Latest / The Action Catalyst / A Million Ladders, with Ellen Hoggard (Education, Youth Development, International Affairs, Travel)

Transcript

A Million Ladders, with Ellen Hoggard (Education, Youth Development, International Affairs, Travel) · The Action Catalyst

0:31
Adam Outland: Today's guest is Ellen Hoggard, President of High
0:34
School in the USA cultural exchange program, a part of GEC,
0:39
Global Educational Concepts right here at the Southwestern
0:42
Family of Companies. Ellen, thank you so much for being with
0:45
us today. How does someone find their way into the field that
0:50
you're in with cultural and international exchange programs?
0:54
Ellen Hoggard: Well, thank you for asking me, and thank you for
0:56
having me. And you know, honestly, the best way to learn
0:59
about international educational exchange personally is to either
1:03
host an exchange student in your own family or to go on an
1:07
exchange yourself. And I actually, personally have done
1:11
both things. I went to England at the age the little age of 14
1:16
years old, and came running home from high school as a high
1:19
school freshman with all these papers, and said, Mom, Dad, I
1:22
want to go on this exchange program. And they looked at each
1:24
other and said, what's an exchange program? I had to
1:27
convince them that this is a great idea to go to England for
1:31
a summer and live with the host family. And my parents knew I
1:36
was always interested in everything International,
1:38
because I heard all the stories about my ancestors from Scotland
1:42
and Ireland. So of course, I wanted to go explore, so I went
1:46
to England for a summer, and then we hosted my English sister
1:50
for a few weeks, I think a month. She came back the next
1:53
summer, and my host mom from England, she came and stayed
1:56
with so actually, I've been in touch with my host mom until
2:00
last year, when she sadly passed away. But these are lifelong
2:03
relationships that you create and have forever with these
2:07
people. And then, because I got bitten by that bug, I went to
2:11
Romania of all places, on a music exchange with my high
2:15
school at 16 years old. That was the most formative experience of
2:20
my young life, because no one at that point in the 70s was going
2:23
to Romania. It was a very communist country. Behind the
2:26
Iron Curtain. Everywhere I went, I was always the first American
2:30
anyone ever saw. And it was not lost on me that the presumption
2:35
was that Americans were evil and we were bad people, because
2:38
that's what their media had told them, because they literally
2:41
only had the Communist Party feeding them whatever they
2:44
wanted to say. This was an incredible moment for me in
2:47
Romania to be talking in my very poor French to Romanians, that's
2:51
their second language, and trying to have a Romanian
2:54
teenagers talk to the American teenagers with me on my program.
2:57
And I want to be honest with you at that moment, I remember
3:00
standing in Romania thinking, I don't know what my life's gonna
3:03
look like when I'm a grown up, but I have to do something like
3:07
this, because I could see at that young age that there were
3:10
so many misconceptions and misunderstandings about our
3:13
countries, but we were all just young teenage kids. We liked the
3:17
same things, we listened to the music, we found commonalities,
3:21
and I was hooked.
3:22
Adam Outland: Yeah. I grew up in Germany for about seven, eight
3:26
years, and it was during, well, the very, very beginning of my
3:30
life, there was still a wall up, wow. You know, my dad and mom
3:34
were opera singers, and they would perform in East Berlin, so
3:38
they had to, like, transit, you know, across that line and then
3:41
get to be worried about crossing back over. And the conversations
3:46
that you'd have, you know, just talking to my dad about it was
3:49
with people in East Berlin, and they all love the arts. It's
3:53
kind of what brought them together. But cultural sharing
3:56
and that wall that was put up really prevented that for many
3:58
years. It created a metaphorical wall between the cultures and
4:02
east and west. And I think about that when we talk about
4:06
international exchange, because when I moved to the States to
4:09
western North Carolina, there were not a lot of traveled
4:12
people in that community, and there was some layers of lack of
4:17
understanding and context, and a lot of honestly negative things
4:22
come from that. But I think how important it was to my childhood
4:26
to have an international perspective on life.
