hi
everyone my name is Stacey Rusterholz
and i'm the assistant director for
alumni relations at otterbein
welcome to another episode of between
two cards today i'm joined by ted jones
class of 1970. ted's currently
volunteering with our office and helping
plan his 50th reunion
hi ted good good morning stacy hey
how are you doing today we are we are
well
we are hot here in arizona expecting 110
degrees today
oh my goodness that is uh i don't know
if i've ever been in a hundred and
ten degree weather this is
this is our version of winter right okay
i i think i'm gonna stay in ohio it
sounds too hot for me
absolutely well thanks again for joining
us today i just have a few questions
looking forward to hearing about your
otterbein experience and what you've
been up to since then so
you just want to start by telling us a
little bit about yourself
sounds good sounds good um i'd like to
begin
with uh probably a little bit of an
unorthodox approach
uh with your permission i'd like to
begin by looking
in on my life beginning at the age of 11
years
11 years of age at that point in time
i was in sixth grade middle school
uh in and going to school in the suburb
of cincinnati ohio
um i was on the student council and
the principal of our middle school was
mrs azura patrick who was also
an otterbein graduate of the class of
1924.
wow she uh always seemed to take it
interested in me
and and i was happy about that uh and
and to that end i i remember when the
final report cards came out at the end
of
the sixth grade year she enclosed a
private note uh to my mom and dad
which uh uh as an eleven-year-old is a
little worrisome
uh but in the contents of the letter
she said that her husband charles
who was the superintendent of our school
system
and also an otterbein graduate and she
hoped that when i reached college age
that i would strongly consider becoming
a student at otterbein
wow so my parents were certainly
flattered with that
and i thought it was really pretty cool
and uh at 11 years of age
that's amazing about becoming an
otterbein student
actually began to linger
fast forward uh five years
to my 11th grade year and i had
an appointment with a guidance counselor
to talk about
colleges and i remember that day
walking into her office and she was
standing behind her desk and she was
holding
up a brochure
from from otterbein and and she smiled
and she said i just wanted to know that
i discovered a note in your file
from mrs patrick and she wanted to make
sure that among the colleges that we
talk about today
that we also spend some time on
otterbein
so we talked about some other colleges
but somehow the conversation always
drifted back to otterbein
and so i took that brochure home and i
remember
reading that brochure probably three
times cover to cover
i filled out the application that was
enclosed mailed
mailed it in took a tour of the campus
with with my mom and dad uh got the
acceptance letter
and uh my lifelong relationship with
this amazing college
uh actually i actually began that's
really cool we're gonna have to share
that story with admissions they'll love
that
it was uh it you know it has meant a lot
to me through throughout throughout the
years they were they were truly truly
special people
truly special people bring you up to
date
to more recent times uh
i i married uh my best
friend deb i was from date with dayton
ohio
uh together we have two daughters uh
laura linden uh who just got engaged and
of law and uh kimberly ann who is uh
also she's married and she is an
elementary school teacher
we are also the proud parents of two
canine
rescue boys uh our vinnie
and our boy ragsi uh and they are
absolutely joys in our life um
after uh college moving ahead
i was recruited by a fortune
10 multinational consumer products
company
that i went to work for and it stayed
with for 31 plus
years and in that time i had a a variety
of different jobs but i was
very fortunate that i was able to be
promoted into
actually my dream job to head up
the organizational and training
development uh
group and uh
it was absolutely a grand a grand
experience
wonderful it sounds like a uh a full
career
yeah it really was that's great
um can you talk a little bit about how
your otterbein education
has made an impact on you or a
difference in your life
well it has it definitely from the time
i was 11 and then certainly
uh throughout my my professional career
uh
i would tell you stacy that there was so
many times uh in in different roles that
i played
that i was just so happy that i chose
otterbein i could not imagine have gone
to
to a school that would have been better
for me and i could not have imagined
a better major for me uh which was
speech and theater
and i know when you hear selling
consumer products and speech and theater
well what does that have to do with
anything and it's true we did sell
products
but yeah at the end of the day how
successful we were as an organization
was really all about communications
how well we were able to communicate
amongst ourselves
uh to our suppliers uh to our
retail customers and and ultimately to
our consumers
if we didn't do well among ourselves in
that supply chain
the products reaching our customers it
just wasn't gonna happen
and uh i always as a result of
of majoring in in speech and theater i i
had a great deal
of confidence that the direction uh
that we were heading was absolutely uh
absolutely on target
and uh i think i felt that for some very
good reasons because
at otterbein i truly had some amazing
uh speech speech professors uh who
absolutely were on top top of their game
um they were people who taught
uh they were people who coached uh they
are people who
who mentored me and uh in the four years
that i was involved with the debate team
and i participated in
uh intercollegiate oratory competitions
and intercollegiate extemporaneous
uh competitions uh they were always
always right there uh to to support me
and uh at the end of the day
the totality of that educational
experience
you know came together it it certainly
made my communication skills
a whole lot better and along with that
it gave me the confidence that that no
matter what came down the pike
in terms of addressing it that i was
going to be able uh to be able to manage
and lead it
um so thank you otterbein
that's great um i think communication is
one of the most important tools we have
and it's uh
it's wonderful to hear that that's
that's served you well um
whether whether it was one of those
faculty members or someone else
is there a person that you encountered
at otterbein
that made a difference in your
experience
yeah you know there there is and if i
could i'm going to talk about him in
just a second i just wanted to add
one other quick quick little impact
point and and that was
as a result of my four years at
otterbein uh
i gained such an appreciation of being a
part
of a learning community and and that is
something i always felt from really day
one at honor by that the
professors and then the students at
ottawa
didn't view their education as a
destination destination point
that you you learn xyz you pick up your
uh you know college diploma and that's
it
