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- [00:02]
A
That moment where you've hit the wall is the moment where you know you're either going to define your life in one direction or another. You give up, you slow down, you bonk out and give up. That's, you know, something you have to live with and swabble. And I've had many days like that where it just wasn't there. I can remember one marathon, I needed to be 12 seconds faster to go to Boston, and my wife, like, tears are running down her face, like, faster, faster. And I just had nothing left. And, And. And, you know, that carries over into decisions you make and. And opportunities you're pursuing where it gets really, really hard and you feel like you just. You want to just give up and fold. Budget reductions, for example, I had to cut in my first year as a dean, the youngest dean in the country. Back in 2016, I had to cut my budget 20%. Like, nobody signs up for this.
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B
And.
- [00:56]
A
And it would have been easy to just hand over the cut and tell my boss, like, you help me figure it out. I can't. But those are the things that harden you.
- [01:05]
B
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week, I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs, and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube, or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big. Well, welcome to another episode of the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and as you may know, we in this podcast interview people who have gone big in different ways many times by challenging the status quo. And that's all about this interview today. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation with Scott Bowyer. Scott is the dean of the University of Wyoming's College of Business, and he has a remarkable trajectory into how he got into that role. But also we're going to explore a lot about how he thinks about higher education in America today. As you're about to hear, Scott grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was working at a McDonald's, ended up being the first in his family to even think about going to college. And it was there that he was really touched by a professor who changed his attitude about economics. Then he decided to become a professor himself. He went to George Mason University to get his PhD, did fieldwork in the Czech Republic, in Botswana, to really understand about how opportunity drives prosperity and human flourishing. But then ultimately he went into the academic track, leading different programs, different universities, which we'll talk about. But today he's at the University of Wyoming, where, as you'll see, he not only serves students so effectively in an ever changing marketplace, but he really challenges us all to think about what is the role of a business school today, what is the role of higher education today, and how do we continually innovate and improve, which I must say is actually counter to the status quo in higher education. So, Scott, it's such a pleasure to have you today. Thanks for joining us.
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A
Thanks a lot. Kevin, great to see you.
- [03:42]
B
Well, I'd like to do this conversation kind of as a story arc from your interesting beginning, which I don't think I'm guessing we can get into this, that you were expecting to become at one point in your life the dean of a business school at a prominent university in the Rocky Mountain States, to just how you got there and how you think about challenge and innovation and change and risk taking and all of the themes that are all about going big. You're a great example of the theme and objectives here. So if you would start us off, paint a picture for what it was like growing up in Iron Mountain, Michigan, in the 1980s and 1990s. If my recollection is correct, that area sort of northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, was known at one point for its rich natural resources. Iron City was named for its iron ore. But it went into pretty substantial economic decline probably around you were growing up during that period. So what kind of career expectations did you have growing up?
- [04:52]
A
Yeah, it's a great thanks for this opportunity. I'm humbled by it. And to be. You're right to go to the end of the story. Never did I think I would be a dean one day in higher education and never did I think that work would be rewarding, fun, fulfilling, and, you know, my version of the American dream. Like, like you said, grew up in Iron Mountain, Michigan, a town of maybe 15,000, 20,000 people. Its best days were probably in the 1920s in terms of peak population and peak job opportunity. When I was there in the 1980s, I grew up in a broken home. My mom had three kids under the age of five, father who left us, but she nonetheless worked and, you know, Scraped and helped ensure that we had a decent childhood and upbringing. We were poor. It was tough. The entire area was quite depressed and poor as well. And I think that, you know, Iron Mountain taught me a couple of things. One, you're resilient. You know, it's. It's cold there seven months of the year and, and you just, you don't complain about it. You get on with your work and, and get going. The opportunities, though, were just mainly like, you just focus on getting a job. The notion of what is my career going to be? We had no time to think about that. It was just, you know, you're going to get a job and focus on what are you going to do next in terms of a pay job that might be in the mining sector, might be in the paper mill sector, which was big there. My, my ancestors grew up in carpentry. Maybe I'd be a home builder if I was fortunate. Never did I imagine what was ahead for me in life. It's, it's not a story that I'm trying to draw pity on, but it's a story that I'm forever grateful and mindful of what my roots were. When we think about opportunity and how to improve lives for people.
