Episode 7

Reflecting on Leadership

Featuring	Ken Meyers, Former CEO US Cellular
Description	"Who you are as a leader is an expression of a lifetime of experiences,” says Ken Meyers, former CEO of U.S. Cellular as he sat down with Professor Emeritus Al Gini in November to reflect on his career and discuss the importance of being a selfless leader.
Listen	Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Season	Season 5

Transcript

Speaker1: From the Loyola Quinlan School of Business. You're listening to the Q Talks podcast.

Al Gini: Hello. My name is Al Gini, and I'm professor of Business Ethics and the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University, Chicago. Today, I have the great pleasure to introduce you to an interview, Ken Meyers. Ken worked at US Cellular, which is the fifth largest cellular telephone company in America and daily serves over 5 million customers. And he worked there for a couple of years, make that 33 years in a number of executive capacities which resulted in his appointment as president and chief executive officer from 2013 to 2020. But perhaps for us, more importantly, Ken is a graduate of the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University and Public Accounting, and he graduated in 1977. And oh yeah, he went to that little school just kind of north of us in Evanston. I think the name is Northwestern to pick up an MBA at the Kellogg School. He was well prepared and well trained for the life he led. Ken, what a pleasure it is to meet you.

Ken Meyers: I thank you. I look forward to having this conversation with you.

Al Gini: So so I've been thinking about it all day. Now, given your extensive background in business, I want to talk to you today about four different areas in your professional life, education or schooling, work in business, leadership and leadership in a role even larger than the August role that you had and let's talk about retirement, since we're both two retired guys. Let's start off a schooling. So the obvious question, why Loyola were you're considering other schools at the time?

Ken Meyers: I was, except Loyola had a phenomenal reputation as a place to go if you were studying for pre-med. And since that's what my plan was when I walked in. I started off at the Lake Shore campus back in 1972.

Al Gini: Wow. So what turned you off from pre-med?

Ken Meyers: Well, it came pretty obvious after the freshman year that there were those that were going to make it into med school and there were those that weren't. I needed a college degree that was going to help me find a job sometime. So it was down to the business school after my freshman year.

Al Gini: I understand. I started to say there was a gentleman there called Boris Bierhoff who taught that basic biology class. You had him?

Ken Meyers: I had him twice.

Al Gini: And you survived?

Ken Meyers: Well, I sort of well, survived.

Al Gini: Wow. But he was the guy who decided who went to medical school and your first year. All right.

Ken Meyers: He was my counselor. And I thought so much of them that I signed up for the second semester right away before everybody else figured out he was the guy to take versus use the guy maybe you didn't want to take.

Al Gini: So you never thought of going anyplace outside of Chicago?

Ken Meyers: No. I was working almost full time and I wanted to keep that job.

Al Gini: That was the day when about 40% of our students at Water Tower put in 22 hours a week, including the guy who wound up working for McDonald's. What was that guy's name again? He did. He did pretty well. He did pretty well. Now, looking back now, I have to ask another question about Loyola itself. Do you have any special memories or highlights that you can share with us besides Boris? I mean, at the lecture at one on campus.

Ken Meyers: The teachers that I had in the accounting program and a lot. So yeah. Professor Joswiak I had him for three law courses. What a phenomenal teacher.

Al Gini: Great guy.

Ken Meyers: Coffield.

Al Gini: Cusack.

Ken Meyers: Yeah, yeah.

Al Gini: If you got through Cusack You got through accounting.

Ken Meyers: All of them were just phenomenal. They were both theoretical but practical. They were, they were working in the field, right? And years later, when I went back to Kellogg, I met one of the professors up there that held a chair in accounting that had one of my Loyola instructors name on it.

Al Gini: Yeah.

Ken Meyers: And I was talking to and say, why would his wife fund a chair at Northwestern? I took him at Loyola. Yeah, because when I started at Loyola, it was the year that they shut down the undergrad.