you know from the professors i met and
from the students that i interacted with
they viewed education as
a lifelong journey and
that if you embrace it and continue to
learn
you can continue to impact
other people and to continue to grow
yourself and and
when i got that organizational
development job
i said to myself this this is exactly
the type of culture that i want to bring
in into the
organization and i made that priority uh
number one
uh that we instilled that value and that
we put together
an infrastructure in place for really
the entire organization to be able
to take advantage of and i i just talked
a couple days ago to a
colleague that's still working and uh he
told me that the essence of the
structure that we put in place
uh is is still still in play so i'm very
very
very happy about that and now this
person
who uh played such an important role in
my life
uh the words teacher
coach mentor these are all words
that describe uh joel schwab who was
just this amazing bright young
articulate super smart super
knowledgeable in the in the field of
speech
uh who was absolutely a major factor
in my life and he not only knew his
stuff but he put in the time
uh with all of us that were on the
debate team for all of us that
participated
in individual events you know but i also
saw him uh put in a significant amount
of time
this was just a student who was simply
taking his class who wanted to get
better
and and and and he was absolutely there
and
and another quality about this guy that
i always remembered and i tried to apply
for myself and people that worked for me
uh and and that is the a concept in
management that is sometimes known as
pygmalion and management that if you did
if you believe
in somebody and you tell them that you
believe in them
that their confidence builds and grows
and and they more often than not succeed
and uh and joel swab did that for me and
i know that he did that for
a lot about other students a lot other
students as well
and uh he he he was something it a 30
second just real quick tip of the cap
to dr grissinger who was chairman of the
speech department
he was amazing as well so many stories
uh
about him but he he aligned right along
with everything that professor swab was
doing
and also outside my major in my minor
history
i had this teacher named thomas dr
thomas jefferson kerr
who i took three courses from and at the
end of each one of those courses
i said to myself i i want to know more
and and
dr kerr went on i think the year was the
fall of 71 to become otterbein's
president
and so pleased to hear that he's still
doing well
uh he still continues to be uh
an active participant in in the
otterbein community he
he was he was really something yep he's
been around uh
several events it's been wonderful to
meet him and hear about some of his
experiences so
yes a lifelong um
lifelong commitment to otterbein yeah
for sure he was amazing
wonderful it sounds like you had some
really really positive people in your
life at otterbein
yeah i really and and you know i yeah i
sense that that that same that that same
spirit
is in play in 2020
yes yes i would say so i think a lot of
students have
mentors and coaches and professors that
are teaching them the same kind of
lessons that that you
you gained at otterbein so speaking of
current students if there was a piece of
advice that you could offer to
current students what would you what
would you say to them
i would say unless not
your grade point average is hanging at
the brink
don't be afraid to take a risk
don't be afraid to take a risk if you're
shy in front of getting up in front of a
group go take go take a speech course
uh if you have trouble uh
balancing your checkbook go take an
accounting course
if you think that you might like to
travel throughout your life
you know to other countries or perhaps
work abroad
go take a language course or two you
will be surprised how that will open up
uh doors i i can tell you firsthand from
from multi
uh national organizations who would
become interested in you
and if there's simply a sense of
loneliness that you'd like to know more
people on campus
join a club join several clubs join a
fraternity or
sorority and you'll be so glad that you
did because i
i i would tell you from my personal
experience that
opportunities many times open up to
people
who are willing to take a risk and and i
can't imagine a
a more fail-safe environment than taking
a risk
within the community of a college or
university so
so please go for it i think that's great
advice i think
if i look back at college i wish i had
taken a class some more classes
outside of my my major realm just uh
just to learn to
better myself in those ways so i i think
that's great advice
all right so ted last question so you're
involved in helping plan your 50th
reunion um what makes you interested in
coming back to otterbein and
volunteering in that way
you know and since i've retired i
you know i have tried to stay connected
i've uh
prior to this i had been a part of
helping out with a couple of migrations
here
uh not so long ago out here in phoenix
arizona
and and absolutely enjoyed it uh
but my 50th college reunion that is just
such a milestone
and uh you know i just wondered what
what
happened to so many friends that that
over the years you you lose uh you lose
track of and and so i viewed
volunteering as an
opportunity to make connections with uh
with some
friends and and i'll tell you that uh
getting back together with bob and brian
and tom and kathy who have also worked
on on the advisory committee
this is absolutely has absolutely been
enjoy been a joy
um i think one of the things that's
perhaps surprised me most
um about it that it has also been a joy
was uh you know contacting reaching out
to some of our classmates that honestly
i did not know that well
and uh have gotten it known either
through phone conversations
or through interactions on our reunion
page on
on facebook and it's just been great to
get to know them and uh
uh you know i missed out on the
opportunity 50 years ago and i'm
better late than never i'm so glad i was
able uh to make that connection now
and uh now that uh our reunion owing to
circumstances
uh with covet has been been postponed
uh for a year yeah i'm really uh anxious
to make the connection with with the
class of 71 now that we're going to have
a
combined reunion in september of 2021
and uh i i'm absolutely confident that
putting our two committees together that
we're really going to
put together something very very special
yeah i'm excited i'm looking forward to
having everyone back here and uh
yeah just connecting and and meeting all
the people that we've been communicating
with
so yeah thank you for for being a part
of the committee you've been uh such a
big help and
chatting with people getting old photos
back
so that folks can see them so thanks for
being
being a part of that group it's been my
pleasure it's been fun
wonderful well thank you ted for uh
chatting with me today and
um for being a big part of the otterbein
community i hope you continue to stay
safe there in
arizona and we'll chat again soon
thank you stacy all right take care bye
you
