Ed and Lynn Breen: Leaving a Legacy of Integrity

There are individuals who are a treasure to us. They carry the stories of our past and fill our lives with laughter, light, and warmth. They are the gentle hands that steer us with love and wisdom. They encourage a playful spirit and remind us of who we are. We call them grandparents. Hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price, this …. is Mustangs Unbridled.

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;27;21
Speaker 1
There are individuals who are a treasure to us. They carry the stories of our past and fill our lives with laughter, light and warmth. They are the gentle hand that steer us with love and wisdom. They encourage a playful spirit and remind us of who we are. We call them grandparents. Hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price.

00;00;27;28 - 00;00;31;27
Speaker 1
This is my sons and my.

00;00;32;00 - 00;00;50;14
Speaker 2
Grandparents are integral to the family structure, enriching the lives of their children and grandchildren and meaningful ways. They impart wisdom through those lavished love and affection, indulge with moderation, extend unconditional mercy, and create memories that last a lifetime. They are Mimi's and Papa, and we can't do life without them.

00;00;50;16 - 00;01;09;19
Speaker 1
If you've guessed it, today's guest are grandparents of students at Lipscomb Academy, and it's a first for us. And this is the first time we've interviewed grandparents Ed and Lynn Breen are philanthropists passionate about helping others in their community. And today they have invited us to get to know their community and eastern Pennsylvania. Thank you, Ed and Lynn.

00;01;09;21 - 00;01;10;27
Speaker 3
Thanks for coming.

00;01;11;00 - 00;01;36;17
Speaker 2
It's a beautiful setting. Thank you for taking some time to to meet with us. So you met at Grove City College. Is that correct? And which is in Pennsylvania? In a in an interview, you said you wanted that type of environment for your education. And Ed, you needed that type of environment for your education. So what did you see with that Christian environment that met both those needs, what you wanted and what you needed?

00;01;36;19 - 00;02;01;21
Speaker 3
Well, I grew up in Flint, Michigan, which I always say is a good place to be from. And I, I figured, like my first year of college, I lived at home. I went to a community college. But then I started looking around for a Christian college outside of Michigan. And I was a subscriber at that time to Campus Life magazine and saw the ad for Grove City College in there and thought, Oh, this looks interesting.

00;02;01;22 - 00;02;25;21
Speaker 3
So I went to see it with my parents and it was a beautiful campus. And the program there is a very conservative Christian environment, nurturing. And you know what? We both and I grew up in the church and it just was a continuation of that type of environment, you know, which is the foundation that you you build your life on going forward.

00;02;25;23 - 00;02;43;04
Speaker 4
Yeah. For for me, it was I was looking to go to school mainly to wrestle. So I was looking at schools with a program that I'd be interested there. So I wasn't even thinking as much education and all that. And my parents are the ones that said, No, you're going to grow City College. We know that it's a great Christian school, conservative and all.

00;02;43;04 - 00;02;53;06
Speaker 4
And I did grow up in that environment also. But I don't know if I needed it, needed it, but it certainly kept me on the straight path and I didn't veer off the rails at all.

00;02;53;09 - 00;02;55;02
Speaker 2
Do they have a wrestling program?

00;02;55;04 - 00;03;00;06
Speaker 4
They didn't have a wrestling program. I think my parents thought I might veer off a little bit, so.

00;03;00;06 - 00;03;02;02
Speaker 3
His parents thought that that would be a good choice.

00;03;02;02 - 00;03;20;19
Speaker 4
So over the years, I always wondered if I would, but I certainly didn't go into the Grove City College. And one of the things that being in a Christian environment like that and Lynn just mentioned this word that I think is important. It was a great rigorous education. But more importantly, because you're in a Christian environment, it was a nurturing environment.

00;03;20;21 - 00;03;26;09
Speaker 4
And nurturing environment, I think motivated both of us very significantly.

00;03;26;10 - 00;03;50;00
Speaker 3
It wasn't dog eat dog like sometimes it is. And some of these, you know, high end academic places and, you know, it was, yeah, we are our professors knew us personally. You know, when Ed and I graduated semester early, our economics professor took us out to dinner. You know, he one time he came to the house and I lived with a group of girls cooked us breakfast with his eight year old son.

00;03;50;03 - 00;03;59;22
Speaker 3
That's the kind of relationships that you have in a smaller college like Grove City that, you know, you don't get in the large universities.

