Catalysts for Change
Catalysts for Change is a podcast about leaders who drive meaningful impact by balancing strategy, purpose, and action. Hosted by Adam Lister, each episode dives into the pivotal moments, values, and lessons that shape how change really happens in business, government, education, and beyond.
Catalysts for Change
Relentless Vision: Randy Boyd on Entrepreneurship, Public Service, and Building for the Future
In this powerful kickoff episode of Catalysts for Change, host Adam Lister sits down with Randy Boyd — entrepreneur, education leader, and relentless change-maker — to unpack a career built on hustle, heart, and an unshakable mission to make things better.
From starting college at 16 and launching a multi-million dollar business from the back of a van, to reshaping Tennessee’s higher education landscape with bold, people-first initiatives like Tennessee Promise and the Drive to 55, Randy’s story is a masterclass in vision-driven leadership. He shares hard-earned lessons on perseverance, the art of navigating challenges with grace, and why clear, candid conversations are the real catalyst for lasting impact.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why no one can make you quit — and how Randy internalized that truth
- How entrepreneurial grit translated into groundbreaking public service
- The behind-the-scenes story of turning a big, audacious education reform dream into reality
- How clarity, candor, and community-building fuel lasting leadership
- What Randy believes could make this the greatest decade in the University of Tennessee’s history
If you’re looking for real-world inspiration on building a life of impact, staying true to your values, and leading with purpose — this conversation will light the fire.
Hi everyone, and welcome to Catalysts for Change, the show where we explore the stories, strategies, and turning points of leaders driving meaningful impact in their communities and across the country. I'm Adam Lister and I'm so glad you're here. Today's guest is someone whose story truly captures what Catalysts for Change is all about. Randy Boyd has been an entrepreneur and a public servant and now leads one of the most influential education systems in the country. From building a global product empire to reimagining college across Tennessee, Randy has shaped policy, created jobs and impacted lives at every level. I've had the privilege to know Randy and work with him on a few projects for more than a decade. And what most people will say is that they respect Randy's tenacity and hustle. While that's second to none, what I've come to respect most about him is his commitment to his mission and his ability to navigate challenges with clarity and class. In today's episode, we'll talk about his journey, what drove his entrepreneurial spark, and how it influenced his public service and lessons he's learned along the way. So let's dive in. Randy, thank you for being here today. It's good to see you.
SPEAKER_00:And it was always great to see you. And now you win the award for the best introduction I've ever had. I'm not sure how much of it was true, but I appreciate it. It is. It is all true.
SPEAKER_01:I'll leave it to you as to how deep we dive into what formed those opinions. But it's all true. And I'm happy to follow you around and make that introduction for you anywhere you go. You are are known as a relentlessly hard worker. And anytime I hear somebody introduce you, I'll get a new anecdote that proves that. But what many people don't know is that you started college at 16 and graduated at 19 and worked nights to pay your way through school. I'm curious, as just a general idea, what was it about that experience and those early experiences that shaped your work ethic and your entrepreneurial mindset?
SPEAKER_00:I'll say I had the great privilege good fortune of having a father who's an entrepreneur and two parents that both worked extremely hard. So I came to this naturally. And I will probably confess that I do work long hours and try to work productive hours, not just long, but productive. But at eight years old, my dad would drag me out of bed and say, it's time to go to work, son. He started a factory when I was eight years old, 1968. And for the first summer I worked, I got paid a dollar an hour, putting things in boxes, sweeping floor. And I thought I was the luckiest kid in the neighborhood. I had a job, you know, at eight years old and had like$200 at the end of the summer to go buy a go-kart. Throughout, you know, at 11 years old, Dad said, son, you're old enough to buy your own clothes. So from now on, you had to buy your own clothes, which sounds draconian. But if you're an 11-year-old boy, I had a white football jersey and a home football jersey and a pair of jeans. That's all I really needed. And so it wasn't that big of a deal. But Dad instilled in me and both my parents instilled in me a work ethic. When it became time to go to college, neither of my parents, anybody in my family, for that matter, had ever been to college. And Dad said, look, if you want to go to college, that's fine, but I'm not going to pay for you to go to college, but I'll give you a job so you can pay your way through. And I thought, wow, I'm the luckiest kid ever. How many kids get a job that they can pay their own way through? So I ran injection molding machines, the Saturday night shift from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sunday morning, and then Sunday from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Monday morning. Monday morning classes were hard. But the thing I always share when somebody is impressed by graduating early– It wasn't because I was smart. It was just because I was cheap. I did graduate from high school in three years at age 16. And that was just because I'd managed to get all the courses done. I wanted to play professional football, basketball, and baseball, but I wasn't good enough to do any of that, not even play at college level. So I realized the only reason I'd hang around for my senior year was just to play sports. And that seemed kind of like a waste of time. So I decided to go on to college. I remember signing up at UT at Knoxville for my first semester right back at that time. It on a quarter system. And I remember the lady, I always remember this moment, this lady says, well, it's$172 a quarter, and you have to take a minimum of 14 hours to be full-time. I said, well, that's fine. And what's the maximum number of hours you can take? Well, you can take as many as 22. And it's the same price. I can get 22 hours for the same price. Then give me 22 hours. So if you just do that over three years, you graduate early. So that's how that happened. But I think a lot of the work ethic came from my parents. And they set a great example for me and instilled it in at a very early age.
