Leadership Lessons from Tim and Tammy Reynolds: Building Programs and Impacting Students at Ohio University

This episode features an interview with Tim and Tammy Reynolds, who have had a profound impact on leadership development at Ohio University over the past decade. Tim was the founding executive director of the Robert D. Walters Center for Strategic Leadership, while Tammy helped start numerous programs including Women in Business and the Emerging Leaders program. They discuss their backgrounds working in industry together, what motivated them to make the transition to academia, and the vision behind the various leadership initiatives they helped create to support student growth. Tim and Tammy also reflect on the reward of inspiring curiosity in students and witnessing the impact of their efforts to cultivate future leaders. Insights from their conversation provide a behind-the-scenes look at collaborative program-building and thoughtful mentorship at Ohio University.

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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Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Bye.

SPEAKER_03: 0:14

I'm Dr. Amy Taylor Bianco, here today at the Leader Lounge in the Robert G. Walters Center for Strategic Leadership at Ohio University's College of Business. Here with Nick Winnenberg, and we're speaking today to Tim and Tammy Reynolds. Tim was the founding executive director of our center here, the center, very place that we are recording this podcast now. And Tammy started many things in the college, what I think of most as women and business but also other leadership programs just many different things so I'd love to just have you both just give us a little just snippet professional kind of bio and for anybody that doesn't know you and then we're going to kind of get down to just some of the highlights of your experiences and life and I know you have a lot of students that are going to be listening people whose lives you've impacted and they're going to want like be Tim and Tammy but let's just get the professional Tim and Tammy first. Well, thanks, Amy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15

Thanks so much for having us here. Absolutely. So a little professional bio. Yes. to other companies. I stayed there longer than Tim, but we ended up also together again at Whirlpool Corporation, our most recent industry experience before coming here to Ohio University in 2012. And so a little bit about our professional, my professional background there. My most recent role at Whirlpool was the senior director of human resource for all of the manufacturing supply chain operations. So all the plants and supply chain across North America. So that was a pretty challenging role for me. And I didn't quite honestly, when I was asked to take on that role in 2000, gosh, it probably would have been 07. I honestly didn't think I was qualified or capable of doing that job very well. And it ended up being a great move for me, even though it was very challenging. I learned so much and I think the cool part about that is those learnings then translated over to Ohio University when we had the privilege and blessing of coming here to share I'll speak for myself but I know it's true for Tim to share so much of what we learned and had I not been through that crucible of maybe more challenging times at Whirlpool I'm not sure I would have had the opportunity to to impact students as much as I did. So I'm thankful for all that and so grateful to have been here since 2012 and to be part of the Walter Leadership Center with Tim and working with so many incredible students. And so that's a little bit about me.

SPEAKER_04: 3:30

Yeah, she filled in the front end of the story here, where we met and that we've been kind of together in life and in work for 35 years, which has been a real pleasure to get to do that as a team and to be involved together and have a very common kind of purpose and passion, I think, around students. My experience is very similar to Tammy's. If I looked at it maybe slightly a different way, I've always been in the spent in manufacturing-type environments, 10, 12 years spent in international human resources-type work. I've been head of human resources for large-scale Whirlpool's engineering functions, ending my career in industry as the head of talent and organizational development for Whirlpool Corporation. And a lot of that role was trying to find leaders early, trying to develop leaders, trying to make sure you had a sustainable pipeline and kind of longevity and continuity of leadership. And that's the same type mission that we had here and talking to past Dean Hugh Sherman, President Hugh Sherman, about his deep desire to say, how do we grow and how do we find people early, develop people, find their potential and expose that potential to education, exposure, experience, and in certainly an environment where people feel like they belong. And that's really been our joint mission, along with so many others that have had been part of the Walter Center for Strategic Leadership. Our other mission in that, too, was to honor the work of Robert D. Walter, Bob Walter, founder and CEO of Cardinal Health. And it's been such a joy to get to meet him, to meet other executive leaders, and to see their involvement and have them directly involved with students and the impact that is that you can imagine at 18, 19 years old, you're sitting down with the founder of a major corporation and talking through how they strategically decided to build that business. And it's just been an honor to be a part of trying to create that type of experience for people.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