00;03;59;25 - 00;04;11;07
Speaker 2
So your grandchildren and Lipscomb Academy are very young, so they're just getting started on this journey. But what are some things you hope to see that they benefit from being in a Christian environment?

00;04;11;09 - 00;04;39;27
Speaker 3
Well, certainly we want them to learn the basics, you know, and in in today's world, unfortunately, sometimes with the you know, if you want to play in a soccer team or you want to do this, sometimes it coincides with, you know, Sunday school on Sundays, you know, So if you have that on a daily basis, day in, day out, I have to tell you, when I was there last year for Grandparent's Day and those kids got up and saying, See what you got?

00;04;39;28 - 00;04;59;20
Speaker 3
Which Lauren, my daughter in law, had sent me a video of Wyatt singing that song. And when I heard all those kids saying it, just tears came to my eyes. And I'm like, This is what's important. This is what is important. And this character building, it's character building that's a foundation that they'll have for the rest of their lives.

00;04;59;22 - 00;05;20;16
Speaker 1
Well, we wanted to start with your background, with your college experience, because, as you know, looks in the academy as part of Lipscomb University, and from your charitable works, you all seem to be really invested in higher education. And so I want to I want to read this award that the two of you received from the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania.

00;05;20;17 - 00;05;45;25
Speaker 1
You received the Robert PKC medal for commitment to independent higher education. And then I saw four, 11 and 11 and Valley College and Valley College. You made a donation to build their graduate success center and it's it gives students opportunities for internships and it builds professional skills for them. And and it opens doors for for students who may not have any exposure to two careers.

00;05;45;25 - 00;06;13;13
Speaker 1
So it's more like a pre career building program. So it means so much that you actually serve on the board of Grove City and Lebanon. Yes, that's what I thought. But both boards. So I just want to know. Well, let's talk a little bit about Lebanon Valley, the Graduate Center for Success. What type or what opportunities has that opened for students, for undergraduate students, to be able to have the center where they're prepared to go out into the world for the career?

00;06;13;20 - 00;06;29;24
Speaker 4
I think it was pretty innovative when they started it. I was very excited about it when I heard about it, certainly, and I supported it and got it up off the ground. And, you know, I just look back when I was 18, 19 years old, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wanted to go into the business world.

00;06;29;24 - 00;06;52;14
Speaker 4
I didn't. What does that mean? You know, that's such a broad comment. And, you know, when you're that age and you go off to school, you might not have parents coaching you as much as maybe they could or should. You know, you don't know where you're headed. And I think this career center really is building a resumé for you all literally month by month, year by year.

00;06;52;14 - 00;07;21;20
Speaker 4
You know, you're meeting with key people in the center. They're talking you through where's your interest, where's your passion, And here's the course work you should do to get there. And by the way, hopefully get there in four years. Here's the type of interns we could try to hook you up with. Here's some extracurricular things maybe you should be doing and even doing during the summer when you're not at school and you literally are doing these things and checking the box in a good way to get the skillset you're going to need for the future when you graduate.

00;07;21;25 - 00;07;29;13
Speaker 4
But it literally actually real time is building a resume for you and making sure you check all the boxes by the time you get there.

00;07;29;16 - 00;07;48;29
Speaker 1
So I would have loved to have benefited from something like that. I majored in English and at the time it was, Oh, you want to be a teacher? And my response was, I don't want to be a teacher, but I don't know what to do with it. But I love English, and so I it took me a while to actually find a career where I could use my major.

00;07;49;02 - 00;07;50;07
Speaker 1
But something like this.

00;07;50;08 - 00;07;56;04
Speaker 4
Let me kind of talk you through that, giving you different opportunities that would be of interest and then.

00;07;56;07 - 00;07;59;01
Speaker 2
What you have done.

00;07;59;03 - 00;08;01;07
Speaker 1
So sector with you.

00;08;01;10 - 00;08;04;27
Speaker 5
And us, and that's a good thing.

00;08;04;29 - 00;08;25;07
Speaker 1
So it looks like y'all you love Grove City College. I mean, you both have talked very fondly about your experience and you served on the board, Ed, And I just want to know, what did Grove City, what did an education in from Grove City, being a strong academic program as well as a faith based program, what opportunities it provide for you?

00;08;25;07 - 00;08;25;16
Speaker 1
Well, that.

00;08;25;16 - 00;08;27;25
Speaker 4
Answer is very different for Lin versus me.

