor Jen Traxler, the executive Jen Traxler, and then moved to, yeah, can we hear a little bit of that backstory?

SPEAKER_03:

Sure, sure. So I actually graduated from BG and went to work at Whirlpool Corporation in Clyde, Ohio. That was where I got my boots on the ground experience of being in manufacturing I met an individual by the name of Tim Reynolds, who was actually my predecessor in this role. So more about him later, right? And so I spent a lot of time in manufacturing at Whirlpool, both at Whirlpool Finley and Whirlpool Clyde, and human resources and lean, doing a lot of project work, a lot of leadership and organizational development work as well. My last job there, I did a rotational program that I led. I came on college campuses, including OU. And working with their mentors, their supervisors, managers, and then we had all of our programs sponsored by our executive leadership teams. And so it was really an opportunity for me to look at the entire enterprise, but really focus on a passion area of mine, which is leader development, especially in non-professionals. Then I moved to Marathon Petroleum about 11 years ago in organization development and really focused a lot on talent development, leadership development, and again, And it's just that driving passion that I had inside of working with young professionals, making that first leap into their leadership journey, and then into middle to senior level leaders in different leadership development programs that we had there. And my last role, I actually was kind of the role that I'd already aspired to was really leading talent management. And succession planning for the company. So it was how do we get people into those opportunities that could be the potential successors for the next generation of leaders? But you can't just put people in a box. You actually have to do something for their development and create those opportunities. And so that's what part of my responsibilities were. So that's my industry background. That's

SPEAKER_02:

an amazing background. First off, that's great.

SPEAKER_03:

Thanks. Thanks. It's been a great journey. People would always ask me, you know, which did you like better? And it was different times in my life, and it was different developmental opportunities, and both organizations were extraordinary in developing people and giving people different opportunities and, you know, really expanding my purview of what corporate America is all about, but yet with a hometown type of feel. So both organizations really helped me develop into a person that can also help others because both of them had a lot of servant leadership and community giving. And so I caught on to that wave early on as well and started working in our community with leadership development programs. We had one in– it was from Finley. So we had it in– it's called Hancock Youth Leadership. We brought students in that were sophomores in high school, moved them in as their juniors, and we did a lot of leadership development for them. So, again, it's pulling that passion of mine, really that niche of target area of what I love. So that is absolutely part of the reason why I'm here.

SPEAKER_01:

One thing that I found really incredible is didn't you have to– when you were in– HR and leading succession planning for these different areas. So you have to learn. So if you were in, say, the operations side or the sales side, you have to learn so much about that that side of the work as well as you know lead talent and development so you had to is that true you had to learn the kind of functional aspects of

SPEAKER_03:

absolutely absolutely and I would encourage anybody who's in those type of HR responsibilities we've really shifted to more of an HR business partner and part of that really is understanding the entirety of what that operation is the the technical pieces you know I can't program PLCs but I know what one is so and as you go go up the leadership ladder. It's less and less about the actual functional detail, but it's the purview of understanding what that part of the organization does, how it contributes to the overall success. And so it's balancing that technical competence that people need with that character and the leader that we need to bring out. Because there's a that technical background that they have. And I don't mean when I say technical, I don't mean that it's like an engineer or an analyst necessarily, but it's their field of study, accounting. It's their functional. Yep. And many times we would bring people over into, hey, you were a great... accountant. You were a great engineer. You were a great HR individual. And then we said, because of that, we're going to put you in a leadership or supervisory role.

SPEAKER_02:

And then all of a sudden you're

SPEAKER_03:

like, wait a minute, those don't, those have different skill sets that you need to have, but yet we don't build that bridge. So actually when I started in my dissertation work, One of the areas that I was looking at was specifically that jump between an individual contributor to a first time leader. And how do we make that bridge more successful for people instead of just letting it to have chance that. that, oh, yeah, we'll give it to you at some point, but... Maybe

