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Saying Good-bye
Saying Good-bye
Published by John C.
12-17-2008
Saying Good-bye

CHANDLER (AZ) -- With Ted Kissell being honored at the game this Saturday, I though it would be a good time to dust off one of my old interviews that I had with Ted back in early 2002. I really didn’t know the man at the time, but I found him to be very cordial and open to every question that I asked him. Although a bit dated, I think this might give you a better insight into the man that moved UD Athletics to a whole new level. UD is far more than men’s basketball. There are several programs that have risen from nowhere when he got to UD to prominence not only in the A-10 but on a national level. I hope Ted realizes what he accomplished during his stay. I’m sure he will downplay it both publicly and privately. We all hope to make a difference somehow during our lives. He can rest easy that he has to thousands of athletes, students and fans.

It’s a long read as I originally split it up into three articles. Hopefully, you’ll gain a new understanding of what UD is losing.


Born to be Different


It was a match that by all rights should never have taken place. It was the 1930’s and the time of the Great Depression. He, like many of his time, was forced to drop out of school after the eighth grade and go to work to help support his family. She, unlike many of her time, not only received a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern, but also a Master’s. She was a teacher and he was a wholesale shoe salesman, yet somehow they managed to form a union that brought three children into a loving and nurturing environment.

Ted Kissell Sr. met Marigold (Goldie) Lindelof on a blind date and decided that it was time to make it a permanent union in 1938. Over the next few years, Judi, Ted Jr. and Lolly were born They created a family environment that was very unusual for the 1940’s and 1950’s in that they taught their children that it was okay to be different. The 1950’s were a time of cookie cutter homes and “Leave it to Beaver” type households. Children were taught to mind their parents and those in authority and not ask a great deal of questions about why things were as they were.

Things were a little different in the Kissell household in that the children were encouraged to ask a lot of questions, form their own ideas and not to be afraid to be different than the Jones’. Ted related, “I grew up in the Chicago area in the western suburb of Hinsdale. It was very homogonous, very provincial but at the same time great for a kid in the sense of feeling safe and secure. It was a typical Midwestern town, not unlike Oakwood. Both of my parents were very independent and there was a strong belief that it was okay to be different which was not the normal conformity belief of the 1950’s. My mom was a little unusual as a person and my dad was definitely a character. We grew up knowing that it was okay to be different, okay to be your own person. You were not expected to run your life just to gain other people’s acceptance. It wasn’t something that was ever said in our home, it’s just the way that it was. It is one of the things that has made me emotionally or psychologically well suited for a job that by the very nature of it, you are going to be criticized.”

As with many boys, Ted formed a strong union with his father through sports, “My dad loved athletics and it became the basis for our relationship as it is with many fathers and sons. I am very much a child of the fifties. Baseball was the national pastime and that is what my dad and I liked the most.” Goldie loved literature and made it a very special part of the Kissell children’s upbringing, “My mom and I shared a love of literature. As a result, I had a strong basis for an individual relationship with each of my parents.”

He had played all of the sports as a kid, but because of his small size gravitated to individual sports like wrestling and tennis where size didn’t matter. “After a couple of years in high school it became apparent that I had far more talent in tennis so I focused on playing tennis year around. I had a very good coach and a school with a great tennis reputation so it was never looked down upon as an elite country club sport.” He was good enough to be recruited to play tennis for Indiana University. However, after two years at the school, Ted left Indiana and was married while finishing the last two years of school at Elmhurst College outside of Chicago.

The love of literature did not end when Kissell graduated from college. Like both of his sisters, Ted became an educator and taught English for many years. It was his long time love for sports, the desire to educate young people both in and outside the classroom and a little bit of necessity that eventually got Kissell into the coaching ranks after moving west, “My former wife and I had moved west and were living in Tucson. To be able to coach would help you get a job teaching. So while teaching high school in Tucson I also coached tennis for several years. I would also teach tennis in the summers and directed some tennis camps in California for the same guy that was running the John Wooden summer basketball camps.”

His own education about life continued on the job. Ted had grown up in a comfortable home in a comfortable neighborhood, but that was not were he found himself in Tucson, “I taught in an inner city school with declining enrollment. It wasn’t as challenging as some, but you would run into situations where kids would bring guns to school. A good portion of the kids just didn’t want to be there. At the same time, a number of Advance Placement kids were there. I was kind of a utility infielder in that I would move from English to Social Studies and different levels of kids. It was a very interesting teaching situation in that one period I would teach kids that didn’t want to be there and the next with some of the brightest kids in the area.”

