Latest / The ABACC Podcast® / Ep. 1 - Welcome to The ABACC Podcast®
Transcript
- Bruce Hoeker: Welcome to The ABACC Podcast®. This is our first episode, and I am super excited about this podcast and what it could mean for ABACC's members and future members for years to come. I want to talk a little bit about why we started this podcast and the purpose of it, but let me let me go back. I want to tell you a little bit about how I got here into higher ed and eventually into ABACC. I always knew as a even as a young kid I wanted to be something in business. I didn't really know what that meant. I wanted to work in an office, I wanted to do office types of things. And I didn't really know what that meant as a child, but it never really changed for me. I ended up going to business school. I got a job when I was 20 years old at a bank, and I really enjoyed it. And I thought this is it, this is how I get rich. This is how I make a ton money and how I leave this small town that I live in and really make it for myself. And I did all of those things. I really enjoyed my career. I enjoyed banking. Eventually one of my bosses bought one of our customers and asked me to come and run that business for him. And I thought this is it. This is this is where the money really starts to roll in. we were talking about partnerships and of course I was. about twenty-six years old at this point. And I thought, here I am. I've made it young. I'm I'm a go-getter, and here we go. And the more I did that, the more I focused on my career, and the more I focused on money, the less satisfied I was. And I discovered six or eight years into my career that it just wasn't nearly as fulfilling as I as I thought it was gonna be. And it was really discouraging. So By that point, I had been promoted numerous times before I ended up at my boss's company. And I hadn't interviewed in a quite a long time. And so I thought, well, I'm gonna let the world know that I'm looking for something. I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I did know that I wanted to do something a little bit more meaningful. I was making a lot of money, and I was making a lot of money for other people, and that was fine. It just felt very vain and it felt very pointless. And I thought I really want to do something that could help people. And so I started looking around for jobs. And for three years I sent out applications. I never in three years even got so much as a no thank you. Zero responses for many, many, many job applications for several years in a row. And the entire time I was praying and asking God to help me with my next My next job and my career and asking him to just direct. And I really felt like he was very silent during that lengthy period of time. And I remember asking him, God, where are you? I'm I'm trying really hard here to do the right thing. And you're not answering. And I didn't really understand why. Until one day I was sitting in church in my usual pew, and I opened my church bulletin, and there was a job posting. For the vice president for business and finance at Grace Christian University here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live. And I instantly thought, that's the one, that's the job. That's what I want to do. That's what I've been waiting for. That's what God has been waiting for. So I went and interviewed for that job, scared out of my mind. I was 29 years old by this point. And I thought, what business do I have being the The vice president of any institution, let alone a college. But I got the job. And I was so excited, so, so, so excited. And I came to my desk my first day. I remember vividly. my my predecessor was there. He was there for about a month with me, month or so, thankfully. and I remember thinking, I don't know what to do. I have absolutely no idea what to do. And I kept, you know, he I he. He showed me what he was doing every day and I just kind of job shadowed him for a month and then he left to go on to his next adventure. So there I was and I didn't know what to do. I there were so many issues and so many problems and so many regulations that I knew nothing about and I didn't even know where to learn about what was happening or what I needed to know. I had no idea, no idea at all. But my predecessor told me: if you go to one conference a year, make sure it's the ABACC conference. And by then I had been conferenced half to death. And I will be honest with you, the first ABACC conference that I was invited to go to was in Florida. And I thought, a trip to Florida sounds great in February. So my wife and I hopped on a plane and away we went to the first ABACC conference. Stayed in a very nice hotel, met some very nice people, and It couldn't have been more than the first or maybe even second workshop that I went to that I thought, this is really, really good. And this is where I find out the things that I need. And I had back in those days a legal pad because I didn't travel with a laptop and I don't think anybody else did at that point. This is a long time ago now. but I had a notepad and it was filled. I came home from my first ABACC conference with quite literally exactly 50 new ideas. And I went into my president's office excited beyond excitement. And I shared with him all 50 ideas. And he was very patient with me because 50 ideas, you know, he's looking at that going, where do we even start? But we started working on those things, and it was life-changing. But the biggest thing that I discovered there. And the first thing I told my president was, it's not just us. It's not just Grace Christian University. It's everybody. Everybody's dealing with the same problems. We're all struggling in the same exact areas. The comfort that that provided me was life-changing. It changed how I did my work. It changed how I thought about my work. It changed how I thought about my institution. It was everything. I got really involved with ABACC. I every time the doors were open, as one might say, I was there. I was at everything that they did. And back then it wasn't a whole lot. This is before such things as webinars or or anything like that. There was a newsletter, there was an insurance program, there was a a listserv. And I think I posted on that listserv every single