SPEAKER_00:

all of them when it doesn't work. Right,

SPEAKER_03:

right. And then we, instead of establishing good habits on the front end, that's where we pay us consultants on the back end, right? I mean, we put ourselves out of business if we did the due diligence necessarily on the front end, not just from a selection, but from an early development perspective as well. Both companies that I worked at, they did those kind of things. But it's very rampant in a lot of industry now And when I was working through and doing some of my research, there was a lot of people that were just nodding their head when I said that, just like the two of you just did.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's a thing. Well, it's across all industries. In actual practice, as you move up in industry, it's what you have to do.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And analytics is such an important area that's become so popular, but so important that even in HR, friends, people used to think, oh, well, we don't need that kind of stuff here. But there's a lot of systems and processes and programs that really you need to understand the analytics of people. You need to understand the analytics of bottom line. You need to understand so much about big data and how it impacts what you do in organizations. So being able to couple those type of menu options that we're offering through the MSM with different certificates as well is absolutely spot on as to where we need to be to help individuals and to help companies that they're going to be going into.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think what's really interesting, I think it was the topic of the last LDC we had in August, was all about Absolutely. that we bring to this program. So I have one more question. Why OU? So you said your past experience was BG. So why did you pick OU to settle and for your career path?

SPEAKER_03:

So I'll go back to when I was talking about a good friend, mentor, lifelong friend of mine, Tim Reynolds was in this role as executive director, along with his wife, Tammy, that they came down to OU. We actually had been working together for 20 years. We left all three of us left Whirlpool on the same day.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03:

Those two came here. I went to a marathon, which is where they started their career.

SPEAKER_00:

So you flip seats. So we're just

SPEAKER_03:

intertwined all through our lives. And About two and a half years ago, Tim said, hey, I'm stepping back from the role and we're just trying to see who might be, somebody might be interested in this organization, come down to OU. And he bleeds, you know, Bobcat green. And you'll find out more about him at a later time. But when he called and asked me what my interest was, it was a drop the mic moment in my life because I was starting to search for what's my next opportunity. And all the roles that I was looking at, both internal to the organization, as well as external on different sites, they just weren't grabbing my passion. So when he called and said, we think that you might be interested, and this is a great place to be. And coupled with getting my doctorate in org development and change, he said, this would be perfect. And I just pause for a moment because when you have somebody that's been in your life that long and you adore them and you have been mentored and they've been just lifelong friends and they ask you to potentially look at a position that they think that you're capable of doing and maybe passionate about doing. It was just one of those, I've arrived. I know that I have fulfilled my lifelong dream of being that individual that has been Right. integrity that these students demonstrated, even though they've been able to be a part of such a unique experience in some of the programs that the Walter Center offers. And it was just, my heart just said, I'm here. And I haven't looked back. I miss the people that I used to work with, but I'm just so passionate about what I'm doing now and being able to be part of these students' journeys and helping whatever their trajectory is, is just immeasurable. So being able to be a part of all of the activities of the Walter Center and the College of Business is just beyond my wildest expectations of where I was ever going to be. And

SPEAKER_00:

here we are. So can you run me through what the Walter Center typically does for the school? Yeah. And how people can get involved with it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Actually, it was Robert D. Walter Center was endowed by Cardinal Health because the former CEO, he was retiring. And so they gave us$1.2 million to start the center. A

SPEAKER_00:

couple dollars.

SPEAKER_03:

Just a few. Yeah. And at the time, we had an organization called Corporate Leaders. So it's been going on for a long time. Lots of people have had many– opportunities to help guide and lead that, starting with Frank Zamatero. And it's actually grown into a center that has multiple opportunities for students, mostly undergrads, but it's also supporting the MSM program. So it's kind of a collaboration with the graduate college. But our other programs are the Strategic Leadership Certificate, the HR Certificate for undergrads, for grads, you know, so it's not a mutual It's a combination of a lot of different opportunities to be leaders. We also have two undergrad programs. One's called the Wandel Leadership Fellows Program, and one is called Emerging Leaders. develop their behaviors and their values and getting opportunities to network with other bobcats so they go and they do a lot with trips we have executive engagements where it's not just alum that come back but it's individuals in different industries and they get to share those experiences with each other so they get the experiential learning we work with philanthropy with them so they they are very philanthropic not just within the college and in the university but also in the surrounding community so it's a really important part of what we do we also do a lot of curriculum with them and so each of those those groups. outside of the certificates they go through five different classes in order to get this