Although the love of teaching was still a very important part of his life, Kissell’s upbringing and the penchant for being different and questioning authority brought him to a decision, “I was troubled with the fact that the teaching system was anti-merit. By virtue of getting one year older and not necessarily any better you made more money. It is the very opposite my competitive background. I would see guys in their fifties that were pretty much burned out. These were teachers that at age 30 were bright eyed and bushy-tailed and the system just ground them down. I was worried that I would follow the same path so I decided that I needed to get out.”

Never one to be afraid to make a change in direction, Ted decided Law School was the answer. It was this decision that would change his life irrevocably, “I decided that I would go to law school at the University of Arizona. Before enrolling, I was approached about becoming the tennis coach. The Pac-10 was the number one tennis conference in the country. I was not very well qualified at the time. They had the best coaches in the country and here I was a high school coach with a mediocre Big Ten career as a player. I believe I got the job because there was a good deal of pressure put on the AD to take someone local. I took the job with a lot to learn.”

And learn he did. The problem was that he not only learned a great deal about coaching and just as much about people, but he also learned as much about losing as he did anything. “I coached for six years at Arizona. We had a solid program. We did well against our big rival Arizona State, but we struggled against the big names, USC, Stanford and UCLA. To give you an idea of how tough the league was, one season Arizona State was 0-10 in the league and rated in the top 20 in the country.”

“There is a great deal of difference between high school and college. It didn’t bother me that other people knew more than me; I just really wanted to win. I hadn’t been used to losing, we had been extraordinarily successful at the high school level. We had a record of 128-1. I had a lot to learn at the college level. I made some mistakes in recruiting in the beginning. I recruited too much for talent and not enough for character. It is a lesson all coaches have to learn. In tennis there are so many prima donnas. From the time that they begin to show their talent, they are given special privileges.”

Despite the fact that he had been named PAC-10 Coach of the Year honors in 1981, there were many things that weighed on Kissell’s mind during this time of his life. He loved tennis and sports in general, but he began to question if he had the mettle to be a coach, “I knew it wasn’t for me after just a short time because there just wasn’t enough variety; there wasn’t enough breadth to hold my interest. It is too focused, just not for me. I‘m just not temperamentally suited to the stress of coaching. There are different kinds of pressure associated with what I do which is different than what a coach feels. I think that it was critical to my development because it is important that I understand what the coach feels like when they lose a game. The wins were more like relief to me and the losses were devastating. But I am only one of ten million coaches that have said that who have gotten out of coaching. The losses are always there. It is when the wins stop being joyful that you need to get out.”

It was decision time for Ted Kissell. He loved college athletics. He loved competition on every level of life, but he realized that he had gone as far as he could as a coach and he needed to find another avenue for his drive. It was at that time that a change in leadership was taking place in the Athletic Department at Arizona, “I was really lucky in that Dr. Cedric Dempsey (current NCAA President) took over as AD at Arizona. He talked to me about the possibility of doing something else in the organization. The Athletic Department was very operationally focused and as a result, the growth and development of the department had taken a back seat for some time. I had the good fortune of working for someone who was one of the very best in his profession. So I had two of the things that you need early in your career: a mentor and the opportunity. We were an organization that was on the move so I had a load of opportunity to do well.”

Kissell did well in his new role as an administrator at Arizona rising to the level of Associate Director of Athletics for Sports Programs and External Affairs. Yet, he longed for more. He wanted to know just how capable was he. Could he run his own program? It was 1992 and the University of Dayton had lost their long time Athletic Director, Tom Frericks, to cancer. It was Ted Kissell’s time.


Following Greatness

“Tom Frericks was a legend. You are always advised not to follow a legend. I drive down Frericks Way and walk into Frericks Center and am greeted by this huge picture of Tom Frericks. He deservedly has such a presence here.”