Al Gini: business school. That's right.

Ken Meyers: At Northwestern. A lot of those instructors wound up at Loyola.

Al Gini: Right, including our dean at the time. But Cusack was the guy who said, if you can't get through my course, you can't do this for a living and you got to do a C or better, he said. The C in this class is an A someplace else and obviously, given the trajectory of your career, we did pretty good by you.

Ken Meyers: That one was easy for me was.

Al Gini: Numbers och och and but numbers but numbers speak. I'm going to ask a question about that later because you are a numbers guy. But well, let me ask it right now. Your numbers guy always been a numbers guy. You went right even the numbers and you weren't some stumped by the numbers in chemistry either. I'll bet the numbers were easy. The imagery was maybe a little difficult. Is being a CFO the natural preparation for CEO these days natural?

Ken Meyers: No. But accounting is still the language of business. Yeah, you understand it? You got to understand how you make money in a business. And so I found it as a great tool, but I've worked with some great CEOs that didn't have that as a background.

Al Gini: Okay. So staying with this and it's kind of transitioning to work, I guess a silly way of asking it, what did you want to be when you grew up? Well you wanted to be a doctor, then you'd figure that out and then you wanted to get a job. But once you got into accounting, did you get hooked? Is that what you really wanted to do?

Ken Meyers: I spent my first six years auditing in a internal audit role in a holding company in Chicago that was Multi-industry. So I was able to see a lot of companies. I was able to do a lot of acquisition work and get involved more in the operations side of the business than pure accounting. And that's what I liked. I like to be able to be involved in the business.

Al Gini: So the numbers led you to management in a very real sense, but you understood the numbers. And for someone like me who has taught philosophy his entire life, as Aristotle said, numbers do not put me in a passion. I don't understand it. And I'm going to confess something to you now. Can I hope you'll forgive me. I've never balanced my checkbook in my life.

Ken Meyers: I don't it.

Al Gini: Well, good. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm absolved. Thanks very much, because I don't understand numbers, but I think you're right. In my study of business, it's the people who understand how those numbers translate into action, into operations, and into profits that make a difference. Um, let me go on and ask a little bit more about work. Clearly, you early on cast your lot with us cellular. You had this other job for six years. Did you go right to cellular from that first job?

Ken Meyers: No, my second job was in a high tech startup, something that literally had no revenue. When I started, there were a group of scientists that had stumbled upon a formula that NASA funded for a high temperature coating that became a high temperature insulation material. And they were trying to move it from the laboratory into production, into the U.S. Navy. We spent four years there and sold the company at the end of 1986 as the tax laws were changing. After the end of that assignment, that's when I joined up with U.S. Cellular.

Al Gini: Did you get recruited or did you just say that's a good company to work for? And this is an emerging. This is cell phones before we were figuring out cell phones, I was a second lieutenant in the mid sixties and a cell phone weighed about £9 and was called a walkie talkie. And a guy had to walk behind me with an aerial and he got shot right away.

Ken Meyers: So a friend of mine that I worked with in my first job happened to be at a related company related to U.S. Cellular, and we were talking about a different opportunity for him. And he asked me, what do I know about cellular technology? And at that time, my answer was, Well, I was pre-med for a year. I didn't know what cellular technology meant at that time in terms of what was going on with telephones. But it was through him that I found the job, entered the business, and it's been something that I told myself that I would be any with any company that was ethical and moral and everything else that kept me challenged. But as soon as I'm challenged, the quality of my work goes down and I get bored. Well, that was 33 years ago. It was such a fast paced, rapidly changing business that for 33 years it kept my attention and kept me learning.