SPEAKER_02:

certificate

SPEAKER_03:

but the two programs that we lead meet every week it is a class and we do have many different leader topics that we go through with them so they're actually getting exposed to a lot of the development that I was training and facilitating for mid to senior level leaders in the organizations that I led before so they're getting a jump start and I hope the world is ready for

SPEAKER_00:

them. They're going

SPEAKER_03:

to change the world. And, you know, and them going into, you know, their first experiences as young professionals, um, they're going to have a toolkit that could be potentially much deeper and wider than what some of their first time supervisors are. So it's going to be a unique dynamic for them going into these industries and stuff, but they are just absolutely stellar students. But more importantly, stellar people. They're also helping sponsor trips for us. But it's really getting them hands on experience, going through different types of assessments. And then realize through reflection processes as well how they continue to develop. And so we're building that leader muscle early and trying to get them out into doing different types of work instead of just listening to this is what leadership philosophy is all about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I love that.

SPEAKER_03:

It

SPEAKER_02:

is

SPEAKER_03:

that experience in and of itself is getting them at a very early time in their collegiate experience, things that they're going to be doing on an ongoing basis through all the rest of their career. So while we're trying to capture those leaders in that go through the selection processes, part of the vision of Walter Center is also how do we also how do we continue to develop those that aren't in the programs. So we talked about maybe we have a community read or a Bobcat read or a College of Business read and those who are interested, then we bring the speaker onto campus and then those who are part of it. How do we do things for younger professional, younger college students like freshmen and sophomores doing something we're starting to visualize as aspiring leader so that they can go either through a leadership kind of boot camp or experience that bridge their high school. Maybe they were captain of their team or maybe they were a class president or something like that and they don't know where to turn. So trying to engage that leadership in them at an even earlier stage and be more influential in their experience while they're a business bobcat. So, you know, we have in the center, we have amazing students, but we also, if we're the center of excellence for leadership in the college, how do we touch more lives? And so stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you have any questions?

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. I love that. And stay tuned. And I think Jen's already working on getting the word out to other students and that some of our faculty in the center are working on that. Kim Jordan, who we work with quite a bit, the Walters Center. And and just to bring it back full circle to the MSM, the early assurance program, which Kim runs, she runs through through the center so that students do get some of those experiences earlier on. So, yeah, I'm excited to see more and just so grateful that we have Jen here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's hard to believe your one's already over.

SPEAKER_00:

It's amazing, right? It's crazy how fast it happens. It

SPEAKER_03:

is.

SPEAKER_00:

Is there anything that you want to end with or any thank yous or anything you want to do shout outs?

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. I mean, I'm so appreciative for the College of Business, you know, President Sherman, who's leaving us. I got an opportunity to meet right when I was interviewing for this role. And what an amazing, heartfelt mentor leader that we've had the privilege of having in the College of Business and at OU for the long term. You know, our Dean, Jackie Ulmer is just so supportive of things and different ideas that we have. And I think that's And so it's great to see her at the helm and really giving us the latitude that we bring up different ideas. And she's like, let's figure it out. Let's support them. You know, I can't say enough about the donors that we have. For the Walter Center, our Keith and Deb Wandel, who's, you know, named now one of our programs, which is the Wandel Leadership Fellows, and it used to be Select. So we're continuing the I try to foster relationships with others in hopes that other folks would also be gracious and help perhaps name some of the other programs that we're trying to do or continue that because without their donations, I mean, we can't do what we do for our students. And they don't just bring their donation from a monetary perspective. They bring it from a heart and what they want to help the students achieve while they're here and that that proverbial paying it forward, they're paying it back and knowing that they've had some vested interest in the time that they've spent here, but then also giving back so that other students can have that same. So we have a lot of friends, you know, and I'd say friends very, very widely that are coming to our programs that are helping us, you know, even in the leadership conferences that are coming on campus and making presentations and making connections and following us on our different social media platforms for all the Walter Center programs. So there's endless people to thank and you know the faculty every single one of them are so very passionate about the role that they have but more importantly the impact that they have on our students and it's just been an amazing experience so far so I just can't wait to see where we continue to go so there's lots of thanks thanks to you guys for putting this together I think it's really a great way for us to continue continue to build upon our brand and our prominence of OU, of the College of Business, of the Strategic Leadership Center. And so I just appreciate the time.