SPEAKER_01:You took a huge leap when you graduated and got into the workforce in your career in starting radio systems. What was the original idea and what gave you the convictions to risk it all to start that company?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was a series of things. So maybe kind of lead through the sequence. So when I first got out of college, I went to work for my father, worked for him for about four years, learned a tremendous amount in that experience. If I were recommending to any young person going into the workforce, the first job shouldn't be about money. It should be about continuing your education. And I learned a ton working for my dad in those first four years. But at age 23, I realized what most young men learn at some point in time. My dad wasn't really that smart and he was underpaying me. So I decided to start my own business. Within six six months it fell, and I noticed you were smiling at him because you know the punchline. After about six months, I realized my dad was a lot smarter than I gave him credit for, but I was too proud to go back. So I started a second business, which was very glamorous. I had a Dodge Maxi van with no air conditioning and no radio. I would load it full of electric fencing supplies for cattle and horses and sell them to little feed and farm stores all over Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. A typical rack job of the kind of guy that you see that walks into a store with a clipboard, takes inventory, writes down my order, goes out to the truck, brings the stuff, puts it on the shelf, and They'd usually let me use their price gun. They trusted me. I'd price the product for them, take my order pad back into the back and ask them for a check, which was usually either... You know, the average order is about$100. And then I get my little van, drive 30 miles down a country road to the next door, do that 10 times. And until the end of the day, I stay at the best hotel you could possibly find for under$18 a night. They're still out there. Pass by those. Sometimes there's a hotel that's on the road to the current baseball stadium, our old baseball stadium. And it's called the Sunbeam Hotel with eight rooms, cinder block, gravel parking lot. And you think, like, who stays in a place like that? Well, your friend sells them. in places like that. When you're starting your business, you do everything you can to save money. But I mentioned I didn't have air conditioning. That was also, this is a theme, being cheap. I heard that air conditioning used up gas and I didn't want to waste any extra gas just to keep me comfortable. But I didn't have a radio on purpose because I wanted to make sure I was listening to my customers. I didn't want anything to distract my thoughts. And if you listen to your customers long enough, they'll tell you what you want to hear. And after about six years, my customers started asking me for this product called the Invisible Fence. They said the kind of thing that every salesman likes to hear. Doesn't matter how much it costs, we'll buy as many as you can get. Well, that sounds interesting. So this will be a much longer story, so I'll just cut to the punchline. Bet everything I owned, which wasn't very much, on designing my own version of an invisible fence. The company that had that original brand had a patent that was getting ready to expire. We introduced the product in 1991, and it took off. Eight years later, we were selling 10 times more than the original invisible fence company were able to go back and buy that company.
SPEAKER_01:It is is hard to put into words the amount of or the size of the pit that exists in folks' stomachs, particularly entrepreneurs that are thinking about starting a business. And there are moments along the way when I think you naturally question, was this a good idea? Was it a bad idea? Were there moments along your journey where it was close to not working, where you thought this thing's going to fail? And how did you push through those moments?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so let me tell you two stories. I'll tell you my story, but I'll also tell you my dad's story. So my dad also, back to his example, when I left his company, I actually kind of made it a much more interesting and funny story about just what I said earlier about I felt like I was being underpaid and my dad wasn't that smart. The truth was he was in a Chapter 11 at the time. They were in a really tough time. And I remember going to him one day with the vice president of sales. And both of us go up to him and say, you know, Dad, we're such a big hole. It would be easier just to close up the business and start again than try to dig yourself out of this hole. And I always remember him looking at me and say, son, you can never quit. I have a responsibility to my stockholders. I have a responsibility to my customers. I have a responsibility to my employees. I have a responsibility to my customers. All of them are counting on me. I can't quit. And as bad as things were, he managed to turn it around. And he was always attesting to me that nobody can make you quit. Quitting is just a decision of will. At some point, you just decide I can't take it anymore and quit. But nobody actually makes you quit other than yourself. And so he set a great example. I had some really difficult times in those first five years. The fun story is, in 1991, we had a goal of selling 100 of our PetSafe pet containment systems a month. We sold 3,000 in the first month,$1 million in the first six months,$5 million the next year, then$9 million, then$16 million, and so on. The truth is, those first five years were really, really challenging. We didn't think we were going to make it. I think the things that keep you going are at least twofold. One, there's the obligation, like my dad described, to the people that counted on you. A lot of people believe in you, and you don't want to let them down. The second is still that dream of what can be, and you know what the possibilities and opportunities are. Between the responsibility and the dream, those things I think help keep you, keep you going.