I think the other thing I would like to add is that Tim and I are both first gen college. So yeah, we both come from very blue collar backgrounds. And I am originally from Pittsburgh, him being from Marietta, Ohio. When we met, we had similar stories. So we graduated from high school, we took like a gap year where we worked and decided, I really, really want to go to college. But we both had some convincing to do with our parents to make that happen. So I think being first gen had a pretty major impact on the way we see our ability to impact here at Ohio University. Because had we not gone the route that we were blessed to go in terms of being able to go to college and go on and get a graduate degree... I wouldn't have had, I'll speak for myself again, I wouldn't have had the exposure or even know what was possible, but because doors were opened for me and some that I had to kind of push open myself, but regardless, you know, doors were opened. We had the exposure and saw what could be possible. And it was beyond anything I could have imagined. Right. And so that's what really got us excited, especially working with some of the different leadership groups that we work with to expose our students to things that, they would have never had the opportunity to see or do. And in fact, I think my purpose statement has been when I wrote it down in the past, giving curious students the opportunity to see what's possible. And we've had the privilege of working with so many just curious students who want to learn from you. They want to learn from the experiences that you give them. And that's really been... I think, our shared purpose together. I don't want to speak for you, but I think that we would align pretty closely. So a lot of the leadership programs that we started or that we were involved in were just really all about that exposure piece.

SPEAKER_03: 7:33

And what are some of those leadership programs? Do you want

SPEAKER_04: 7:37

to go first? Yeah. So we've had a number of programs that we've been involved with along with the team in the Walters Center from the program called Select Leaders. Now this transition to Wandell Leadership Fellows, thanks to the generosity of the Wandell family to help us with that. The Emerging Leaders Development Program as part of it. Also, the Leadership

SPEAKER_03: 8:00

Development.

SPEAKER_04: 8:03

He started, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the Leadership Development Conferences initially that Amy and I were so involved in those and framing and creating kind of on par, I would say, with leadership, national leadership development conferences to expose people to other possibilities around leadership. We work a lot within the center, our human resources certificate program, certainly our master's of science in management program. So it's both one kind of programic for students. And when we say program, that's kind of components of cognitive development, exposure development, mentoring, self-assessments that we use in there. So a number of different things that combine those programs, but then also academic opportunities. You know, it's kind of a parallel. We can grow both from the theory side, but then we can also add the practical exposure side in those programs. Maybe I left some out you want to

SPEAKER_01: 9:01

add. Well, specifically, Amy, you had asked about the Emerging Leader Program. So if A few years ago, Tim and I had been working with what was formerly called Select Leaders for a number of years. And it occurred to me that there was, from the cluster, Nick, you were part of the cluster. Oh, it

SPEAKER_02: 9:20

was

SPEAKER_01: 9:21

fun. Through the cluster, I was meeting all these students late sophomore year a lot of times. even sometimes junior year, but mostly late sophomores who said, wow, that program you're involved in sounds so cool. Is it possible that I could get involved in that? Or what other recommendations do you have for getting involved in leadership development and just getting some of these exposures that you've shared with us? And I looked around and I thought, wow, there really isn't much opportunity. It was too late to be involved. in some of the programs, including even the business fraternities and other areas like that. So I talked to the dean and said, actually, Chris Moberg, I think it was the assistant dean or associate dean at the time, as well as Dean Sherman, I said, you know, I see this opportunity for an intensive one-year development program that would really help ramp up students quickly, give them executive presence skills, speaking skills, exposure that we talked about. And when we say exposure, going out to different companies, bringing executives in to meet with the students, coaching, mentoring, various assessments. I think we could do a one-year program and really ramp up their potential quickly, getting them prepared for a really strong summer internship program post-junior year, between junior and senior year. So we sat down and we worked through some details. in about a week and a half. And the Dean said, Dean, yeah, I'm dead serious. Uh, in about, about, so I submitted a deck. I had this

SPEAKER_03: 11:05

idea with a strong proposal.