Ted Kissell knew that when he turned on the light in his new office for the first time that the job wasn’t going to be easy. The University of Dayton has only had six Athletic Directors in its history. Harry Baujan was the Athletic Director for 42 years, but no one put the University of Dayton on the map like Tom Frericks during his 28 years. Without Frericks, there would be no University of Dayton Arena. There would not be the 63 NCAA games that have been played on the Arena floor. There would not be the 26 games that UD has played in the NCAA. Putting it very simply, without the vision of Tom Frericks, the University of Dayton basketball program and the rest of the athletic department might be worrying how to compete against Wittenberg and Otterbein instead of Temple and Cincinnati.

Little did Kissell know when he took over just what was ahead of him, “I didn’t come in with a plan. I didn’t know enough. I had watched someone else take a program to a higher level and I was part of that team. When I came in here, I didn’t know nearly enough. You would be surprised at how stupid I was. I had no idea how much needed to be done.”

At first the task facing Kissell appeared to be too great. Three months on the job, he needed to take a personal leave and the whispers started. Was he in over his head? Couldn’t he take the pressure? Ted found himself in a very difficult position, away from extended family and friends and it took its toll, “I began at UD August 1, 1992. Within three months, I was out of commission
for three months with a clinical depression. Had no prior history or any problems since. It was an extremely difficult circumstance for my family being in new surroundings with no friends or established support system. Brother Ray (Fitz S. M., U.D. President) never stopped believing in me. He had previous experience with someone suffering from clinical depression and knew that the condition had a beginning and an end. The fortunate thing about clinical depression is that the imbalance in brain chemistry can be corrected through medication. However, I believe that the support of Bro. Ray, the loving care of my wife Deanna, and God's grace had as much or more to do with my recovery.”
.
When he returned, Kissell hit the ground running. He had big shoes to fill, but an even bigger job to accomplish. Only two years away from its last NCAA appearance, the basketball program was about to fall on very hard times. The Midwestern Collegiate Conference had done everything that could ever do for Dayton and was not going to be the vehicle to the national spotlight. It was time to make a change, “The initial vision of the Great Midwest was big time basketball, big time tradition, big time arenas, big time support, and strong conference. The mix changes but everyone hit a certain threshold on those requirements.”

What Kissell didn’t realize was that the spring of basketball talent had run dry. The one athletic program that had seen real success over an extended period of time was to only win 10 games over the next two seasons. The one thing that made us attractive to the new league was about to abandon him. “I came into a very different context in the sense that the basketball program was about to bottom out. When Frericks was here he needed to come up with a better building. For me it was to get us into a premier athletics conference. To be in such a conference you need to have an authentic broad based athletics program. That was irrelevant in Frericks’ day. The goal stays the same. For the University of Dayton to be successful, the men’s basketball program must be nationally prominent because everything flows from that. What you must do to achieve that changes. What Mr. Frericks needed to do was very different from what I needed to do, but the goals were the same. It used to be that you could put all of your resources into the men’s basketball team and the rest of the programs were scholarship free.”

For a brief period of time it looked like the move to the Great Midwest would serve the University in the long run. Despite the woes that faced the basketball program, just being part of the GMC should bring in better athletes and get the program back on top. However, behind closed doors, the rest of the league was looking at the entire program and wondering if they really needed Dayton. The basketball program was down and the rest of the programs were barely above Division III levels.

Things were changing within college basketball and we were being left behind, “I think what really hurt the program aside from the losing that occurred during the O’Brien years was the fact that at the same time that the industry was undergoing cataclysmic change, Dayton found itself in a protracted leadership transition. The timing of those things could not have been worse. Mr. Frericks’ illness and failing health was occurring at the same time that the industry was turning topsy-turvy. That put us well behind the curve. The programs were under resourced. The business model was no longer valid. Mr. Frericks had a great business model. It was to keep the prices at the Arena low, very low and treat the customers great. That business model served us well as long as we didn’t need to support other sports programs. When Title IX hit, the NCAA rules changed on how many scholarships you had to provide and they literally changed the rules on how you had to support sports programs and how many you had and who you had to play. Now your baseball team had to play 90% of its games against other Division I schools. You could no longer run it like a Division III program. Now you would have to go down to play the University of Cincinnati and potentially be embarrassed. As a result, the business model in place no longer made sense in that environment. Conference affiliation now became critical.”