4:30
Ellen Hoggard: So you understand our experience in our world,
4:32
probably better than anybody having lived there in very
4:36
formative years in your life. I spent a lot of time in Germany
4:40
running what was called the Congress Bundestag exchange
4:43
program. That's it's actually one of the oldest exchange
4:46
programs supported by the German Bundestag and the US Congress.
4:50
And we send hundreds of Americans for a year, and they
4:53
send hundreds of Germans for a year to live in each other's
4:56
homes and go to high school. And I was deeply honored to run the
4:59
vocab. Educational part of that for nine years. So I went back
5:03
and forth to Germany twice or three times a year. And I won't
5:07
go into the whole story, but let's just say I went to East
5:10
Berlin every year, and one year I broke all my own rules from my
5:13
students. I didn't tell anyone I was going. I went by myself. I
5:16
stayed too late, and I actually was detained at the Berlin Wall
5:20
for probably, um, they took my passport away, and I was
5:24
detained for several hours, and it was a very interesting
5:27
experience for me to really understand and appreciate what
5:31
democracy and freedom really means, because in those hours
5:35
where no one knew where I was because I was foolish and young,
5:39
I realized what blessings we have to be able to come back,
5:42
but the East Germans that eventually, that I don't know
5:45
what it was in my paperwork, that red flag me. But
5:47
eventually, because I stayed calm, I spoke very politely,
5:51
they eventually let me go back, and the East Germans in the line
5:54
with me to help me through, helped me get on the right
5:57
train, because I was so unnerved I was going to get on the wrong
5:59
train and go further into East Germany. But again, people are
6:03
wonderful. People are people all trying to help each other.
6:07
Adam Outland: What's so interesting about the work that
6:09
you do, because on an individual perspective, it's very eye
6:11
opening and formative and and you build these cross cultural
6:15
relationships. I think in a macro perspective, it can shift
6:19
a country's dynamics.
6:21
Ellen Hoggard: 100%. So at one point in my career, I was deeply
6:24
honored to be the person who was sent all through the Soviet then
6:26
Adam Outland: It also plays a massive role in creating
6:28
Soviet Union to convince ministries of education to sign
6:31
the first agreements ever allowing High School long term
6:34
exchanges between Soviet and communist countries in our
6:37
country, and one of my favorite was liszthuania. I took a 12
6:41
hour train ride that turned out being a 15 hour train ride from
6:44
St Petersburg to Vilnius, and there was no heat on the train,
6:48
no food on the train, but I shared this compartment with
6:51
this lovely couple. He was a veteran from World War Two. They
6:55
shared their food with me, and I bought blankets for all of us.
6:58
And I just remember thinking, I just need to get to Vilnius and
7:02
get a cup of coffee in a hot shower, because I had the first
7:05
group of liszthuanian teenagers to ever come to the US long term
7:09
waiting for their orientation program from me. And I stepped
7:13
off the train, and the gentleman I worked with in Lithuania said,
7:16
Welcome to Lithuania, we're thrilled you convinced the
7:20
ministry to let this happen. And by the way, there's no hot
7:23
water, there's no shower for you, but we'll get you a cup of
7:26
coffee. So I said, Okay, wow. Okay, beautiful, gorgeous
7:29
cultural relationships for countries, and really brings
7:30
country. I can't say enough about this part of the world. I
7:33
cannot say enough about that part of the world that is not as
7:37
well traveled by Americans as other parts of Europe, I highly
7:40
recommend everyone to go and Romania. I have to put a pitch
7:44
in for my host country, where I'm not going to lie. It was
7:47
very emotional when I went there and signed the first agreement
7:51
with the remaining government for the first long term exchange
7:54
students. I got there just after the revolution, and the hotel I
7:58
stayed in still had bullet holes in the walls. My family wasn't
8:01
too happy about me going, but nothing was going to stop me,
8:05
and we did sign the first agreement when I went at 16. Let
8:08
me be clear, it was a short term, three week music exchange
8:12
supported by the Reader's Digest. Fast forward to the
8:15
early 90s. These exchanges were long term students coming for
8:18
five months or 10 months, serious exchange. And by the
8:21
way, not accompanied by a KGB agent, which my group was the
8:25
whole time we were in Romania. They came on their own. They
8:28
stayed with families. It was a true, pure, real exchange
8:31
experience for these kids.