SPEAKER_01:It's really valuable lesson. And I, when I hear you say no one can make you quit, you have to be the one that quits. I hear it also on the inverse that no one can create that spark for you. You've got to find a way and a motivation and something to, to drive you forward because this is not easy work and it would be easier to just step back and, uh, Yeah. an organization that has, from my perspective, just continued to grow and serves more and more students year over year. But before you had any official role in government, I'm curious what drove you to make that initial pivot, both in how you spent your time and then as you thought about your philanthropy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I think pivot would be the wrong word because it wasn't like a moment in time when I immediately changed. It was gradual and it was serendipitous and unintended. But I was at a pet conference, as you would imagine, with my pet business in which at the conference, it was a charitable event. And at the conference, the person stood up and talked about how we're making the world a better place for dogs and animal welfare all across the country. However, there are places in the country that are still backwaters, like Louisiana, Arkansas, and you guessed it, Tennessee. And I don't know if this was true, but it kind of felt like every other CEO in the room just turned and looked at me like, how dare you? So with that motivation, went back and I like to think in big, hairy, audacious goal terms. I stole that term from Jim Collins. So what would be our BHAG? And our BHAG was, let's make Knoxville the most pet-friendly city in America. Let's just make it a little better. Let's make it the most pet-friendly city in America. How would we do that? Created a team, created a whole series of initiatives, one of which was to make Knoxville the city that had most dog parks. We want to make it a friendly environment. Met with our county mayor, offered some things for him in return for his help with creating these dog parks. And like every good politician, he said, yes, but I need you to help me with my dream. And his dream was to make sure every kid in Knox County could go to technical school or community college free of tuition and fees. So we created this program that started off being called Knox Achieves, then morphed into Tennessee Achieves. Within five years, we were sending 5,000 students a year to technical and community college, all provided free of charge by private donors in 26 counties all across the state. It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01:Talent and ingenuity is hard to keep hidden, particularly for you when a lot of these conversations are happening in a community where you've got so many connections with folks that are invested in the same thing. But you were soon tapped by former Governor Bill Haslam to champion college access and completion work and were the driving force behind programs like Tennessee Promise and Drive to 55. I'm curious, what was it like translating your entrepreneurial mindset into state-level reform conversations?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, first of all, I'll say that I was tricked into the public service. It wasn't ever my intention. But the backstory, Governor Haslam was the city mayor of Knoxville when we started Knox Achieves, and he was on my board. Then he became governor, said this was a really good idea. Why don't you roll it out across the state? So that's kind of how we became statewide. In case I don't get a chance to say this later, fast forward to the end, Last year, we celebrated sending 133,000 students to college. They've performed over 5 million community service hours and being mentored by over 90,000 volunteers over the 17 years we've had the program. It's been a tremendous success, all due to the leadership and the team that we have there, not me. Anyway, because of that, the governor asked me, and I remember it was the Republican Convention 2012, and he pulls me aside and said, hey, I'd like for you to come work for me in state government in higher education. I got a petition. position. I'm not going to mention the position because then you'd know who I was going to be replacing. But when he mentioned it to me, I said, no way. I'm not going to work in government. I'm a business guy. Government's too slow. It's too bureaucratic. I could never do that. But he was persistent. I said, okay, I'll lead a task force for three months. We'll look into higher education initiatives, see what big ideas we can come up with. After three months, we had some big ideas, but they were just ideas on paper. Somebody needed to help get them launched. So then I made a big leap and volunteered to spend a year as I get to make up a title, Special Advisor on Higher Education. It was amazing, by the way, for your listeners out there, this is some probably not very useful professional advice, but it's amazing the kind of jobs you can get when you're willing to work for free. So people ask me, how does a dog fence salesman become Special Advisor on Higher Education? You work for free. But anyway, he offered me, we agreed on this, to do it a year. And I learned two things, one of which I already knew at the end of the year. Government is very slow and very bureaucratic. But if you want to make an impact in the world, it's the best place to do it. At the end of the year, we're able to have created something called the Drive to 55, an overarching vision for our state to go from 32% post-secondary attainment to 55% by the year 2035 or 2025. It was a A business person, as a philanthropist, to be able to create a vision that can rally your entire state is virtually impossible. But at the state level and public service, you could do that. And the second thing was we were able to create something. We did a lot of initiatives, but I'll pick just one. We were able to take that little program we had called Tennessee Achieves that was dependent day-to-day on me raising money for its sustainability projects. to incorporate it within the state in a new program that the governor was able to announce called Tennessee Promise in the state of the state in 2014. And at that state of the state, one of those memorable moments I'll have with me forever. So at the end of his state of the state address, in conclusion, he stands up and says, I now propose to you the Tennessee Promise. The Tennessee Promise will make it possible for every student in the state of Tennessee to go to technical college, and community college free of charge forever, and it won't cost the taxpayers a penny. And of course, the crowd goes wild. Everybody stands up and applauds. They're all looking at each other like, how is he going to do that? But we had a plan, and it worked. And again, we've had a lot of success. But that was the hook, that one opportunity. I realized that if I was in a position in my life where I realized everything that I was going to do in the future was to give back, to give back to all the people that have given so much to me. And so if you're going to do that, You want to put your efforts around the places in which you can make the biggest difference. And public service is the way that I could do the most good for the most people.