Al Gini: Yeah. You know, at the year 2000, I was working at NPR as a stringer and we were listing the important things that happen in the 20th century. And surprisingly enough, the computer did not come up the first, second or third or any of those things. But in reality, I think and I would like to reflect on this, that the computer, which is part of this cellular explosion, has utterly changed how we learn, what we learn when we learn, how we communicate, when we communicate, and the absolute almost lack of limits and the cellular industry so that I can right after this call, call my friend in South Africa as if he were in the same room and have that work. Do you think, as somebody was there, was going on? Was it just I mean, it couldn't be happenstance, but aren't you marveling at that? Even though you are busy running the ship?

Ken Meyers: It was never understood how great the opportunity was until you would actually go and passed it. In 1987, when I started, we had just spent money with a nationally, internationally known consulting firm, and their answer was in ten years, maybe four and a half percent of the people in the US will use this technology. And it was some brilliant marketing. I think that really that combined with advancements in the technology that no one ever saw. One person that did, though, this guy, Denny Leibowitz, was a financial analyst at a firm called DLJ in the 1987, 88 and 89. When he put together industry pieces, the cover was always Dick Tracy with you.

Al Gini: Yeah, yeah.

Ken Meyers: Right. And he always thought this was going to be the next big thing.

Al Gini: And it sort of is nnow. It's just amazing. And I think that even for us old guys who don't really care about technology still have a royal typewriter somewhere on the corner of this desk right now, which I'm not going to show you and a dial phone. It is amazing how and right now in this COVID experience, how universities are functioning and old guys are struggling with it, but the younger staff is able to say, all right, I can give this lecture, but then we're going to have we're going to break into groups, and I'm going to come into each group and we're going to have a chat room. And you could ask me questions over here and you can take me here. It.

Ken Meyers: It's a huge enabler.

Al Gini: Yeah, it's a huge enabler. It lacks the immediacy, perhaps, of an instructor strutting up and down in front of the classroom. But it's not as if it's gone from 100% to to 20% of contact with the students. It's diminished a bit mayhaps and quality and drama, but not necessarily in content. And that's because of these wonderful devices. Now, let me ask you, you've already kind of given it this way. And all your positions when you were there, what was most growth to you rather than products? What was most useful to you? What was most professionally and personally challenging? In any of the jobs CEO You probably had to forget about yourself entirely, didn't you?

Ken Meyers: In each case, as in a uniquely fast paced, high growth industry and the ability to attract and motivate and retain high quality people is what allowed me the opportunities that I had. And looking back, my biggest successes have always been the teams I've been able to pull together.

Al Gini: That's a wonderful comment because I was going to ask you, there's a body of literature that says if you're the CEO and you just hired a group of people and you're the smartest guy in the room, you hire the wrong people. I think that's a wonderful answer. Thank you so much. It's really real. It's not just a theory. And I think because you can't hold it all in, but they can they can't keep up with it. You can't keep up with it. But they can bring it to your desk and say, What do we do with this? How do we handle that, etc., etc.. Thank you. That's wonderful you pass the course. Thank you very much. Can I ask, you know, in the career, any major take backs or regrets or are they do overs you wish you had done along the way? Did you miss the market for X? Should you have gone left when you should have gone and when you went right? I'm not asking to embarrass you, but.

Ken Meyers: Oh, no, there are. You know, if you're only going to make correct decisions, you're going to make about three of them. And in most businesses, you've got to make hundreds of them. So you've got to make the best decision you can on the data that you've got at the time. You've got to understand why you made that decision so you can look back and say, if it wasn't right, why wasn't it right? Right. What do we do differently next time? And now, looking back, there are multiple decisions that either I didn't move too fast or fast enough. I needed someone that maybe didn't fit into the team and I should have done something sooner. Market opportunities and acquisitions that because you didn't want to go $0.50 more, you didn't make.