SPEAKER_00: 11:07

All right, we're doing it now. All right, cool.

SPEAKER_01: 11:09

Yeah. I, I worked on a deck over the weekend. I think I met with him on Monday. We went through the deck and I think Chris at the time said, how about this? Or how about that? And I'm like, yeah, good idea. Thank you. Let's work that in. And let's, Let's roll with it. And like literally a couple weeks later, we started the recruiting process. So we really didn't have everything buttoned up. But it's this incredible program. You started it. It's

SPEAKER_03: 11:36

this incredible program now for, I mean, that affects so many people. I don't even know how many people we have in it, but it has tremendous impact.

SPEAKER_01: 11:43

Yeah, I think it's gone from, I think our initial class was maybe 20-ish because we started, let's be conservative. Let's have a smaller class since we really don't know what we're doing. To the launch, right? And two, I think the max size was 50, and I think they decided maybe that's a little too much. And they trimmed it back a little bit. So that was one of the things that we started. And then another was Ohio Women in Business. I saw– it was interesting to me in particular. I guess I notice it more because I'm a woman. But coming to Ohio University and teaching in the College of Business, in the clusters specifically, and seeing, gee, only about– maybe a third of the class are women because we put them in teams. Gosh, we want to try to get two women out of a team membership of five. Let's make sure there's another woman. And we're like, we're struggling. What's wrong with this picture? We need to get more women into the College of Business, and we need to help mentor and develop them once they're here. And we want them to see that there is a group that is there for their development. So that was a little bit behind why Ohio Women business and I think we might have spent more than about a week and a half pitching the idea yeah but it was actually me and another student Liz Doyle and she was an honors tutorial student she was doing some research in this space and so we partnered on it so between the two of us we worked on it and I think you were there for the launch night Amy so that was really cool so that was another program that we started just seeing a need seeing an opportunity for students and so you all of these programs have been turned over to very capable leaders, and so we're thankful for that.

SPEAKER_04: 13:30

Yeah, I'd just add to that a little bit on the same kind of line is that we might use the term like we, but this has really been this collaborative from other faculty in the College of Business, along with people, external members that want to be involved. Some of them are alumni, but some of them are not. I think about Greg Moran, our Lancaster Executive Fellow. Greg's been involved for a close to 20 years helping these programs. And unlike me, he didn't go to school here. I wish we had recruited him back then. But we've had external members to the university. We've had the involvement of critical alumni. We've had donors and people that have helped us sponsor them. And we've created things. I think about one that Amy and I had a chance to work on, and she did 98% of the work, was the strategic leadership certificate program within the university. And that idea was, well, if we have education available within the College of Business, how can we extend it well beyond to the broader university? Leadership is this portable skill that we can develop and we can move it independent of the context in which we use it. And so we've tried to expand the scope, the scale of the types of programs that are in here. And as Tammy said, there's been so many people involved in developing them, leading them. And now taking them over. But it's interesting because it's almost like an easy sell-to because it's It's the purpose of growing next generation leaders and trying to help current Bobcats lead at next level, get the right kinds of exposure. And so we've had a lot of help in this.

SPEAKER_00: 15:18

And speaking of, it's been very fun because I originally came through as an undergraduate as a student, and then I came back as an MSM student. And seeing you guys again, I'm like, oh my gosh, they're back. They're still here. And of course, with Dr. B's focus on it, and I'm the student president and everything too, they're Well, yeah, our first

SPEAKER_01: 15:44

class was pretty tiny, if I recall. And, um, It was brand new. We didn't know how it was going to go. And now I just finished a course a week and a half ago, I think it was. And I am so excited about the caliber of students that we have in the MSM program now and their curiosity. I remember, I think, our first couple of courses. groups coming through, at least I'll speak for my class, not that many people joined for the Wednesday night office hours. Maybe one or two would check in if there was a question. Now I feel like they joined for community.