SPEAKER_01:I remember that moment. I was sitting in the gallery during that speech. And it was one of those moments where we had to kind of temper our enthusiasm. I was working for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce at the time. And deeply concerned about workforce pathways and just the ability to fill the jobs that are coming. And then after the initial enthusiasm, it was kind of the same thing. It's like, well, how hard is this going to be to get over the finish line? I also remember as you're talking about that task force meeting, I was reminded of sitting in those meetings around these really long tables at a nondescript state building. And what struck me about those meetings as I'm thinking about it now is just how different they were from every other meeting I'd had with any other elected official, government official, legislator, bureaucrat, because they seemed to have running through them this really strong vein of ideation and anything's possible. And for folks that don't often engage in government in any form or fashion. That generally isn't how meetings are led. There tends to be a, this is going to be hard because mindset in a lot of conversations. And that wasn't present there. And I, until you were talking about it, I hadn't really reflected on how unique those task force meetings were compared to literally every other meeting I'd ever been in. I
SPEAKER_00:think, you know, I'll just say coming from a family of entrepreneurs, being an entrepreneur, I've approached working at the University of Tennessee, working in state government as an entrepreneur would. And I think when you do that, it's about, you know, how are we going to get things done? And then what things do we need to change to get there? I always remember when I was commissioner of BCD, my team would often say, well, you know, but commissioner, that's the law. Well, okay, we can change the law. I mean, I see these guys every day. They're making laws right and left. Some of them are not even that good. We can change laws if we need to. We're not going to break laws, but we can change laws. So there's nothing that we can't overcome.
SPEAKER_01:Right. You're talking about a of entrepreneurs, you being an entrepreneur, and we're recording this in the Entrepreneur Center, you feel, I'm guessing, at home in that space. Going into a role in government probably wasn't, I'm assuming, natural to you. How did you get comfortable in that environment while also building trust with the people around you in order to get these big, hairy, audacious goals accomplished?
SPEAKER_00:One of the things that you had to in public service in state government and in higher education as well, is that you have to have more stakeholders come along beside you to have ownership in the idea before you can get something off the ground. So I like to say, in my experience, from being an entrepreneur, running a business, to public service, to now higher education, there's different levels of persuasion that you have to have. If it was on a scale of one to 10, if it's a business, I'd say it's a level three. Because you can't just, as a business leader, you can't just say, autocratically say we're going in a particular direction without having buy-in. You've got to get your team to support your idea. They need to embrace it. They need to be enthusiastic about it. So there's a level of persuasion and buy-in, even if you're the owner. But if one of your employees, Adam, you're one of our employees, and you say, you know, Randy, that's a kind of a cute vision, nice strategy, but I'm not really into that. I don't want to do that. And I say, well, Adam, this is probably not the best place for you. You need to move along to find some place that's better fit. And state government's a little different. But you only have to get 51% of the people to support the idea. So you need to get buy-in, but if you can get 51%, you can get something passed. The downside is if somebody disagrees, you can't say, well, maybe Kentucky's a better state for you. We're kind of stuck together. But if you can get the majority of the people to support, you can get something done. Higher education, I would put it about an eight or a nine. My current role as a university president, because you have to have student buy-in. You have to have the parents who are usually paying their tuition to buy in. Alumni have a big say. Faculty have a really big say. If you Don't believe me, ask them. But they have a very big say. And then, of course, as a public university, we belong to the state of Tennessee. So all the people of the state of Tennessee and their elected officials also have a say. So it just takes a while to get the support that you need. So as a sales guy, you just got to work harder and longer to get that support. But in the end, you can get some big things done if you do. But that's probably the biggest challenge. difference in being an entrepreneur in the public sector to
SPEAKER_01:being an entrepreneur in the higher education sector. that you were free to have a different perspective than the organization we were employed by on a particular project at a different organization. We all kind of understood the assignment. You have said before that this could be the greatest decade in the history of the University of Tennessee. This will be. This will be, excuse me, the greatest decade in the history of the University of Tennessee. What does that vision look like in real
SPEAKER_00:terms? Well, it's multiple things, but if you think about our land grant mission and the three key buckets, the first of which is around education, and we have to grow. We started off the decade at 42,000 students. We're now at 62,000 students. Our goal is to get to 71,000 by the end of the decade. And some people might ask, well, so why are you growing? Or is it for ego or for rankings? I don't care about rankings. It's because we are the land grant university here to serve the people of the state of Tennessee. And the best Two ways we can serve around education is providing more opportunity for more students. One of the biggest challenges in my job is having to tell parents that their son or daughter didn't get in because we didn't have enough space. So making sure that we provide more opportunity for more students in the state of Tennessee to get a great education from any of our campuses across the state. So that's one side of the demand. school districts for our