Al Gini: Should. Yeah, but it's a living art form. And I told my students in the business ethics class, then it's not just about making money, it's a living art form. And what you do impacts others. And it's always a series of variables coming in, including the big variable: human beings. Products are easy to manage, right? Issues are easy to manage when you have to just grind the machine. But when you have to deal with human personalities, that changes everything. Frank Catania, the former dean of the graduate school at Loyola University and Philosophy Department. He invited me to dinner when I was a very young professor. And I said, Jeb, are you looking forward to meeting your seven kids? And he said, Six. I said, six, seven. What's the difference? He says, an entirely different personality that you have to deal with and have to manage. And I think what people like you do is manage people. More than anything else. You agree?

Ken Meyers: I don't know that manage people is the term that I use. I grew up with thinking that managing is what you do with the process. You attempt to lead people. And bring them together and move them as one to a certain direction. But yes, people are the hardest part of any business equation.

Al Gini: Okay. One more question on this. On your various jobs, is there a dream list of things you wish you could have done now?

Ken Meyers: No. I had some phenomenal opportunities. I've been able to travel extensively, meet people in different countries, understand different cultures in their businesses. I'm pretty happy with where I am right now. A lot more to do, but happy where I am right now.

Al Gini: I got it. I got it. All right. Sounds like your day to day career. Let's turn to a little bit of work and the family side, the personal side. It sounds like your day to day career, you were busy. So do you think of yourself as an A-type, a workaholic? And however you answer that, I guess I want to know how did you manage family? How did you manage the life away from the office? How did you manage all of that with your I'm sure your week was not a 38 hour week. How did you manage that? With a schedule that really never really ended.

Ken Meyers: Boy, you know, that gets into this whole question. Everybody talks about work life balance and yeah, how do you get a good work life balance and what's the secret?

Al Gini: You give it away right there, that Freudian slip. How do you get The Good Wife?

Ken Meyers: Well, you know, I think of it as it's a very personal decision. What's a good balance for me isn't necessarily a good balance for someone else. I was able to have the balance that I thought I wanted that worked for my wife and two daughters. I think we're all pretty well adjusted. They haven't told me otherwise.

Al Gini: Right. You're still invited to Thanksgiving if it's on this year.

Ken Meyers: Right. And we've all made some sacrifices along the way, but we've also gotten benefits from the job. So comfortable with it. But there isn't any one right answer. We just did what was right for us.

Al Gini: In a recent interview I had with a CEO, he said, If you're doing the job 100%, you're never going to be successful. There's no such thing if you're a CEO, if you're only doing 100%, you have to do 150%. And then you have to make choices and you have to have a life partner and a life situation where everybody is aware of this agenda. You know, that I've got to do these things, but make sure when you're not working that you're with them and that that you play as hard as you work. Not exactly, but he meant that you have to make sure work hard.

Ken Meyers: Play hard scenario is the same. That's been around for a long, long time.

Al Gini: And I think you need both. I think both are creative. You need to play catch and you need to do something on the job. All right. We danced around the topic of leadership, but let's talk about the role of leadership in your business and I think the business in general. Can you talk a little bit about how you see the function of leadership? You suggested that or excuse me, not just the function of leadership, but how do you see the function of business in society? That is is business the purpose of business or is business the service of something larger than that, the well-being of a society?

Ken Meyers: Oh, man. That's one that I'm more on that a business to run and how I run it needs to be ethical. It needs to fit into the societal model that I operate in. But it's not in and of itself a charitable operation. Rather, it's my job to take someone else's money that they've invested and generate a return, but to generate a long-term return. And if I want to do that, I need to be part of the society. I need to be part of the community. Yeah. You can't just take, take, take and expect that consumers are going to want to do business with you. You need to be part of that local community that you're serving the local market, and you do that by investing back in it. You do it by hiring. An example, all of the call centers that we operated were all located in our markets used to be in the west, but they were in Milwaukee and Des Moines and Tulsa and Knoxville, where they were part of the communities that we were serving. And keeping the jobs right in the communities was important part of our strategy.

Al Gini: So in some sense, while business is not a servant of society, business is a major factor in society, and business fulfills itself in society. And so it is a mutual admiration.