00;08;27;25 - 00;08;52;27
Speaker 3
Well, number one, I got my master's degree. Well, so it's one of the the dean of students, the female dean of students at back in the seventies and eighties. She used to have a saying that look to your left, look to your right. Your future may to may be in sight. So ironically, Ed and I did not actually meet meet until our junior year of college.

00;08;52;27 - 00;09;18;06
Speaker 3
I we sat next to each other at the at the dining hall and he claims I just asked him on the first date but that was necessary because it was a sorority function. But anyway, so my maiden name was Brantner Breen. He was Breen Breen. So we were in the yearbook side by side. We were we marched in the graduation ceremony, you know, one right after the other.

00;09;18;06 - 00;09;21;21
Speaker 3
So I was truly my future mate was sight.

00;09;21;24 - 00;09;24;04
Speaker 1
So last week, was it last week?

00;09;24;11 - 00;09;25;07
Speaker 5
I don't know what you're going to have.

00;09;25;11 - 00;09;47;06
Speaker 1
The week before last we had the Mustang Alumni Awards, and this year was really unique in that we awarded that award to couples who met at Lipscomb Academy and two of the three couples, their last names were side by side alphabetically. One couple met in the first grade and sat by each other all throughout high school. And then the other couple met in seventh grade.

00;09;47;06 - 00;10;20;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh, wow. And that was because of their names. I'm like, Oh, not interesting. The same thing for y'all. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I know that with the cost of college tuition, it is going up disproportionately due to cost of living and wage growth and inflation. So knowing what you know from your experience now and looking at what students are about to encounter when they go into undergraduate school, how do you how do you convince them or what do you tell them to say higher education really is worth it?

00;10;20;21 - 00;10;40;15
Speaker 4
Well, I turn that around a little bit. I chair of the board at Grove City, and I've been on the boards of colleges for 20 years now. So I think part of it is we have to have the right majors for kids where there's a payback for their education. And by the way, you all know, we all know what's going on in higher education.

00;10;40;15 - 00;11;06;26
Speaker 4
There's many, many colleges and universities struggling, big time. We're hitting we've already hit the peak of high school graduation. We've got the big decline coming here. It's just a natural demographic issue also. And so I think the colleges and universities are going to do well and therefore attract the students that want to Higher education are the ones that are caught morphing their curriculum for where the careers are for the next 20, 30 years.

00;11;06;26 - 00;11;27;01
Speaker 4
And by its extremely different the way the world is moving now than it was just ten years ago. The things I would say would be the better career opportunities going forward are totally different than literally a decade ago. And so, you know, I think a lot of colleges are not doing that. They're going to have a hard time surviving those that are doing it.

00;11;27;03 - 00;11;32;01
Speaker 4
The students are going to see the benefit of it and they're going to get a great payback for it.

00;11;32;04 - 00;11;38;17
Speaker 2
That's great. Education is not known for being a quick innovator, but the once you do, you're right. There's an opportunity. Well, it's.

00;11;38;17 - 00;12;02;28
Speaker 4
Hard to change it because you've got embedded professors, you know, and they teach certain things and that. But, you know, like if you want to go down the path of an i.t person, maybe you better have a heavy dose of cybersecurity now and, and you can name your price if you're in cyber security. I know I'm trying to hire somebody in our company right now, but, you know, I could list 20 of those that I wouldn't have said ten years ago.

00;12;03;01 - 00;12;10;17
Speaker 1
Well, I don't think that existed 30 years ago when I was in college. If it did, it was a very small l small department.

00;12;10;17 - 00;12;14;08
Speaker 2
The cybersecurity lock your door computer.

00;12;14;09 - 00;12;19;01
Speaker 5
Okay. These little different.

00;12;19;04 - 00;12;38;24
Speaker 2
So when we were mentioning college earlier, the word rigorous came up and there was an appreciation obviously for the learning that came with that. The rigor that came with the learning. But since then, you've also learned you've also served on the board with the fine arts. You've what you've served as a board of trustees with your children's schools.

00;12;38;24 - 00;12;53;10
Speaker 2
And you guys had some focuses around the fine arts in those areas. Is that a passion of yours to say, Look, as important as the rigorous, the rigor of the academics is here? A well balanced education is beyond that. And if so, what does that look like in your mind?

00;12;53;10 - 00;13;15;27
Speaker 3
Well, it's very important. And I think kids, when they go to school, especially younger kids in elementary and high school, you know, they don't necessarily have exposure to the arts or, you know, they might know about sports, but they've never gotten to really participate. And so I think the more things that kids can be exposed to at a younger age, they will it will help them to find their passion.