day for the entire 10 years I was there. But five years in to To working at Grace, ABACC reached out to me and they said, you know, our executive director is leaving his institution. And back then it was a part-time job. an ABACC member also was the executive director of ABACC. I can't even fathom how that worked for the length of time that he did it. But ABACC asked me to come on board as executive director, and they asked me to do that part-time. And this was at a point in my career, five years into my career in higher ed, working 60 to 80 hours a week. And ABACC said, Hey, would you take a side job? And I I was so honored and unbelievably honored that they would even think to ask me to do that. But I think they looked at me and said, this guy understands what we're all about and we we want him as our next executive director. And for that I will be eternally grateful. I said no. I wanted to say yes, but I didn't understand how that would be possible. and the board being persistent, reached out to me two more times. And the third time that they called me, they just said, you know, we're we're getting together, I believe it was in Atlanta at the time, and they said, Would you just fly down and talk with us for a little bit and let's just talk? And quite frankly, between you and me and probably everybody else I've ever told, I had never been flown to an interview before. I remember I was young. I'm 34 at this point. and I thought that was pretty cool to get flown to an interview. So I agreed to do it with full intention of of politely saying no again. And I walked in that room and I realized the people in that room were the people answering my questions on the ABACC listserv. I knew them by name. I didn't know their faces, but I knew their names. And I looked at one of them in particular. He was the, I think he was the vice chair of the ABACC board at the time. And I thought that guy has answered so many of my questions and has saved me on so many occasions. How am I going to say no? I think it took me 10 minutes to say yes. And looking back, I realize none of that had anything to do with me. God ordained my entire career from start to finish. I can look back through every job I've ever had, and I can look and see exactly what I learned at each of those jobs in order to do my job here at ABACC. And understanding that is an incredible thing to realize I'm not on my own. It's not just up to me like I thought it was. it's more than me, it's bigger than me. This is something that God has arranged, and I'm simply a tool in this tool belt. And my goodness, grateful. I I can't even explain to you how grateful, how honored, privileged I feel to be a part of any plan, let alone God's plan, and to realize that I'm here for a reason and a purpose. And now I've been here for over 26 years. I have not loved every minute of it, but I've loved Almost all of it. And I get to support business officers just like me. And it's my favorite thing. I I'm one of those rare people who get up in the morning and am excited. I get to work today. And I know that I'll be helping people do their job in a way that is bigger than them. And that is a privilege. It truly is a privilege. I've I've had many job offers. I think just about every association in the Christian higher ed world has approached me at one point or another. but I love what I do. And I know that what I do is is something that I do because God arranged it that way. And I have no business trying to unarrange that. If God wants to take me someplace else, he'll take me there. But until then, I love what I do and I love working for ABACC, and I love the people that we serve. And it's it's an amazing privilege to just be part of this. Along those way, along that way, along this 30 years of almost 30 years of of work here at ABACC I have seen business officers come and go, I've seen board members come and go, I've seen schools come and go. But what remains is the work. Christian higher education must flourish. But flourishing is getting harder and harder. I will say back in the day when I was a young VP, I I could figure it out. You know, they they hired someone who was a young go-getter who was kind of known for being really good at change. My school needed change, and I was able to do that. And and it was it was a good thing for us. I don't know that a 29-year-old, inexperienced guy from a bank could do that job anymore. Your job as a Christian higher ed business officer is much harder than it ever was five years ago, let alone almost 30 years ago. And it's just getting harder and harder. And I I see so many lonely business officers. I see so many people with their heads down because they are swamped. I've talked to people today that told me how buried they are in their work and how Difficult it is to have a life outside of that. I just want to encourage you and lift you up and remind you that you're not alone in your work. I know it can feel that way when the board is looking at you, your president is looking at you, your finance and audit committee are looking at you. I know you feel all of that pressure. I I know you feel it. I felt it myself. But you are not alone. There are other business officers here at ABACC, other business professionals in a variety of areas that are all doing the same thing. And we are doing this together. So what I'm hoping for from this podcast is that the guests we have on our show will encourage you, they'll uplift you, they'll help you feel part of something bigger than you, bigger than your institution, bigger than your industry. You are part of God's work, and it's important that your institution flourishes. And to do that, you need to flourish. So I'm hoping that this podcast will give you some joy, some peace, some love, some happiness, and that you'll hear from other people in the industry, you'll hear from other CFOs, from member organizations, you'll hear from companies who work. in the higher ed world that are doing really cool things. And I'm hoping that it does help you to feel part of this and part of something that is so incredibly important. I know how har how easy it is to get buried in your work because your institution depends on you. But I do want you to remember that we're all in this together.