8:38
people and understanding to a different level.
8:43
Ellen Hoggard: Yeah. The other thing I'll mention about
8:45
exchange, just to plug it, is there's 64 high school exchange
8:49
programs like high school in the USA. We're one of the newest,
8:53
but we're populated by a team that has, collectively over 75
8:58
years of experience running high school exchange programs. And we
9:01
all came here because we wanted to work with people like you and
9:05
GEC and the integrity and ethics that Southwestern brings to
9:10
every business they support. Plus we are the only high school
9:14
exchange program in the United States that offers our high
9:18
school exchange students the beautiful LEAD program, and this
9:23
knocks the socks off of every exchange student that comes. And
9:27
what we really want to do is build the leaders of tomorrow to
9:32
go back to their countries and really do their best for their
9:35
countries.
9:36
Adam Outland: Yeah, the injection of entrepreneurial
9:39
spirit that coming to the US and having that experience can
9:44
change a country, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I
9:47
think you know in your personal journey, you've moved into roles
9:50
that involve leadership. How did that shift for you, Ellen, from
9:54
going the student in the exchange, said, now we're like
9:58
handling the operations of the exchange.
10:00
Ellen Hoggard: That is a great question, and I will just say,
10:03
first of all, with great humility, this was a quite a
10:07
long journey. I think the reason I'm so happy sitting in this
10:11
chair and so dedicated is because I've literally done
10:14
every job in the industry. I worked from administrative
10:18
assistant position at AFS. That was my first job. I ran all the
10:22
end of state programs for 3000 AFS, ers. And when you work for
10:26
a non profit, we're very used to wearing about 20 hats at once,
10:31
getting paid very little. You either have that work ethic or
10:34
you don't. And you learn a lot. You have to learn all the
10:37
logistics. This is pre cell phone, pre internet, we had maps
10:42
all over the walls, and you really had to learn a sense of
10:45
strong logistical management that not only didn't scare me,
10:48
that inspired me, because I saw the kids having a magnificent
10:52
time. AFS is old. They're the oldest exchange program, but
10:56
that was a brand new department that I built with two other with
10:58
two guys and myself, and then I moved into another program,
11:03
where it was a consortium of five exchange programs, running
11:07
the Agency for International Development participant training
11:11
program for people from the developing world to come and
11:14
learn skill sets to take back to their home countries. Then I
11:17
pivoted to Sister Cities ran their brand new intern Trainee
11:21
program. By the time I got to this chair, to be honest, I'd
11:24
done pretty much every job, and I did that on purpose because,
11:28
like you guys say, you can't teach what you don't know, and
11:33
you can't leave where you won't go. So being in a leadership
11:36
position at this point in my career, the joy I have, in
11:40
addition to my passion about international exchange, is
11:43
watching my staff and helping my team become a 2.0 better version
11:49
of themselves.
11:50
Adam Outland: So in that journey and holding all those different
11:53
positions, what were some of the more challenging moments?