teachers, hospitals for our nurses. So we've got a range of shortfalls all across our state that we have been sometimes uniquely can fill. Been doing a lot of work with the folks that are trying to help Tennessee lead in the nuclear space. University of Tennessee Knoxville is the national leader in PhDs in nuclear engineering. The only ones that can do some of this work. So we have an obligation to meet those needs. So being the greatest decade means growing our enrollment, and we're doing that to meet the demand of our students and our employers. And then the second part is growing our research. Now, research today is at$482 million a year. We like to get it to a billion dollars by the end of the decade. And one of the things we were trying to do a better job of is telling the stories around research. It's not just about dollars. It's about the impact that we make. So it was a good example of a small project that probably we spent less than$2$200,000 developing was an N95 mask that was invented at UT. And this mask saved millions of lives during the pandemic. So research isn't just something that academics track just on a scorecard. It's actually really making an impact in the lives of Tennesseans. And the third is actually engaging with the community and actually having a direct impact today. Hundreds of examples. I'll just pick one. The UT Health Science Center provides 70% of the dentists for the state of Tennessee We have one of the fewest dentists per capita in the country, in the state of Tennessee. We have many counties that don't have a single dentist. Bad dental care leads to all types of bad outcomes for people from bad health, bad job prospects. And so providing dental care is really, really important. So our UT Health Science Center had the idea of creating free dental clinics across the state in which the students can actually train. So we've got three now. We're opening another three, one in Union City. We've got one in Kingsport. We've got one in Knoxville. But students will go there and rotate for four weeks and provide free dental care to indigent, low-income people that need the care. So we're making direct impact in the health of Tennesseans. And that's another way in which we measure our success in the greatest decade is solving the grand challenges of the state of Tennessee. It's really...
SPEAKER_01:Fascinating. I did not know that, the statistic about dentists or the masks. And if you'll forgive the just really bad pun and dad joke, but there's a lot of wisdom in that approach to dental care. You talked a little bit about enrollment, but under your leadership, enrollment has increased. UT Promise was launched. The system has grown in its scope, as you were talking about in the research. But I think what's also interesting in all of those things is you have found a way and you will tell folks often that the costs are being controlled, that tuition is still affordable. What have been the toughest calls or the biggest wins in that work over the last several years in order to make that possible?
SPEAKER_00:So around how do we make the costs possible? keeping the cost down
SPEAKER_01:well and i'm curious in particular uh you could reduce costs or you could grow the scope and the enrollment you've managed to do both system-wide and that that doesn't feel a accidental or be easy and i'm curious how you how you navigated that in a way that allows the university to continue to thrive?
SPEAKER_00:First off, let's just go back over the numbers because there is a myth out there and it's constantly perpetuated that the cost of college is skyrocketing. Tuition is skyrocketing. One of my favorite newscasters, Tom Keene on Bloomberg, just last week I heard him mention yet again about tuition skyrocketing. It's not skyrocketing. At the University of Tennessee, over the last five years, our average tuition has increased by 0.8% per year. The inflation rate I haven't got a check on it in the last three months, but six months ago, it was increasing by, on average, 5.2% during the same period of time. So relative terms, the cost of a UT degree is less expensive now than it was just five years ago. So we are keeping costs low. We're also trying to make it more affordable for more Tennesseans. You mentioned the UT promise, and not to be a one-trick pony, but we had the Tennessee promise and thought, well, this is great, but it's only for a community college. What could we do with the University of Tennessee? So we did some research back in 2019 and found out that we could do a last-ditch scholarship as well. We introduced it in 2019. We've enhanced it since today. If you have a family income of under$75,000 in your Tennessean, you can go to any one of our campuses completely free of tuition and fees. That's two-thirds of all Tennesseans make less than$75,000. So two-thirds of all Tennesseans can now go to University of Tennessee free of tuition and fees. So those are some of the ways in which we're trying to make sure that we're continuing to be affordable to more Tennesseans. We had to have accessibility. We had to make sure that more can enter, but we also have to make sure that they can afford to come. And two-thirds can go free of tuition and fees. I think from how we manage our costs... We're taking a business approach. We're constantly finding ways to be more efficient, more effective at the work that we do. At the same time, like any business, if you're growing revenue faster than your costs, then it can help you offset any increases in the price. And the fact is that we've been growing at a very rapid rate. Knoxville last year grew at 6.6%. Chattanooga grew at 4%. UT Southern at 7.6%. Martin at 8%. So all of our campuses are growing. And when you're growing, that generates enough additional revenue to cover whatever additional expenses that you have. I
SPEAKER_01:think tactically, it makes sense. I think your ability to tie all of that together in a really clear vision and get people invested goes back to the point we were talking about earlier, that you've got a lot of constituencies that are invested in various ways. And the fact that This has happened over the last few years, I think, is nothing short of remarkable. And as a citizen of the state and the parent of a child who has decided that that's where they're going to go next. already still several years off. It's exciting to see the ways in which the university is continuing to think and be forward-looking.