00;13;15;29 - 00;13;44;10
Speaker 3
And, you know, whatever your passion about, you're going to be generally work hard at it and be successful, hopefully. And so, yeah, we we do and we enjoy the arts ourselves that our kids are our kids are mostly sports kids. They all played sports all the time. But yeah, it's very important to have it be a well-rounded student and not just all academics or all sports, but, you know, a broad base of a lot of different areas of interest.

00;13;44;13 - 00;13;51;17
Speaker 2
So you say choir in the college. Did you perform in any other plays or were you on stage?

00;13;51;17 - 00;14;09;23
Speaker 3
My roommate in college was a music major, so I sort of got sucked into the music world in college because of her. But I always sang in the car. I was sing in the choir and I at home in church. And my parents loved music. And, you know, my mother plays piano beautifully. So, yes, I was in the choir.

00;14;09;23 - 00;14;15;01
Speaker 3
I was I was in one of the musicals. This is when we were dating. So he had to come see me in the musical five.

00;14;15;01 - 00;14;16;12
Speaker 2
Or six times in.

00;14;16;14 - 00;14;27;26
Speaker 3
The chorus. I was in the chorus. You know, I'm I'm a good background singer, so that's about it. But yes, it was it was a great I was in band, you know, in the marching band. I was at band gigs. So you know, all the way through.

00;14;27;28 - 00;14;46;07
Speaker 2
So so as you mentioned, wrestling. So I mean, athletics is obviously another aspect of being well-rounded. So in your mind, what were some skills or traits or teamwork, you know, skill sets that you brought with you outside of athletics that have helped you be successful? Yeah, no.

00;14;46;08 - 00;15;04;04
Speaker 4
I think it's a lot of things, but I guess the first word always pops in my mind when I think about is grit. That's a really good thing to have. Yeah. And you know, but it's perseverance, you know, when you're Russell that if you're cutting weight, you know, I only weighed £120 when I was cutting weight down to 105 to make the team.

00;15;04;04 - 00;15;06;00
Speaker 1
How do you do that?

00;15;06;02 - 00;15;07;00
Speaker 4
It's not easy.

00;15;07;01 - 00;15;08;18
Speaker 3
A lot of sweating.

00;15;08;20 - 00;15;11;03
Speaker 4
A rubber suit running in a hot shower.

00;15;11;03 - 00;15;12;06
Speaker 2
Oh.

00;15;12;08 - 00;15;13;03
Speaker 4
The day before.

00;15;13;08 - 00;15;14;29
Speaker 1
Wrestling does not work in your fifties.

00;15;14;29 - 00;15;16;24
Speaker 5
But by way, you know.

00;15;16;27 - 00;15;35;10
Speaker 4
It's any sport or what. Layne Did you learn teamwork. You learn camaraderie. There's just so much comes with it. And I remember I look back on college, you know, maybe half of what I learned, I learned in the classroom, and the other half is all the other things you get involved in and you learn from. And you know, it's interesting.

00;15;35;10 - 00;15;57;20
Speaker 4
I was thinking when you're asking when the question and you know, when I interview somebody young, you know, recently out of college and I see their resume, I go look what other things that they do like, what other activities, extracurricular things that they do along the way. I find that because that's usually a more passionate person, an excited person, you know, they're kind of always raising their hand for the extra assignment.

00;15;57;20 - 00;16;01;09
Speaker 4
I've I've found that to be very true.

00;16;01;11 - 00;16;07;06
Speaker 2
So, Lynne, tell us a little bit about Youth for Christ and your, I guess, participation in that organization.

00;16;07;08 - 00;16;37;15
Speaker 3
Well, Youth for Christ, I have known about it my entire life. In fact, my mother, you know, when I first went on the board, my mother said I used to go to the Youth for Christ rallies when she was in her twenties in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So that's back in the fifties, I guess. But our daughter right out of college, she her first job was with Youth for Christ, and she worked to work for them for, I don't know how like four or five years, I think overall.

00;16;37;17 - 00;16;48;00
Speaker 3
So that's how I really got connected to the organization and their headquarters is in outside Denver, Colorado. So Leslie and I drove cross-country.

00;16;48;03 - 00;16;48;23
Speaker 1
With all of our.