Just as conference affiliation was becoming the overriding factor in the potential success of the basketball program, UD was told that they were no longer welcome in the newly transformed GMC, now called Conference USA. Not only were we reeling from a nose-diving basketball program we were now adrift in a turbulent ocean with no life preserver. Kissell relates, “In retrospect, it can be said that moving to the GMC was strategically unsound. But the important thing is that we were willing to move in that direction. We were fortunate. People do not know the politics that went into the decision to have Dayton leave the GMC. We were not a very appealing program at that time and it wasn’t just basketball. What I felt was important at the time was, what were we trying to accomplish? Were we going to back down or try to get the program to compete at the highest level possible? The men’s basketball program, and I’m not trying to slight any other program, we are talking about our economic engine from a business prospective, are we going to allow it to fail or return to a national stage. Dayton still wants to be a player. Do we want to return to national prominence or do we want to remain were we are? It was an institutional commitment to return to a top level.”

Things could not have been worse for Oliver Purnell and the basketball program. Not only was the team in a downward spiral, we were now without a conference, “It was really tough on Oliver. His first recruiting class was made up of Coby Turner and Josh Postorino. We weren’t even in a league. Coby was coming to his camps for years and Josh wasn’t on anybody’s top 100 list. So the challenge was two fold: to rebuild a basketball program and to build an authentic broad based athletic program.”

Like it or not, Kissell now knew what had to be done and the urgency to make it happen. Through some help from our friends at Xavier and some hard work by the Administration, there was some light at the end of the tunnel. Affiliation with the Atlantic 10 had been assured and the program was no long without a home. Yet, UD was not in a position of comfort and it was time for change, “We needed to move part time coaches to full time coaches and creating more opportunities for support for the program. In discussion was a seating program and aggressive fundraising for the Donoher Center. When I arrived here, the program was very similar to the Arizona program when I got there. It was a very operationally oriented program, very internally focused. The external capacity needed to be developed.”

The way that the Athletic Department did its job was going to change. We were lucky that we fell where we did. In the overall scheme of things, the A-10 is probably a much better fit for UD than the GMC was. But the way that things were constantly evolving during that period of time, Kissell wanted to be much better prepared if this type of potential disaster ever happened again, “My focus has been to get us to where people would come to us and want us in their conference. When the Great Midwest was dissolved they looked at us and said, ‘We are forming a new league and we don’t need Dayton.’ I told our staff that our challenge is if that ever happens again, the people sitting around the table will make the statement, ‘We must have Dayton.’ We are still not there. Maybe because it isn’t possible, maybe it is because it is an ideal, but it is something that we strive for.”

It is easy to look at the men’s basketball program and get a good feel where they fall in the national pecking order. It is not so easy when looking at the other programs because many are on the rise. In 1992, it was very easy to see where the programs were because it had never been a matter of concern. They were in the only place that they could have been and that was at the lowest levels within the conference. Realizing that conference affiliation was not just based upon how well the basketball team did, the Athletic Department went to work to create a plan that could upgrade virtually all of the supported sports.

Everyone was involved and facilities tended to be very high on most lists, “One of the nice things about facilities is that they are a one time financial hit, something that does not hit your budget every year. It has a big impact on how students, athletes, coaches and recruits feel about us. We talk a lot of where we are and where we would like to be. We try to be brutally honest. We look at how we are viewed in the marketplace. One of your challenges is how to brake through the mental model that is set up in kids’ heads concerning what is ‘Big Time.’ They grow up watching Michigan and North Carolina and Duke on TV week after week and that is what they consider ‘“Big Time.’ You have to change the recruit’s and their parents’ thinking in that you can have the best of both worlds, a good education in a family oriented caring atmosphere and still have big time basketball. It was from conversations like that that the idea of the Donoher Center came about. You have to do something dramatic to get that point across. When a recruit or parent walks in, you want them to think, ‘Whew, this is big time.’”

Ted Kissell has a job that is almost as open to second-guessing as any coach. He has to be the final decision maker when it comes to dropping or upgrading programs. He is the man that must make all of the final hiring and firing decisions within the department. He is the man that must tell the loyal fans that it is now going to cost them considerably more to watch their favorite team because of a new seating plan. He may not have had a plan when he walked through those doors the first day, but it didn’t take him long to begin the process and get us headed in the right direction.