SPEAKER_00:Can I interrupt? Of course. I'm just having a moment of anxiety and worrying that maybe we might not be able to– people will finish this interview and give me too much of the credit. So I'm the person that talks about all the great work that we're doing at the University of Tennessee, but I don't actually– do any of the great work that we do at the University of Tennessee. It's our team. We've got a tremendous team, starting with the leaders of our campuses. So one of the things that I'm tasked with, and probably the most important thing I do, is hiring great leaders. And I've been fortunate to hire three great leaders at UT Knoxville, at UT Martin, and at the UT Health Science Center. We're now in the process of getting two new ones at UT Chattanooga and UT Southern. But that's where it starts, hiring great people to lead. And so I'm very proud of the work that the team has done, but it's the team and the leadership Those campuses, they get all the credit.
SPEAKER_01:But they understand the uniquenesses of the areas that they serve and the constituencies that they serve. And from my view, are able to find ways to have that vision, continue to show up, fill the mission, and also be authentic and represent the communities in which they're engaged. And I think that that says a lot about the values and the ways in which leadership is organized around the entire system, that you've got high performers in a lot of different corners of the system. all moving in a shared direction and are aligned around a course of common values. And I think there are a lot of lessons there that we could extend this into the third and fourth hour of the podcast. But we're not going to do that today.
SPEAKER_00:I'll say, since I am in the process of hiring two new chancellors now, and I had interviews with three of them yesterday, I'll share with you and your listeners what I shared with them as I reflect on your comments about this great team that we have now. Three things that I'm looking for more than just three, but these would be three big things. One, they have to buy into the mission. And our mission as a land-grant university is to serve the people of Tennessee. We're about service, and they've got to understand that. You know, there's some universities, maybe they're an elite private university that maybe has its own separate mission to educate people. elite students from all around the world and send them off to do great things in the world. And that's great. And we do a bit of that. But our mission is to serve the people of Tennessee. So they have to come in with a service mindset and understand that we're here as a public good to make it make a difference and fully embrace that mission. The second thing is I want to hire innovative, even disruptive leaders. I think you mentioned maybe it's something that you can't train. You've got to Sometimes it's innate, but you got to look for those people that are willing to, to, uh, Be bold and be innovative and not take no for an answer and try to find ways to solve problems. And so we hire for that. And the third thing that we haven't talked about that's really important is about teamwork. We talk about one UT. We're going to work together. We do panels with all the chancellors and myself from time to time. We did the last two State of the University addresses. Rather than me just getting up and giving a lecture or speech, we decided, let's just have all the chancellors and I on a panel and we'll just talk about key topics. And we joked at the end of the first one that we did that we could all finish each other's sentences. But we can because we're working together so closely. We have monthly meetings. We're constantly on the phone working together to solve whatever new issue might be confronting us. And so building that team and when we hire them in, they go to understand you're part of a team. You're not just the chancellor of UT Chattanooga. You're part of the one UT team and we're going to be working together to solve things and seek opportunities.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's great. Your philanthropy, I'd love to kind of shift a little bit to the work that you do from a charity and investing communities a little bit. It has spanned everything from mental health to education to dog parks and baseball. Connect all of that for me. What's the through line for you that connects all of those seemingly diverse communities? areas of philanthropic investment.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. First, maybe just a personal background on giving back. So I was a Boy Scout growing up and then Boy Scout master for 17 years. In Boy Scouts, you have the motto, be prepared, and the slogan, do a good turn daily, all of those things. But there's one that people don't reference as often, and that's the code of the outdoors. But as I would teach the boys, the code of the outdoors is that there's actually a longer version, or the short version is leave every trail better than you found it. And as I would share with them. It is literal. If we're on a hike, if we're at a campsite, if there's a gum wrapper, if there's something, you're going to pick it up. We're going to leave it better than we found it. But it's also a metaphor for life. We want to leave every place we've been And so that's been my quest. And I also found that you can only affect so many things. So find the things that you're most passionate about. For me, education has always been my greatest passion. I feel like education is the inflection point of everything. If you can improve education, that's usually the foundation of so many other problems, from crime to health to economic development. If we can fix education, you can improve all those things. So that's been my personal passion. A few years back, we created a foundation. And so you mentioned some of the other aspects of our foundation, the work we do. When we created the foundation, my family is on the board, and they all have a say. So my wife, my two sons, my daughter-in-law, and they also have their passions. So three out of the five of us, my wife in particular, is a musician and is passionate about the arts and about music. And so... That's become part of our pillar. My daughter-in-law has been very passionate about mental health. We all are to a degree on all of these, but there's a lead in the family that's usually championing a particular issue. I think that spectrum, there's four areas, mental health, animal welfare, education, and the arts. Those are our four pillars. We try to stay focused on that. Anybody that has a foundation or anybody that's a philanthropist will tell you that you really have to have some type of discipline because Everything's coming over the transom and you've got to have some way to filter. Otherwise, you really don't know that you're having an impact. So try to find a few areas that you're passionate about and focus on those that you can have the maximum amount of impact.