00;16;48;23 - 00;17;08;12
Speaker 3
Or her earthly belongings and moved her in. And, you know, so I became very friendly with the folks there. And then they asked me to be on the board. And it's been a wonderful experience and, you know, impactful because you saw Christ, you know, among other things, they go into the spaces that other people don't want to go.

00;17;08;14 - 00;17;31;18
Speaker 3
They have a juvenile justice ministry, they have a teen moms ministry, they have a deaf teen ministry. I'm not saying these names exactly right, but they have a lot of different ministries that other people don't go to. In addition to the high school and clubs that they have there. But it's been it's been a great it's been a great organization to be with.

00;17;31;20 - 00;17;49;08
Speaker 3
I was there when they transitioned from the past CEO and president, who was our peer to the new guy who is our my daughter's peer and it's been a great it's been a great season to be with the ministry because it's it's doing really well.

00;17;49;10 - 00;17;54;14
Speaker 2
And you also serve on the board of the Neighborhood Outreach Foundation. So tell me what that looks like and how they have a community.

00;17;54;15 - 00;18;28;29
Speaker 3
Did that for several years, probably ten or 15 years. I'm no longer on that board, but it does exist. And really that was a grassroots organization. The secretary at the local elementary school where our kids went to school, she was pregnant and had a stroke during their pregnancy in her thirties and became a paraplegic. And so the the teachers and the parents in the school at that time rallied around her to raise money to buy her a handicapped vehicle and all the things that she needed.

00;18;29;01 - 00;18;49;10
Speaker 3
And then that grew into the that grew into the Neighborhood Outreach Foundation, which really was kind of a stopgap for people that were stuck between a rock and a hard place. They couldn't get services through either. The government or other social agencies, and we would get requests for, you know, to pay the rent, to pay the pay heating bills, to buy my kid new glasses.

00;18;49;12 - 00;19;00;28
Speaker 3
And they just were in dire circumstances and such. They needed help. They needed a hand to hand up. And so that's what we that's what it was founded for. And it still exists today. Sounds wonderful. Yeah.

00;19;01;00 - 00;19;09;18
Speaker 2
So that's when you were on. Is there something you're thinking, Brad? No matter what, till the end of my days, I'm going to be a part of this organization. Is there is there one is just really there.

00;19;09;19 - 00;19;33;07
Speaker 3
I technically, I'm not part of the organization, but, you know, Grove City College is certainly our long, long time lifelong passion because it was so, you know, instrumental in our lives, certainly. And men and women that come out of there today, we just every time we meet with them and various circumstances, we're just like, wow, the world needs more people like these kids.

00;19;33;09 - 00;19;56;20
Speaker 4
So I was in a meeting there on a Friday. I took pictures for a win last year and I heard them singing Bible songs in the auditorium right next to the office. I was sitting in a Grove City college. I was on a break from the board meeting. I walked in there and sang some songs in the back of the room with some took a picture and Bobby, this is like around once noon one of Friday.

00;19;56;20 - 00;20;10;24
Speaker 4
I'm like, Boy, this isn't happening to too many places. I walked out of the auditorium and saw hundreds of kids walking out of the chapel service and it just ended heading off to lunch. I took another picture for Lynn when I got home. I'm like, This is incredible.

00;20;10;26 - 00;20;15;25
Speaker 2
That's the hard. Well.

00;20;15;27 - 00;20;36;07
Speaker 1
So as I shared a few minutes ago, I was an English major and I can tell you why I chose to be an English major. I love the written word. I love to read, I love origins of words. And and I just I gravitate toward books. I gravitate toward the unknown. So I want to know. You both majored in economics and you also double major with business administration.

00;20;36;07 - 00;20;38;23
Speaker 1
What what drew you to economics?

00;20;38;26 - 00;20;57;23
Speaker 4
Well, I knew I wanted to go into the business world, but again, I had no clue what that really was going to be. So I decided to take as much economics and business courses as I could. And I always tell young people nowadays are going to take every accounting course that is offered to school and take every finance course that's offered.

00;20;57;23 - 00;21;11;24
Speaker 4
Because as I look at the beginning of my career as it developed, having that skill set and background was hugely important and I wouldn't have had the career ahead without that foundation in economics, in business.

00;21;11;27 - 00;21;16;11
Speaker 3
I chose well. Do you want the honest answer? Sure. The politically correct.

00;21;16;17 - 00;21;17;23
Speaker 1
The honest answer.