Ken Meyers: Mutually beneficial.

Al Gini: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A long time ago, Sears and Roebuck called me. I remember when Sears Roebuck was the largest merchandising institution in the world, and they were putting together a business ethics officer. And I was asked to be a major consultant with them or consulting with them. And it was a fascinating experience to see. And the gentleman, Mr. Griffin, who had become the ethics officer at Sears, I said, Bill how did you get the job? He says, I know everybody. I said, Well, how did you get the job? Because I've been here 35 years. I know everybody. I said, I don't get it. I could walk in any door just on who I am. But then when I walk in the door, I got to do business. Ethics is about dealing with human beings. This is not you know, we're not talking about Emmanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill or how many angels can dance on the head of the pin is you can't do that. You have to tell somebody because it's not appropriate. That's not the way we do business. So I guess I'm asking you, although I know the reputation of your former organization, do you think the businesses should have an ethics officer, a specific department, a specific division not to be a policeman, but to be perhaps a guide?

Ken Meyers: No, no, no. Because I don't think ethics are any one person's job except for the CEOs. They are an organization job. So so we had a training organization and ethics was a major part of our cultural model. And so we taught it, we lived it, we reinforced it. But it wasn't just Bob's job or Jane's job over on this side. It was an organization commitment to it. And that started with a CEO well before me. But that became the way we did business. And so as an ethics officer, it's the CEO. It's not some department.

Al Gini: Perhaps we're not saying something different here. I don't mean that the officer. That's his only job. Let me see who is ethical or not ethical, but rather to facilitate to. Perhaps student service, education, etc., etc. but I like your answer. You're saying I don't need someone special to do this. This is an obligation of doing business with others. It's an obligation of being a human being. The only difference here is we may not be friends, but we share a lot of time together and we got to do business together and we have to do business with others. So there are natural obligations.

Ken Meyers: There are absolutely natural obligations.

Al Gini: You know, you're going to pass this class. I think you're doing very well.

Ken Meyers: I don't know if I passed it the first time a few years ago. So it's a redo.

Al Gini: This is wonderful. Let's talk about leadership specifically. I think when we talk about ethics and business, we are, of course, suggesting that business ethics doesn't occur, as you just said, unless leadership demands it, demonstrates it and directs it in the culture of the organization. You've said that it should be from the leader, but what should the leader do? Is it a personal demonstration? Is it making sure that in that contract there is concern? Is it due diligence? How do you see actually implementing that or did you do it as Aristotle said, you never learn ethics by reading a treatise on ethics. You learn ethics by the demeanor of a moral person.

Ken Meyers: So I am a student of the servant leadership model. We literally built our culture around the servant leadership model. And as a result, our whole organization operates under that. Right? And that's a model that fundamentally takes the historic pyramid that says, here I am on top and everybody down here has got to take care of me and flips it upside down and says, my job is take care of the rest of the organization. I succeeded by making them successful. And we in doing that, this business model that we had. The leader itself sits right in the middle. And it's a value driven model with respect and inclusion right at the core. But ethics being the centerpiece of the whole model.

Al Gini: Well, again, you're answering these questions. Tick, tick, tick. You know, we're working on at least a C-plus right now. This is fabulous stuff. No, I'm very impressed by that. I don't mean to be flip. I'm really touched by some of these answers. Now, let's talk about leadership in general and ask questions about leaders born or made. This is fascinating to me. This we're in the middle of a political campaign. We're not going to talk politics at all. But do you agree that leadership and the qualities of leadership, even of a particular leader, are not just fully formed at birth, but rather a combination of natural gifts and talents and education and insights and practice that it's not one or the other. It's not born or made. It's the combination of both.