SPEAKER_00: 16:23

It's a cohort.

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

Yeah, which is really

SPEAKER_03: 16:25

fun. So an online program.

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

Yeah. And I was really surprised by it this year. It was just such a fun group. And I kind of went from, okay, I just got to prepare for the material, any questions they might have to, I want to figure out how Yes. Actually, I just had a student who started at OU and then she ended up transferring for some reasons kind of beyond her control. And she said, I always wanted to be a Bobcat. And now I came back and I'm able to get my master's degree and now I can officially say I'm a Bobcat. And that's kind of a cool story. We've had a lot of military folks who have undergraduates from all over, which is so fun to hear their stories. So I think it's really progressed from... A something that was a little bit more transactional relationship to a relationship that somewhat emulates what we would have in a live face to face classroom in terms of our dialogue with the students. So I I'm really excited about where the program is now and the great work that Dr. B has done.

SPEAKER_04: 17:45

Yeah, I'll just add, I'll just make it personal for me, is that I found it so much, it just keeps getting more and more engaging. Yeah. And it's because of the level of contact. Whether the contact can be through email, it can be through conversation. But as Tammy said, people available on Wednesday night, people requesting, let's do a one-on-one conversation. Let's have a connection point. And so I find it engaging. I also would say the expertise. Yeah. in the group is really enhancing the learning experience and the collaboration for everybody. I was teaching, it was the summer one that I teach on strategic talent management, and there was a number of people in the group who had significant experience in the whole talent, staffing, recruiting, acquisition space, whether they were business leaders, whether they were human resource professionals, they were truly upping the level of the conversation. Absolutely. I think that's really the value to me. It's like expanding somebody's network, enhancing their exposure, giving them some different kind of cognitive development around the space. But most of that they bring in. And it's how do we challenge that? How do we tease that out? And I don't know. I can just say at a personal level for me, it just keeps getting more engaging. Sure.

SPEAKER_00: 19:07

And it's intentional. That's a part of the design of the course is to go through and build those external relationships. And I know we're getting close. But I do have one question from a student perspective. Kelly Unger, so she's a good friend of mine as well. I think she worked with you at Whirlpool. She was

SPEAKER_01: 19:21

with Kelly Services.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

Yeah, she was with Kelly Services. So now she came to Express Ed, so she's going the right direction. Oh, okay, very cool. So she had nothing but amazing things to say about both of you from your professional experience. At one point, you made the decision to come back to academia. Can I ask why? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

Oh, gosh. Well, first of all, when the dean contacted Tim, that's Dean Sherman at the time, contacted Tim, he opened his email. He's like, what is this? Hmm, interesting. Dean Sherman wants to know if we'd want to come to OU and leave industry. I'm like, no way am I moving to Athens, Ohio. Athens, Ohio? No. I'm ready for a career change, but not that kind of career change.

SPEAKER_02: 20:04

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 20:05

But he worked me over pretty good and said, you just need to go. We need to give it a look. I said, well, you go interview for the job that they have, which was the Walter Center job. And I said, then I will... If you really think this is something you're interested in, I'll have meetings with them as well. So I came down on this perfect fall day, much like today. And I came down on this perfect fall day that was obviously preordained for me to fall in love with the campus and the energy on campus. And I said... You know, I think I can do this. The other bonus was that our son was graduating from high school. He was very interested in OU as well. So it was kind of a whole team decision in a way. I was ready for a change, though. This was 2012, and we had just gone through the recession. And I had manufacturing and supply chain. It was a very, very difficult

SPEAKER_00: 20:58

job. And you were in appliance, too. It

SPEAKER_01: 21:00

was a tough time to be there. And with a lot of layoffs and plant closings and so forth. And having to lead all of that. I was leading all that. It was a really tough time. And I felt like I was kind of losing myself in that process, not being the person that I wanted to be. And then this opportunity came up, and I'm like... This is an opportunity to be a blessing to other people, to give back and to take what we've learned and share that with the students. And so I was ready for a change. I didn't think it would be that kind of change, but I wouldn't have it any other way now. Absolutely. It was the best thing we have ever done. I