00;21;17;26 - 00;21;44;25
Speaker 3
I started out as a business education major, which was a position where you would teach kids education in high school, typewriting, shorthand, all these skills that no longer pretty much existed anymore. So I think after about a semester or so, I was like, No, I don't think this is going to work out well. And I started looking around for the other majors where I could switch to an economics, you know, sparked my curiosity.

00;21;44;27 - 00;22;04;19
Speaker 3
And I it was a lot of philosophy and it was it was just really good. And the ah, the head of the economics department there is Dr. Hans Sand Holtz, and he was a World War One fighter pilot from Germany who came here and he is a student of the.

00;22;04;21 - 00;22;05;06
Speaker 4
Austrian.

00;22;05;12 - 00;22;18;18
Speaker 3
Austrian School of Economics. And he, he had a very thick German accent. He sounded like my grandfather, and he ended up being my advisor. So it was great. And I loved I loved economics.

00;22;18;20 - 00;22;23;02
Speaker 1
Okay. So how did it shape your perspective of today's world?

00;22;23;04 - 00;22;55;14
Speaker 4
Well, I don't know how it shaped my perspective, but the economics was important because it really gave you more of a world view of how things functioned and how things don't function well. And that became very important to me in my career because I've always run mostly and run large global companies. And so I always thought having the economics on top of the business courses was hugely important to me in kind of understanding that dynamic.

00;22;55;17 - 00;23;10;09
Speaker 1
Okay, so in I found one article way, way, way, way, way back that said you worked for a time for all saying, I have a reason for asking, so I just want to know what what did you do when you were at all state Okay, So were you an actuary?

00;23;10;09 - 00;23;31;01
Speaker 3
No, I was not. I was not. So and I got out of school. We graduated a semester early, so I went to look for a job and I also had a large concentration of business law at school. It wasn't a minor or anything, but I started looking for jobs and I was in the claim department, actually. So processing claims, auto claims.

00;23;31;01 - 00;23;52;00
Speaker 3
And then eventually I ended up handling the very serious personal injury claims. Someone gets seriously injured in a car accident. And I had to deal with attorneys a lot, you know, negotiating deals and deals, but settlements and things like that. So it really it kind of didn't really wasn't in the economics realm because at the time I was also applying for jobs at banks.

00;23;52;00 - 00;23;58;12
Speaker 3
But then Allstate was the one that I got the job with. And, you know, I enjoyed it there.

00;23;58;14 - 00;24;07;00
Speaker 1
So my husband, when he was a senior in college, he got an internship at Allstate, and he's one of those rare people who never left.

00;24;07;00 - 00;24;07;27
Speaker 3
And he.

00;24;07;27 - 00;24;26;06
Speaker 1
Is still with Allstate. So many years later. Now, granted, Allstate has changed a whole lot in the last ten years, but he he prior to this shift, he had loved everything about it. And he started in the claims department, too. So I was just wondering what would you did there?

00;24;26;08 - 00;24;36;20
Speaker 3
And I used to go out to Northbrook. You know, I was out there several times for training for various roles that I went into. But yeah, it was a good company at the time.

00;24;36;23 - 00;24;39;25
Speaker 4
And Lynn reminded me many times she made more money and I.

00;24;39;26 - 00;24;40;25
Speaker 1
Had.

00;24;40;28 - 00;24;41;14
Speaker 4
This job.

00;24;41;14 - 00;24;43;10
Speaker 3
For about two weeks.

00;24;43;12 - 00;24;43;27
Speaker 5
And that.

00;24;43;27 - 00;24;46;12
Speaker 3
Changed.

00;24;46;15 - 00;25;13;02
Speaker 2
So as you've had an incredible career over the past 35 years, you began at General Instruments, which is the first company to make the top set box that makes cable TV works. So thank you for that. And you eventually became the CEO, if I understand correctly, Motorola bought that company. So then you became the CEO of Motorola. Did you realize at that point how innovative, creative it was there something that drew you to these companies because you knew they were on the forefront of this or.

00;25;13;08 - 00;25;14;29
Speaker 2
Hey, I was very fortunate.

00;25;15;02 - 00;25;40;18
Speaker 4
Yeah, well, it turned out fortunate, but it was very interesting. I had two job offers of I well, I actually started on my MBA at Drexel and when moved down to the Philadelphia area from Flint, Michigan, parents, her parents weren't too happy that she was doing that at the time. And I was just a couple of months into the start of my MBA and things like, I need a ring on my finger, we need to get married.

00;25;40;21 - 00;25;41;22
Speaker 4
And so I have.