11:57
Ellen Hoggard: That's a great question. Well, the immediate
11:59
thing that comes to mind is I was in charge of over 400
12:03
students close well, around 400 students when COVID hit, and
12:08
having to find a way to shepherd and care for 400 young people
12:14
from 20 plus countries when none of us really knew the facts
12:19
about what was happening, what was going on. We were working
12:22
seven days a week, round the clock, having I remember having
12:25
leadership global meetings at 7am every single day, and we got
12:29
every student home safe and sound. Because as a mother, I'm
12:32
a proud mom of two wonderful young ladies who are in their
12:36
20s now, I just felt the most important thing to do was to get
12:39
all these children home to their families safe and sound, and
12:42
then see how COVID unfolded. But I have to tell you that that was
12:47
daunting. There was no road map. There was no advice that we
12:51
could follow. I had to follow my gut instincts, knowing that as a
12:55
mother, I wanted these children to be safe, and I had to keep
12:59
everyone calm, not only were the students and families freaking
13:03
out, we were all freaking out, right? The whole world was
13:06
freaking out. So I had the students, first and foremost,
13:09
the host families, the local coordinators, but the courage I
13:14
saw during that time frame, you cannot believe what these
13:18
families did for these kids, because we'd have a flight
13:21
arranged, but airports were shutting down. Local airports
13:24
were all shutting down. I had families driving kids to
13:28
different states hours at a time, keeping them safe, getting
13:31
them on planes. I had flights shut down when they'd already
13:34
gotten to some of those airports, and they had to pivot
13:37
and get them to another airport. And think about it. These people
13:41
are doing this as volunteers, but these children became their
13:44
children, I would say, as a young person, probably one of
13:48
the biggest challenges for me. I got up the ladder quite quickly
13:52
in my career to a very senior position, and I was working for
13:56
a program that was taking very good care of me. I had a huge
14:00
future there. But then I was asked to do things I wasn't
14:03
comfortable doing, and we all had that fork in the road moment
14:05
in our life. I had to make a decision whether I wanted to
14:08
stay and keep going in that direction where I can make a lot
14:12
of money and do very well, but I realized that you only have one
14:16
reputation, and you better really honor it. So I resigned
14:20
from that position, I gave a month's notice, and that was a
14:24
pivotal moment in my life, where the road, there was a fork in
14:27
the road, and I know I took the right fork. And when you're up
14:31
against these personal and professional challenges, you've
14:34
got to remain true to your your soul, your integrity and your
14:37
belief system, and then somehow things do always have a way of
14:41
working out. And I'm no Pollyanna, life is bittersweet.
14:44
You've got to saber this sweet and deal with the bitter.
14:47
Adam Outland: You know, this is kind of an interesting take on
14:48
it too. But what are some of the bigger stereotypes that you've
14:52
seen broken down because of the nature of hosting and bringing
14:57
in a new culture like, you know, when I first came to this team.
14:59
States, people just had this association in the community I
15:02
lived in that Germany was like a communist country, right?
15:06
Because it wasn't so long ago that East Berlin was a thing,
15:09
and I just had to kind of explain and share that it was,
15:13
you know, socialism is a little different than communism. Even
15:15
socialism, it was pretty capitalistic on the western
15:19
side, whether or not that same form of structure would work
15:22
great in the US. It works very well for German people. But what
15:27
are some of those stereotypes that you feel like you've seen
15:29
broken down as a as a result of your work?
15:32
Ellen Hoggard: That is such a great question, and may I please
15:35
echo that Germany has one of the strongest economies in the
15:38
world. So you know, hearkening back to when we started bringing
15:43
these young people from they were truly communist countries
15:46
at the time, I think people were astounded at how open minded the
15:51
teenagers were. They expected them to come over here and kind
15:56
of spew the party line or tell them that, Oh, it's great where
16:01
they live. I mean, they have so much to be proud of in their
16:04
beautiful countries. No matter what your politics are, everyone
16:08
has a beautiful culture and country to share. But I will
16:12
say, on both sides, both the students that came and the
16:15
students that still come, they were surprised quite often at
16:19
how normal Americans are, and you know, we're just regular
16:23
people, and the streets are not paved with gold, at least not
16:27
where our exchange students go. In fact, not, pretty much
16:30
anywhere I've gone. So a lot of stereotypes were washed out on
16:34
both sides. And over and over and over again, I've seen people
16:39
say things like, I never dreamt that you would be open to going
16:45
to a baseball game or or considering that. You know, here
16:49
in America we we volunteer so much, one of the biggest
16:53
impressions all of exchange programs make on young people is
16:56
the spirit of volunteerism, and the kids embrace it and take it
17:00
home or replicate it in their home countries worldwide,
17:04
volunteerism is just not as big a thing. And people coming to
17:08
this country, I want everyone to understand, are so impressed
17:12
with you, all of us that wait you actually choose to volunteer
17:16
at your church or in your community or as a boy scout or
17:19
at school and help the homeless like this is astounding to
17:23
people, and it's a great virtue that we export. But when the
17:27
kids come, I think American families and schools understand
17:32
there's so many beautiful things in their cultures that we can
17:35
learn from like you mentioned about there are other economic
17:39
systems that work just fine. It's astounding to people here.
