I spent a good deal of my working career traveling around the world, and that showed me a lot of what was out there beyond the United States. I jumped at the opportunity to give UW students the chance to taste that. |  |
| Seeing a return on investment | | Those sorts of comments make Gary happy to have taken part and provided support. “The trip was very satisfying,” Gary said. “The kids appeared to be getting into it and absorbing everything they could. They were interacting with their contemporaries from the University of Cape Town, and you could tell they were eager to learn and were letting their imaginations go to work.”
Gary grew up in Rio, Wisconsin, where his father owned a small business. After graduating from the University, he earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School. “That opened lots of new horizons for me,” he said. “If I hadn’t gone to the UW, I would not have had that chance.”
Gary spent much of his career with General Electric in ventures outside of the United States. “I was responsible for GE’s financial services activity,” he said. “Traditionally, they had made things in the U.S. and sold them abroad.” In the middle to late 1980s, the world had begun to change. “The company saw they could manufacture elsewhere and sell it anywhere.”
He persuaded GE to expand its financial services outside the country. Ten years later, the firm was active in 45 nations, with $10 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profit.
“Dean Paul Peercy wants the college and its students to be globally relevant. I hope I can help him with that,” Gary said. When presented with the opportunity to support the LeaderShape trip to Cape Town, “it didn’t take me but 20 minutes to say yes,” he said. “It was a chance to have me help others experience a little of what I had.” |
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| Grateful for the opportunity | | Sarah was certainly glad he gave her that chance. “Especially having had a few years of education in engineering, I see engaging with the world as a requirement instead of an option,” she said. “Since companies rarely conduct business in just their home country, any experience I can have dealing with people who live outside the U.S. is invaluable. Gaining a global perspective definitely makes you more marketable as a student seeking internships and full-time positions.
“More importantly, I also think that resolving the issues our world faces–like poverty and wealth distribution, the environment and education–will take the cooperation of people around the globe. Since I'm interested most in improving our environment, I can see how it is inappropriate to view these problems as problems of one country alone. We all breathe the same air and use the same water.”
Sarah and the LeaderShape group met with Gary on their fourth day in Cape Town. “Mr. Wendt addressed the group of UW and University of Cape Town students, telling us how excited he was for us all to have this opportunity,” she said. “We got to speak more intimately with Mr. Wendt when we had a guest leadership panel discussion in the middle of the six-day LeaderShape Institute. ...We had developed visions for our world earlier that day, and Mr. Wendt helped us think about making those visions manageable. |
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| “This was great to hear because we all had these lofty ideas and there was definitely a disconnect in my mind of how I could get from point A to point B,” she said. “He reminded us that we would be making many more ‘toothpaste decisions’ throughout our careers than life-altering ones, but, if we kept ourselves focused on the bigger goal, we could achieve it. He was very approachable.”
A few months after the experience, Sarah is noticing how attending the LeaderShape Institute has changed her. “I've always had trouble making decisions and setting realistic and meaningful ‘big-picture’ goals for myself,” she said. “LeaderShape and conversations with participants in the program have helped me to determine what I value and how I want to make an impact.
“The program has really been like acquiring a toolkit to decide where and how I can make an impact,” she said. “Now I hear people say, ‘But it's always been like that,’ or ‘that will never happen,’ and I approach the situation as ‘what is standing in the way?’ I'd tell Mr. Wendt that he not only invested in the UW students who went to South Africa, but in our communities, our campuses and the global community.” |
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