00;25;41;24 - 00;25;42;13
Speaker 1
Heard of women.

00;25;42;13 - 00;26;03;11
Speaker 4
And I'm like, okay, I'll go get a full time job and do my MBA on site, which I never end up finishing because I was so exciting for me. But it was interesting. I had a job offer from Xerox and a job offer from General Instrument, and John's firm was a very small company at the time and the Xerox, by way back then you had an offer from Xerox or an IBM.

00;26;03;11 - 00;26;26;24
Speaker 4
They were the companies, you know, they'd be the Googles and Amazon of today. And I ended up taking the general instrument job because I came home. I remember this vividly. So I said to Lin or something exciting in that office, they called it a beehive. Everyone was yelling over their cubicles, throwing papers around. I was like, I don't fully understand cable TV, but there's just seems like really something exciting going on here.

00;26;26;24 - 00;26;44;26
Speaker 4
And that was my gut. It was a gut feel, and thank heavens it was the right gut feel. And that job offer was significantly less than the Xerox one. And I still took it. And it was the beginning of the cable industry. No city had cable then. Nobody had it. It was in little towns that couldn't get TV reception.

00;26;44;26 - 00;26;45;12
Speaker 3
In 70.

00;26;45;12 - 00;27;11;12
Speaker 4
Eight, and we took off like crazy and developed most of the technology for the industry over, you know, the next 20 years. I was just an exciting place to be, and I was fortunate to be in the CEO of the company. And Motorola came along and said, We'd like to pay $18 billion, which back then was a really the fact that The Wall Street Journal said the biggest technology merger sale ever done and I'm like, you have to do what's right for your shareholders.

00;27;11;12 - 00;27;14;08
Speaker 4
And that's how that ended up.

00;27;14;11 - 00;27;36;24
Speaker 2
So Motorola is doing really well and you get reason is they reach out from Tyco for you to come join them. Tyco at that point is struggling quite a bit. I think that's a nice way to say it. Why? What led you to leave Motorola and the innovation and the attractiveness we just talked about, too? I guess I'm going to take the courage, have the courage and take the risk to go into this other area.

00;27;36;25 - 00;27;56;17
Speaker 4
So Tyco, it was during a really interesting period in the business world. There were a lot of scandals going on and Tyco was probably the biggest one, certainly, I think the biggest company by far. And it was in the press every day. I was just fascinated by the, you know, I'm in that world, too, and I'm watching this transpire.

00;27;56;17 - 00;28;03;04
Speaker 4
And there was like six or seven other companies all having a scandal at the same time, which probably the rest of them all went bankrupt.

00;28;03;06 - 00;28;05;03
Speaker 3
Enron and WorldCom.

00;28;05;04 - 00;28;29;07
Speaker 4
Yeah, Enron, Adelphia. It was quite the time. And, you know, that's when more regulations came into place, which was good that the government put in place. They really clamped down. But this one was very sensationalized. The company was getting close to going bankrupt. And I just kept looking at the businesses and it probably was the second largest conglomerate to just, gee, I was a huge company, 250,000 employees.

00;28;29;07 - 00;28;52;23
Speaker 4
I mean, it was big. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. This this thing should be doing extremely well. And so I studied it hard. It wasn't I just think I feel I truly studied it hard to see what I thought about it. And I'm like, I got to take that, take this and get this thing turned around. And, you know, that's what I did and probably the best business decision I ever made was pretty exciting.

00;28;52;23 - 00;28;54;17
Speaker 4
Next 12 years.

00;28;54;19 - 00;29;14;28
Speaker 2
So we've read that transparency and honesty is kind of your go to like that's how you lead. And so you're mentioning the scandals and what you were seeing there then, hey, here's how I'm going to approach this. But transparency and honesty, how have you been able to lead? And in a in in the business world which isn't always known for that and been so successful?

00;29;15;00 - 00;29;37;15
Speaker 4
Well, it was interesting. I went to Tyco. I you know, it just needed such a culture change that I'm like, how do I get this thing this big kind of aircraft carrier turned around and I introduced the integrity excellence, teamwork and accountability. I said, that's how we're going to grade every single employee in the company. When you get a performance review, that's what we're going to talk about.

00;29;37;17 - 00;29;57;29
Speaker 4
That was very different than what most companies do, because what they do is like, Oh, you made your budget good, you passed for the year, you did a good job. You the reason why and I'm like, no, business is way more than that. It's like ultimate in integrity. It's transparency, it's teamwork. Those things are way more precise for us.