17:42
It's just a beautiful blending of the world globally. And I
17:47
just think everyone comes away from these exchanges a happier,
17:51
more fulfilled, wider viewed person.
17:55
Adam Outland: Yeah. I had a really interesting conversation
17:57
with a friend of mine who is in the medical device arena, and he
18:03
was explaining how a lot of doctors have very niche
18:07
practices, and in the device world, he sometimes would see
18:11
what other doctors did in different laboratories or
18:14
different segments of medicine. And because of that, he would
18:17
begin proposing the creation to his distributors of new medical
18:21
tools, because they were being one way in a brain surgeon's
18:26
hands, but they could have equally been used for a spinal
18:28
surgeon, and it just made me think of how often we miss an
18:33
opportunity to learn by studying another culture or craft, that
18:38
there are applications here in The US, for how we run our
18:42
country, for how business operates. And we, you know,
18:45
sometimes we do think everything we do is probably the best way,
18:48
but that often is somewhat ignorant of the fact that there
18:53
are some really good practices elsewhere that we can learn
18:55
from. And likewise.
18:57
Ellen Hoggard: Well, I really love the fact that when kids
19:01
come here, one of the things they always say to us is, am I
19:05
What's so polite here? Like they're not used to customer
19:08
customer service is not a thing in most of Europe the way it is
19:12
here. And we're so well, we assume this is the way it should
19:16
always be, right? So we can certainly learn so much from
19:20
other cultures, their beautiful food, their like, the efficiency
19:24
of their systems in many cases, like you could eat off the floor
19:28
of the trains or in the bathrooms. I was just in Rome,
19:31
and you literally could eat off the floor of the bathrooms in
19:35
the conference areas and in the public spaces. And I think of
19:39
the world, this is a kind of silly analogy, but I think of my
19:43
life and the world like this beautiful I love food, so I
19:46
think of it as a beautiful menu. And if we choose from a, choose
19:50
from B, choose from C, and then put together the best, most
19:53
beautiful menu you could ever imagine, because we're so lucky
19:57
in this time in the world that we can travel. So much and bring
20:00
young people and exchange students to us, so you can kind
20:03
of take the best parts of things you like, consider the other
20:06
things, maybe they're things you don't have as much love for. And
20:10
okay, that's fine, but the world's a pretty great big menu,
20:14
if you let it be, and then your life can be populated by the
20:18
things that you've learned through the people you meet,
20:21
through the places you go, through the students you host,
20:24
and our host families, by the way, they end up going to their
20:28
students, weddings. They go visit their students families.
20:31
And when you typically go visit a student you've hosted, don't
20:35
even try to open your wallet. You will not be able to open
20:38
your wallet, because their families are so grateful for the
20:42
incredible love and experience and attention making their child
20:47
a part of their family. When you go to their home, they'll do
20:50
everything for you. It's and this goes. This is generational.
20:54
This isn't just for once. I have friends of mine who've been in
20:57
exchange as long as I have who are now going, not only just to
21:00
weddings, of their exchange, who's getting married, but a few
21:03
of them are starting to have their they call them their
21:05
exchange grandbabies. I mean, it's incredible.
21:08
Adam Outland: Lifelong connections. It's huge. I want
21:11
to go through, if you don't mind, like maybe a quick
21:13
lightning round of questions with you. When you travel
21:19
internationally to another country, what are the top two
21:22
things that you bring that might not always be on people's list?
21:28
Ellen Hoggard: That's a great question. Let's see. What do I
21:30
bring? Well, I need, like, snack bars through the day, I always
21:35
bring snack like, really healthy snack bars. I stick them, I
21:38
stick them all over my suitcase, and then, because I'm always on
21:42
the move, I can't necessarily always grab stuff quickly. So I
21:46
always bring my snack bars. That's number one. And the other
21:50
thing is, I always, always bring super comfy shoes, because when
21:55
you're traveling around the world, I mean, for my business
21:57
meetings, I have to have my fancy schmancy heels, right? But
22:01
I bring a briefcase that what people will never know is my
22:04
workout sneakers are always in the bottom of it. And because
22:07
I'm walking everywhere, I love to walk, because that's how you
22:11
really see a place, right? You don't see a place taking cabs or
22:14
whatever. But I love to walk, so I'll always wear my walking
22:19
sneakers and my socks with my fancy outfit. And then just when
22:23
I get to the building, I found a bed to sit down change to my
22:26
heels and shove my sneakers. And you gotta your feet have to be
22:30
comfortable and you have to have snacks. So those are my top two.