SPEAKER_04: 21:38

would say that the university is very... It's very personal for me. So if it would have been another university, not that there aren't a lot of great ones out there, I would not have done it. But it was Ohio University, a place where I went to school, a place that I love, a place where I've tried to be involved in some capacity to help since I graduated from here. And so that was fantastic. The other part of that was you get to a certain level in a corporation, and particularly if you're in a talent capacity where you're helping make decisions on what people's careers are. You get near the top of that and you start to realize there's not as many places for people to go. It's just naturally there's not that many positions. So a fair number of your talent conversations are talking to people about what they're not going to be able to be unless they go do something different. And this was an opportunity to talk to people about what they can be. And a fair amount of that is is maybe in a lot of cases, they don't know they can be that. So if you can help change their mental reference a little bit, just give them some exposure, it's a much more, it gets me up in the morning, let's say, much better than the other conversation. And that had a lot to do with it. And certainly the relationships with people that we know here, that we trust. And it's a wonderful work environment. And it's been such a privilege to be part of it.

UNKNOWN: 23:06

I love that.

SPEAKER_03: 23:07

I just love all the different things you've done, all the ways that you've impacted students and the way that you've impacted the faculty, right, and the community. You've helped develop, and I know you'll say that you learned so much too, but you've helped developed all of us in different ways so that I think we're better because of both of you. Learned different things from each of you, how to, you know, how to close something, get it done. Like Tammy is, there's no one like, Tammy, she kind of reminds me of, um, of our, of our podcast guests, Kurt Daniker. Um, but Kurt's like about, you know, this tall. He was just in my class. Yeah. And he's like, well, if I want it, I just like do it. And I'm like, I thought they say yes. He's a great kid. So you kind of remind me of like, you have a mission and passion and you'll make the strong business case. Like when you were starting women in business and, you know, and we maybe weren't ready for that yet, but you, you made the business case. of why this would be good for everyone. So you gave us all the facts, all the information. So I loved, because we knew Tim because he was coming back all these years. So we knew what we were getting. We were so excited about Tim. But then to have the experience of getting to know you and my office being right next to them. So not just hearing what you were talking to me about, but hearing you mentor students and hearing the different ways just to be exposed to that. I think that so many of us have gotten better and developed more because of both of you. But I just want to ask you if you have anything briefly you'd like to tell your former students who might be listening. Is there any little piece of advice or any little funny thing you want to give them? Yeah,

SPEAKER_04: 24:56

we're the... Over the last year, Tammy and I have had a chance to attend some Bobcat weddings. And it's been really special for us to

SPEAKER_01: 25:08

have you. We had to go to two this year, and I think we were invited to four. And we were bummed because we couldn't go to the other two. And

SPEAKER_04: 25:16

so I think we would say, you don't have to invite us to your wedding. But for us, it's really awesome to hear about your tales of the trail, what you're doing. what you're doing. I'd say we miss you. We're proud of you. And we love still having an opportunity to be somehow engaged in your life to hear part of it. That's

SPEAKER_01: 25:40

so true. And the fun part about going to a student wedding is all these other former students go to that wedding. And you get to sit at a table and break bread, as they say, and enjoy time together. So that was really fun. We just had one probably about a month and a half ago. So just stay in touch with us. It's so funny because I often throughout a day will just think of a particular student and I'll say oh I should text them and see what they're up to see what they're doing and then the day gets busy and I don't so if we ever come to mind text us and tell us so that'll give me an opportunity to connect with you and just respond back I know we have a lot especially some of the students that were in our leadership development programs we actually do have them on tax rate so please text us reach out to us on LinkedIn say hi because chances are throughout my day at various times I'm thinking of you and I'm just not taking the time to reach out. So I'd love to hear from you.