00;29;58;01 - 00;30;20;08
Speaker 4
So we greeted people more like 75% on behaviors, not on results. Now, you had to get the results. Obviously, you got to make numbers and you know, you have to do what's right for your shareholders. But we started just pounding this into the thinking in the company. And literally every employee that we're going to review, which was everybody, that's the things we talked about and we graded them on.

00;30;20;10 - 00;30;38;16
Speaker 4
And slowly that changes the culture to where you want it. So I I'm a big believer. I tell my team all the time, I'm never going to get upset unless you don't tell me when there's a problem. I need to hear the red flags. I said, In the company, you all know red flags. Tell the red flags and you can always fix things, but you need to know about it.

00;30;38;16 - 00;30;55;28
Speaker 4
And that doesn't always happen in the business world. I think if you get teamwork and and transparency in a company and obviously integrity has to be there, you can great things can happen. And people are proud to work in a company that stands for those things and that's great.

00;30;56;01 - 00;31;12;21
Speaker 2
So then you left to become the CEO of DuPont and arriving at DuPont. You feel like I heard that something along the lines of, Hey, there's four or five different ways we can go about this and strategies we can take moving forward. How did you arrive on which strategy you did arrive at and tell us how that story laid out?

00;31;12;22 - 00;31;33;28
Speaker 4
Well, I was on the board for about seven months. They were having it. They had an activist investor who has become a dear friend of mine now, by the way. And he was beating the company up about the lack of performance. And he came out publicly with these things he thought should be done and all. And so the board asked me if I would take over the company.

00;31;33;28 - 00;31;37;04
Speaker 4
I was retired, by the way, and planning.

00;31;37;06 - 00;31;55;24
Speaker 3
To stay here. Yes. Yes, he did. He technically retired from Tyco because he split the company into three parts and basically legislated himself out of the job. So for three glorious years, he was retired. But the only thing that everything has failed that in his life is retirement.

00;31;55;24 - 00;31;57;22
Speaker 2
So what a great quote. Yes.

00;31;57;28 - 00;31;59;20
Speaker 4
Yes. She says, I left her for another.

00;31;59;20 - 00;32;05;02
Speaker 3
Left me for another company. So that's so continue.

00;32;05;05 - 00;32;20;06
Speaker 4
So anyway, so I kind of I knew what was going on when I stepped into the job and by where I was in, I had told it announced me as the acting CEO. And I said, you know, I can do it for like a year while we look for the long term. See, we're all nine years later, I'm still at the company.

00;32;20;09 - 00;32;39;22
Speaker 4
But what really transpired was the activist had a lot of good thoughts. I actually agreed with them on 90% of what he said. So that's kind of maybe why we became friends. You know, we had the same kind of belief on what should occur. But it's interesting. There's I'm big on strategy. I spent a lot of time on strategy.

00;32;39;25 - 00;33;11;03
Speaker 4
But what many people miss is you have to do a risk assessment also and a risk assessment that needs to be paid back to your strategy. And so at DuPont, the thing that I was most concerned about was over 50% of the value of DuPont was one of six divisions. So here's 50% of the value. The way an investor revealed it was our agriculture business and I could see the industry was going to consolidate down to a few global players and that was it.

00;33;11;06 - 00;33;34;00
Speaker 4
And we were going to be left out. And that's just going to destroy a lot of value. So I very quickly fact, my first week in the job, I, I talked to the CEO down and said, you know, if we could put our agriculture businesses together, we'll create the global behemoth and we'll be one of the two or three that survives and thrives in that world.

00;33;34;00 - 00;33;54;28
Speaker 4
Well, when I got together with the CEO of Dow, we had actually came up with a plan to just merge both the two largest chemical companies in the US together, which was Dow Chemical and DuPont. Then create over the next couple of years while we're a merged company, this agriculture behemoth, which is now Corteva and is doing extremely well in the world.

00;33;54;28 - 00;34;14;29
Speaker 4
So we created a whole new public company out of that was really awesome. And then we rejiggered the businesses with Dow and DuPont that fit better. Some of ours did better with balance on a DALSTED, better with DuPont, and then we spun it out into three public companies that were again on their own, DuPont on their own, and the agriculture company, which became Corteva on its own.

00;34;15;02 - 00;49;00;28
Speaker 4
But but I wouldn't have got to that decision if I hadn't done the risk, you know, looked at the risk.