Ken Meyers: Absolutely. I think that who you are as a leader is is an expression of a lifetime of experiences, whatever theory, wherever you are at that point, I think about the influence my family had, my parents had in terms of who I am and the work ethic that they had. You know, organizations like the Boy Scouts, the various schools and instructors that I had eventually in my career. I went out to a place called the Center for Creative Leadership, which is a think tank on leadership. And I went through that program. The class I had, I think there were 11 of us. One was a two about to be a three star general to CEOs of different companies. And it's a very intense, very personal program where you really kind of get to the core of who you are. And why are you trying to do what you're trying to do? And so I think leadership is very, very personal.

Al Gini: And I think that I always love you know, I'm supposed to be a student of philosophy and I'm so said wisdom. And I found out I have no wisdom. I'm just struggling along with everybody else. But Abraham Maslow once said that wisdom is knowledge, experience and living long enough to make sense out of it all. And, you know, and I think you need both. And we both said as senior males, a 25 year old makes a certain mistake or accident, certain motives. All right. He's a kid, right? I give him a pass. If he had done that at 35, we'd be on him, right? Say no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't get away with that anymore. But this notion that our children are adults at 21 when they graduate from college is a hope for suggestion rather than an absolute. I think you have to live a little bit to experience the world.

Ken Meyers: Well, I think that the term that has become in vogue over the last few years that I really like is this concept of lifetime learning. Yeah. You know, once you get out of school, you graduate with that piece of paper, your education is just starting, right? It isn't that I'm done now. Here I am, world, come and get me. I'm just starting to learn then.

Al Gini: Right? I've always said that what we do at the university is put students hands on the door. That if they turn it themselves, leads to knowledge. Right? The skills. Now, here's the problem, though, with leadership. And I'd like to examine this while with you. A gentleman much smarter than myself once said that the vanity of egoism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity in too many leaders. How do we move towards leadership that is more selfless than selfish?

Ken Meyers: Well, depending upon the business model that you're in, everybody's got a boss. If you're the CEO of a public company. Your board of directors has to hold you accountable for how you behave and not just what you produce. And we've seen the pendulum over the last couple of years swing more toward that, where in years gone by, maybe we were treating them like that 25 year old you just talked about and said, well, you know, just don't do that again. But so there's got to be accountability for actions or lack thereof.

Al Gini: Yeah. I'm concerned that too many leaders seek the position for its power and its grandiosity for themselves. And that I think this is not a new problem for business. This is the problem of leadership. You know, from the first writings that we have of the Greeks. And I think that that's really the problem. And how do we find somebody who is in this job for others and even in business, your success is because I think looking at you at your background and bio, you're your success because you did things for others that impacted on you and reflected well on you, but you weren't just operating for self. And that's like being a parent. I said to my wife, you know, you've just given up your life. You know, we're now two other human beings. Before we had a baby, I look at her and say, Want to go to dinner? Hunt Yes, no. Now they have a baby. And I don't have a baby right now. But I mean, why don't I go to dinner? Well, it's only it's Wednesday. It's too late to find a babysitter, and I'm not sure I can make it my mother here and etc., etc., etc..

Al Gini: And it was $100 excursion to go to the local movie house, but it was about you had to be a leader of your life. And I think leadership is about life and business is part of life. All right. We've been really too heavy here. And let's talk about what we're sharing right now. Besides our affiliation to Loyola is retirement. Now, as I said to you off mic, some people fear retirement more than death. And that was me five years ago. So I can't retire. I'm a young guy. I can't. Heck, I'm only early, so I'm not going to retire. And then, as Saint Francis said, my brother asked, gave me another message. That is my body. And so retirement was encouraged, shall we say. But I but I'm trying to make the adjustment and so far so good. It's a good gig. I kind of like it. How do you look at it? Well, were you afraid? Were you concerned?

Ken Meyers: Let me wasn't afraid. I'm looking forward to it. I've only been at it for a month and a half so far. That month and a half has been consumed just getting organized. Yeah. With all the things you've got to do once you're on your own, right? I don't have the support structure around me that I used to have and my wife lets it be known real clear that she isn't that support structure.