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the leave it better than you found it is so applicable in so many ways. And I love your point about being literal. Also, as a Boy Scout, Eagle Scout and Middle Tennessee Council, those were– They were very simple ways to institute just an ethos in your life that it's easy to pick up the gum wrapper or to make one little thing better. What do you think– as you think about philanthropy, you talked a little bit about having some discipline and some strategic approaches there. But what do you think is misunderstood about philanthropy? Philanthropy, the way that it supports communities, especially from someone who is a builder or an operator as they're making that transition to engage in philanthropic work.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting question. First three things that come to mind. First is transparency. One shouldn't duplicate something that's already out there. One of the things I think too many new nonprofits make the mistake of doing is they have an idea because there's a need that they see. And before they actually do the research, they start a new enterprise in which there's already 10 other people doing the same thing or something similar. So before you launch something new, make sure that you do the research and see if you can just partner with or support something that's already out there. I think a second thing that we see a lot, especially sitting across the table as the funders to a lot of people with ideas. So a lot of people have a lot of passion for areas in which there's tremendous need without any business plan. And in the end, a nonprofit, you're doing it because you care, because you're trying to make a difference, but it's a business. You're going to have to have funding sources and you've got to have an operating expense plan and you're going to have to measure your impact. And I think that's something that too often people just, they want to do good, which is great, but they do need to have a business plan. And that's, I think that's something that's often overlooked. And then I think just being collaborative with the others in your community. I was a big proponent of United Way. And one of the things that United Way is good at doing because they fund so many people is that they were able to in a way force different organizations to work together and just like I mentioned UT are working together as one UT same is true with non-profits there's synergy and greater impact when you can work together and partner because most of the problems we're trying to solve are broader than the one thing you're doing if you're big brothers big sisters I mean you're mentoring a young boy or young girl they probably have food insecurity issues there may be mental health issues there may be substance abuse issues all in that family. And you need to find other partners to help work together to solve these endemic problems that we have in society. It's not just one solution.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It I keep coming back to the strategy and the discipline even early on in your in your professional experience. One of the things that I mentioned at the beginning of the show was your ability to handle and navigate things with clarity. I have misquoted you or your experiences on a couple of occasions and I. Is it a goal to run on every continent? Yes. Okay. Is it a goal to run on every continent?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that part is true. I have four and I've added a fifth. So five big running goals. I've completed two. I've got two or three more to go. What are the other two? So one goal was to run 50 full marathons. Another was to do the six majors, which is London, New York, Boston, Berlin, and I'm sorry, Tokyo, and Chicago. Chicago. So I've done that. So when I did London two years ago, that was my 50th and my sixth of the six majors. The other two goals are to do a marathon on every continent. I've done Antarctica, get the hard one out of the way, second. I've done five. I'm doing Brazil in a month. So that'll make six. I'll do Australia next year. And then the fourth goal is to do 100 half marathons. I did number 95 this past Sunday. So five more to go there. So I'm getting close to the end. My wife doesn't believe me, actually. I just made this up like four or five years ago. So she said, yeah, Yeah, you'll have another goal after that. But I'll say, you know, running, I had two knee surgeries in 2023 and had to go almost a year without running. And for me, running is for my physical health, but it's also for my mental health. That's why I talked about clarity. That's my time to... to think, to collect my thoughts, to organize, to dream. And I really need that time in the morning. I usually run early in the morning. So it's more than just physical health. It's also my mental health strategy as well.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I was going to ask, how do you stay energized? But what I'm hearing is almost that that's the thing that energizes, that having that time is what helps add the energy for you. Yeah. So I have known you for over a decade, and there's a moment that I'll never forget that sticks with me where we had a fundamentally different perspective on an issue. And otherwise, I think we've generally been aligned on a lot of things. And you disagreed with the approach that I had or that I was taking. And rather than avoid the conversation or avoid that kind of just Hey, we've got a different vision on on this on this project. You leaned in. You heard my perspective. It wasn't a compelling perspective. You continue. You disagreed with my my perspective, but you told me pretty directly and clearly where you thought I was wrong. But we moved on. That moment really changed how I thought about a lot of the folks that I engage with on a regular basis and leadership in particular, and you specifically, not just as someone who is a driven leader, but someone who, as I mentioned earlier, leads with clarity and candor and reminded me of lessons from Clear as Kind, Radical Candor, that I'm curious about. the experiences that you've had throughout your career, what led you to develop those traits or beliefs? Is that a thing that you do intentionally, or is it just a product of the experiences you've had over