22:35
Adam Outland: That's awesome. I love that. And then, do you have
22:38
a favorite quote?
22:40
Ellen Hoggard: Yes, I do. I was so weird in high school that my
22:44
quote was a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote under my picture. You know
22:48
how we always used to put our I don't know if they still do,
22:50
well, yes, they do little quotes, but they're usually
22:52
like, you know, go go crusaders or go lions, or, you know, mine
22:58
was this. We are that which we see build therefore your own
23:03
world. Ralph Waldo Emerson, yeah.
23:05
Adam Outland: Fits really well with what you do, because your
23:08
lens is a big part of how you you can't color the world
23:11
without seeing it through your eyes, right?
23:12
Ellen Hoggard: That's right.
23:14
Adam Outland: This is an interesting one. Define, if you
23:16
can, eloquently, what success means to you, and when you know
23:19
you've achieved it?
23:21
Ellen Hoggard: That's a great question. Success means to me,
23:25
having done something in my life that I hope has positively
23:29
impacted and made the world a better place in small ways and
23:33
big ways, success means to me, honestly, I really am a strong
23:37
believer that we have to put our families first, even though I'm
23:41
you can see I'm so passionate about my career. Success is
23:45
impacting the world through exchange. That's my big success.
23:50
But the bigger success for me, if I'm being really honest, is
23:53
that my family respects me and is proud of me, and they know
23:59
that they always come first. If I've accomplished that, which I
24:02
try, then I think I will have been a successful person.
24:06
Adam Outland: I'm a little bit of a sci fi guy, I saw a limited
24:10
run TV series, the whole theme, you could tell of this series,
24:14
everybody's on a spaceship. And what the author of the series
24:17
really wanted you to understand is, you know, he just put it in
24:20
a metal craft. But the reality is, Earth is flying through, you
24:24
know, the universe, and it's literally a living spaceship,
24:27
right? I mean, we're all on a rock collective. And all these
24:31
dynamics that happen in this show kind of happen in real life
24:35
on Earth, and that's what makes the show interesting. And it
24:38
just made me realize that, you know, we all, we don't always
24:41
realize that we're all on the rocket ship together. Love that
24:45
the exchange, the understanding of different cultures, the
24:49
ability to build Ross relationships and learn from
24:52
each others, is incredibly important to making sure we
24:55
don't blow up the spaceship.
24:57
Ellen Hoggard: I couldn't say it better. Thank you for that.
24:59
That's absolutely true and we're all so busy looking upwards at
25:04
our own journey, I encourage us all to look to the left and look
25:08
to the right as we hopefully move upwards in our in our
25:11
evolution of ourselves and being better people, and as we climb
25:16
whatever ladder it is that's important to us, I urge everyone
25:20
look to your left and look to your right, because guess what?
25:23
You'll see, like a million ladders of people all climbing
25:25
up and trying to get there too. And we're all trying to do but
25:29
in a way, well, we all should try and do it in a way that
25:32
helps each other, because maybe somebody's ladder, one of the
25:35
steps, is rickety. Maybe you want to hold your hand out and
25:37
say, Can I help you up there? That's something I was taught a
25:41
long time ago in my own family that we're here to help each
25:44
other. And you know that's replicating success, right? All
25:48
the ladders going up together, let's help each other.
25:51
Adam Outland: Yeah, there's room to do that. Well, I really
25:53
appreciate you taking the time to be our guest on the podcast
25:56
today. Alan, thank you for sharing some of your wisdom.
25:58
Thanks for the work that you do with international students, and
26:01
I wish you the best of luck as you pursue your mission.
26:04
Ellen Hoggard: I can't thank you enough. This has just been a
26:07
joy, and I can see why they have you doing this job, because
26:09
you're wonderful at it. Thank you so much for having me today.
26:13
Adam Outland: You got it, absolutely.