Al Gini: I too have had that experience. Honey, I don't have my assistant around anymore. Well, that's too bad, darling.

Ken Meyers: Absolutely. But as one person I was just talking to explained, you know, the term isn't retired. It's I'm changing my focus instead of being the one responsible for doing things, you know, you now get to the point where you do more coaching and more mentoring. And look to give back in different ways. One of the things that I did last semester in doing this mission I'm really enjoying it is I've got a student at Loyola that I'm mentoring and I've got a couple of executives on the outside that I'm coaching just to provide whatever insight I can.

Al Gini: Learn one, do one, teach one. You know, you're right about that. But the retirement thing, Ron Majors, remember the newscaster, Ron Majors, his daughters came to Loyola and I happened to meet Ron and Social Events a couple of times, and he retired rather early from his seat at NBC and they asked him about it. What helped your decision? He said, Well, I realized I had worked long enough to know that I didn't have to work anymore. And I thought that was brilliant, that I've done the job. It's you know, how many of us have seen, we both seen this, athletes who stay the extra two or three years because the money is outrageous. How can you how can you not in some sense. But they're not there anymore, you know, and and they leave kind of shabbily and you go, wow, that wasn't, you know, for somebody of our age, Johnny Unitas wound up his last two years and the San Diego Chargers on the bench as a backup quarterback. But he needed the money in different times, right? Yeah. And I think it's time to go. And you have to know when it's time to go and you have to know when your expertise maybe has a half-life or shelf life. That doesn't mean you're over. It means what you've been trained for perhaps is no longer there. My mother's proudest achievement in life is three separate times. She passed the Mob Bell exam to be an operator, you know, to hit that. And that was a big deal. I needed a voice. I needed to be fast. And so she that was a badge of honor on herself. But things do change and we change with them. Now, look, I've really put you through the grinder here. We're both smiling each other, but I know you're ready to rip my hair out, but lets end with something a little easier. You're really a role model for a lot of people. And I'm so glad you're doing this with these individuals. And I'm so glad I hope you'll do it more with our students because they need you. But given all you've done and accomplish, I'm sure there are 20 you could offer, but what single piece of advice would you give a newly minted graduate undergraduate? The graduate students know what they want to do and they need the opportunity. Right. And they know they have to refine their skills. But what would you tell an undergraduate, you know, keep your head down their son or a young lady and buckle on or what would you say?

Ken Meyers: Have fun. You know, we go through college racing to get out. And because my gosh, we're 21. We're 22. We got to get out. And you've had a whole life in front of you. Enjoy the moment where you're at and build the relationships in college because those people will stay with you for the next 40 years.

Al Gini: And as you said, you never took a job that you weren't having fun or interested in and you only stayed as long as you're interested. And I think having worked on work, my job myself, I mean by that phrase, you become your job and it's a bad job and you have to do it, that changes your personality. But if you have a job you love, then work is still a chore, but it's much more meaningful. Ken I can't tell you what an honor and a pleasure it has been to talk to you today. I feel we could go on forever. And if you weren't in Florida right now and I weren't freezing in Chicago, I'd buy you a drink. And I hope I hope.

Ken Meyers: We get we have the opportunity to do that in person.

Al Gini: Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure, Ken. And so to the rest of our loyal students, remember where you are. Remember what you want to be. And remember, there are people out there like Ken Myers who've been there as well and done very well by himself. Thank you.

Speaker4: This has been an episode of the Q Talks podcast where we seek to marry the wisdom of the Quinlan community with the issues of today. Special thanks to our guests for their conversation and insight with additional thanks to Dean Kevin Stevens for his generous support of this project. Matt Shelley, our student producer for editing this episode, Loyola School of Communication and WLUW for their continued collaboration. Please take a minute to support us by rating and reviewing our episodes to help expand our reach. Thank you for listening and we hope you join us next time.