SPEAKER_00:your career? I guess I would have to say it's a product of the experience I've had over my career, but it's an interesting question, which I haven't thought about what specific experiences led me to this belief, but I would say I've learned that being clear and direct about a disagreement around maybe an idea or a policy can be constructive. You can take courses on this, but it's not about conflict avoidance. It's about conflict management. Conflict is natural. In fact, I would say if you have a low conflict environment where nobody is disagreeing, you're not talking. And that's how organizations get in big trouble when people aren't pushing back and challenging each other. So conflict is natural. You shouldn't avoid conflict. It's how you manage it. Being direct, being clear, being honest. And you can disagree about ideas and not disagree with the person. It's the idea that you might not like. It's not the person that you don't like. So don't personalize it. Also, I remember as a salesman ages ago, I remember hearing someone, I can't remember, who shared this one anecdote with me that's always stuck As a salesman, the best answer is a yes. The second best answer is a no. The absolute worst answer is a maybe. Just tell me so I can move on. If it's a no, I can go ahead and build another plan, but maybe you just kind of linger. I try to make sure that I kind of share that with others. If I've got a doubt about your plan or your idea, I need to be honest with you up front so that you can course correct. Sometimes I'll have an interview, as I mentioned, and I'll tell a candidate as they're leaving. One of the things that people are going to be talking about when you leave this room is this particular issue. If somebody brings up this issue, how should I defend you? How would you defend yourself on this? But being upfront and asking people usually is the best way to get clarity and come to a solution.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's great. I remember the first time you and I sat down in kind of a one-on-one meeting. The first question was, Out of the gate wasn't how are you doing? Where are you from? It's what's your vision for this work? And I think it's a good example of we know enough about why we're here. I need to get that clarity. And I think hearing you talk about providing it for others. There's also value in making sure that you are prepared for those conversations to be able to also provide that sort of clarity. There have been a number of times where I've seen people ask versions of the questions that you're talking about, and folks are unprepared to give those answers, which is an uncomfortable moment. I'm curious, you got your start. pretty early, 16 out of high school, college at 19. If you could go back to that point in time, what advice would you give to yourself that might have made your path easier or more efficient as you're progressing through the various steps in your career?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I don't go back and try to second guess and wish I had done something different because everything in your life leads you to where you're at now. Even the smallest decision that you might have made differently could have led you to a completely different place. And I'm perfectly happy where I'm at and the place I'm at, the work I get to do with my wife and my granddaughters. Any one small decision I made differently may have led to a different place. So I wouldn't take anything back. I think the only thing I would say would be to be maybe more comforted in my failures early on because I share this now at commencements. It's been kind of a fun thing to do over the last year. But I'll to all the students. I'm going to give you some advice that probably you don't normally get at a commencement and maybe I'm the only one doing this this year at any commencement anywhere in the country. But I want you to go forth and fail. Because here's three reasons why. One, you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes. So you're always going to learn more from your failures. Two, you lose everything you've got, you're not going to lose that much because you probably aren't starting off with much anyway. And third, you're really young. And so you get the rest of your life to benefit from those mistakes. So thinking back, there was a series of mistakes. The first business that I started was a mistake. But I learned a lot of great lessons. And even the second business, the distributing business, was a learning experience. But through all those, I've benefited. So I think maybe I would have, really it's not practical to say, I know I'm making a mistake. I'm going to enjoy this mistake and know that it's going to benefit me. You're not thinking that way at the time. But it is good to put yourself out there and try. And again, you earn more from your failures than you do from your successes. And so it's okay to get out there and try and make a few mistakes early on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's so good. Thank you. So much, Randy, for coming in today and sharing a little bit more about your incredible journey. That is it for this episode of Catalysts for Change. Again, huge thank you to Randy Boyd for sharing his story of scaling and starting and failing and starting again, shaping the future of higher education in Tennessee. And in my view, and hopefully in yours as well, his story is proof that one person driven by both vision, clarity, and values can leave in a Thank you again for listening. And until next time, I'm Adam. I'll see you soon.