The Business of Sport


If you spend much time with Ted Kissell, you come to realize that he is more than a teacher, more than a coach, more than an Administrator. Although none of us like to admit it, sports is no longer just the fun of shooting the ball around and seeing who is better. There is more than just pride on the line. Like it or not, sports have become one of the biggest businesses in the not only the United States, but the world as a whole. If you are running a school’s Athletic Department and fail to recognize that fact, you will not be able to keep you job for as long as Ted Kissell has.

Although it may not have been of his own design, Ted Kissell has become a businessman; “I think that there is a polarity between the view of sports as sports and sports as business. People ask me what I do in the summer between golf matches. I tell them that I try to get in a little tennis too. The truth is, I do the same thing that any CEO of a $12 million company does and that is run the business. You don’t want people thinking that all we are trying to do is run a business, but you have to apply good fundamental business principles. It is a small business. We have 75 full time employees that gets up to 250 when you include part time employees plus 480 student athletes.”

The University of Dayton sports programs must be able to stand on their own feet. Although the University administrators realize that the success of the basketball and other programs can increase enrolment, the first job of a university is to educate young people, not give them a reason to throw a party after the big game. With that in mind, the Athletic Department must be self-funding. To do that, Kissell must take on the same responsibilities as any company head. He must recognize weaknesses and fix them. He must recognize strengths and exploit them.

Kissell realizes that people are his best tool, “Everybody makes a contribution and you can only contribute in the context of the particular time and the opportunity that that times has. You can say the Blackburn got us on the national stage, but what Mr. Frericks did was provide the showcase. It was tremendous work and vision on his part. The Arena not only allowed us to advance the success of our own program but to put us on the national stage consistently through the NCAA tournament. Coach Donoher continued that success and took it to what is now the great stage, the NCAA. It is about everybody making a contribution in his or her time.” By allowing those that work for him to make decisions, he brings out the best in people.
Like any other businessman, Ted realizes that recruiting both on and off the basketball court has to be successful for his operation to run smoothly. In his book, Stop Whining---Start Winning, a highly sought-after motivational speaker and UD grad, Frank Pacetta spends one full chapter on Kissell and his approach to people. Pacetta writes, “What I see in this Ted Kissell and Oliver Purnell story is a case study in people-ology. Kissell would never have gotten his man without personal involvement, a passionate commitment to finding the best person for the job and the determination to overcome all the barriers that popped up. Clearly, from early on, the message Ted Kissell conveyed to his prospect was a passionate desire to get him on his team. People want to be wanted. If passion is missing from the recruiting process, it becomes ho-hum and the results deteriorate accordingly.”
Like other businesses, there is only so much money to go around. Like other businesses, you do your best to increase sales, but you have to manage to the bottom line and sometimes you have to make cuts and sacrifices for the good of the company, “We do not have the financial resources to compete on a national basis in all of our sports so we have to make decisions concerning the tiering of sports. If you talk to the people from Ohio State or Michigan, they would say it is a terrible thing to tier sports. That is easy to say when you have enough money to give every sport what they want. We cannot do that. The choice is selective excellence or across the board mediocrity. To me that is a very easy choice. We give men’s and women’s basketball what they need to be successful, but after that we have to sit down and make decisions concerning where we can compete strongly.”

Kissell continues, “We do not have a chance to compete well in the sports that require good weather. So we have a bias toward the sports that are not affected by weather or our academic calendar. Baseball, for instance, is going on long after the end of spring semester at the University of Dayton. We have a bias to support team sports over individual sports. The support of tennis and golf becomes a very strategic decision. We do our best to give the student-athlete a rewarding athletic experience. We fund the basketball programs first and then take a look at each of the other sports and decide, ‘What will it take to make it a rewarding intercollegiate athletic experience.’ Then we create that budget. We then divide up what is left and give it to the sports where we can differentiate ourselves. Anybody can offer a scholarship. We like to think that we do a better job of hiring good coaches.”

With the announcement in the fall that Dayton would be upgrading the Arena, there was the hope that the money would be well spent and that sales, through ticket, concession and box sales would more than make up for the costs involved in the project. In addition, plans were announced for new baseball and softball stadiums and a boathouse for the rowing team. This is on the heels of improvements to the Stuart baseball field and Baujan Field, which is used for men and women’s soccer. This is part of the long-term plan for the university, “We also feel that we can differentiate ourselves with facilities. As a point of differentiation, we have focused on facilities. Is a sport court a big deal when you turn on TV and see the Pac-10 or the Big-10, no? But not everybody in the Atlantic 10 has it. What we have done at Baujan Field with the terracing differentiates us in soccer. We are also doing some things for baseball and softball.”

There is a long-term plan in place and it is not just about winning the next championship. It is about creating a solid foundation for not only the basketball program, but for all of the 17 sports that are funded by the University. UD is no longer at the bottom of the ladder with regard to other sports. The soccer, volleyball and baseball teams can hold their heads high with newfound success. The woman’s basketball program is on the verge of moving into the upper tier of the A-10. The athletic programs are no longer hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

Ted Kissell can be an easy man to work for if you produce. If you don’t, your experience will not be nearly as enjoyable. As he puts it, “If you work for me you don’t talk about effort, you talk about results.”

In the same vain, he is just as difficult on himself. When pressed into giving himself a grade for his efforts he was very reluctant to do so, “If I had to grade myself, I could not. I can tell you that something that I am good at is the selection of people that work in a collaborative way but are high performers at the same time. That and creating and nurturing an environment that they can succeed. I think I do that well. The best compliment that I have ever received is from Brother Ray when he said, ‘Ted is a leader of leaders.’ I like to think that we distribute leadership and that people are trusted to take initiative and not worry about being second-guessed. I feel that my main job is to be Chief People Officer. You need to be about performance and performance in a team environment to work here. If you are, you will get all kinds of opportunities to excel and stand out. Those are the kind of people that we have here and I’m not just talking about the coaches. I would give myself an “A” for that. I can’t think of anything else that I deserve an “A” in.”

There was a time when Ted Kissell was viewed upon as an outsider. He did not bleed the same blue and red that everyone else did. Yet, he has learned what it is about to be a Dayton Flyer, “I think the University of Dayton creates a culture of challenge and support that allows you to be better than you ever thought you could be. I have learned so much here that it is unbelievable. I have been able to spend countless hours with Brother Ray, who is a man with an enormous presence. To learn from him and work with him has been an unbelievable experience. He has been a tremendous influence on me. He redefined for me what toughness is. True toughness comes out of a deep sense of personal integrity. He knows the right thing to do no matter how tough the circumstances. He is so warm and kind. I have gained so much more from this experience than I could ever contribute. It is a pretty special place.”
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  #1  
By UDBrian on 12-17-2008, 05:33 PM
John, that was a great interview

here are my favorite comments

Little did Kissell know when he took over just what was ahead of him, “I didn’t come in with a plan. I didn’t know enough. I had watched someone else take a program to a higher level and I was part of that team. When I came in here, I didn’t know nearly enough. You would be surprised at how stupid I was. I had no idea how much needed to be done.

Ted Kissell can be an easy man to work for if you produce. If you don’t, your experience will not be nearly as enjoyable. As he puts it, “If you work for me you don’t talk about effort, you talk about results.”

“If I had to grade myself, I could not. I can tell you that something that I am good at is the selection of people that work in a collaborative way but are high performers at the same time. That and creating and nurturing an environment that they can succeed. I think I do that well.
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  #2  
By Chris R on 12-19-2008, 08:09 PM
good read JC.
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  #3  
By UACFlyer on 12-20-2008, 11:09 AM
Adversity!

To say that in his first few years TK had to deal with more than anyone's fair share of adversity would be an understatement. However, coming from a senior administrative position at a major university like Arizona, I have a feeling that Ted knew more and was better equipped to deal with UD than he lets on. Becoming ill almost immediately was an enormous blow that could never have been anticipated by anyone involved.

Getting through that three month period attests to the courage both of Ted and Brother Ray.

There is every reason to be completely confident that Tim will be a worthy successor, having been Ted's right hand man for so long. No doubt Tim has been in Ted's succession plan for quite a while.

It is often said that a CEO's most important job is choosing a successor. Ted has done that. However, Tim is a bit older than Ted was when he came to UD, meaing that Tim's tenure is not likely to be 17 years; it might not be 10 years. That being the case, after settling in to his new job it's up to Tim to start thinking about grooming a "right hand man" as well as developing a short list of outside names of potential successors. Better to start thinking about things like that when one has the luxury of time. Life often takes unexpected twists and turns. The old Boy Scout motto applies: "Be prepared".

Many thanks and very best wishes Ted;...and good luck Tim; you're working at a special place.

UACFlyer
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