- [06:42]
B
Well, yes, exactly, because I think you do embody in multiple respects the American dream, which is an encouragement to anyone listening. And that's an aspect of what I want to dig into, but it also talks about sort of stretching our mindset. And so my recollection is you, you worked at a McDonald's growing up, and maybe that was your expectation. You're going to maybe manage a McDonald's or something. And, and that's not in any way unreasonable. McDonald's is a great American company. But tell us a little bit about that. And then your decision to want to go to college. And then after you tell me a little bit about that, I want to talk about the experience you had with a special professor there.
- [07:23]
A
Absolutely, yeah. So McDonald's is where I earned my MBA, Kevin. I started it at age 16 and, you know, went from 16 to 21, basically getting an MBA the hard way, which was like an apprenticeship. I was, was told from a very young age you need to work if you want gas for your vehicle. You know, if you want to pay your own insurance, then get a job. And, you know, it was just really, it was ingrained that you need to work and McDonald's. I started as a burger flipper and ended up being a manager of our store in Iron Mountain and then also Marquette while I was an undergraduate student juggling 18 credit hours and working as much as I possibly could to balance the financials in my own personal it was amazing. I look at the lessons learned during my time at McDonald's and I bleed ketchup now. Like I can still remember, you know, the stress of you had to open a McDonald's store at 6am it meant the manager had to be there at 4:15am and I was 18 years old trying to be responsible like having fun at night and then being at the store at 4:15 to get it open. And then you show up and at 5:30 none of your staff is showing up with you and you still nonetheless have to get the store open. Our problems today about should I tenure up or person or shouldn't I very minor in scope compared to are the senior citizens waiting out the door at 6am going to have their muffins in the morning. So I am tremendously grateful of McDonald's. I see it just this past week they have been getting slammed a little bit for not paying people enough. And the whole point of McDonald's is it's an on ramp to many other opportunities in your life. It's not necessarily the be all and end all of jobs, but it's absolutely amazing as a transitional job opportunity to give you experience on your resume and don't regret a day of it. And still think that many of my management principles today when it comes to leadership come from trying to figure out, you know, a drive through line that's 20 cars deep and how to get people their fries quickly.
- [09:28]
B
That is awesome. You know, I grew up in a small town too. I did not work at a fast food restaurant. I grew up, I worked at a bank. I shredded paper in a bank. But it was at least, you know, as a lot. I did not have the grease burns that my, my fellow students had who did work in restaurants. But that is, that is terrific. Okay, before we go to college, Amor what what is it about Iron Mountain that is in the water? I mean you've got a pretty impressive lineup of people from there. Why don't you comment on that? What's your do you have a theory?
- [09:59]
A
Not a, not a really robust theory, but we do have. You know, you drive entire mountain and it says hometown of Tom Izzo and Steve Mariucci. Izzo of course is a legend at Michigan State for basketball. Mariucci was a det Lions football coach and he's now on NFL Network. My wife and I joke like maybe.
- [10:16]
B
Some gna say homo to Scott Bowyer soon it's Got to. It's got.
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A
Yeah, the town is really good at exporting football coaches and McDonald's managers, I guess, you know, but, you know, I think that there's something about. And I look at. Look for this when I am recruiting talent as well. There's something about the upper Midwest when it comes to grit, you know, work ethic. You. You put in. You look at Izzo on the basketball court. Basketball court. There's a sense of urgency even when he's winning by 30 points. He wants things done the right way still. And he just does not let up on his team. Sometimes he's hard. But to a player, every one of his former players says, I love that guy. I would run into a wall from him. And I think that I approach my own career and my teams with that sense of there is so much at stake in what we're doing. And it comes from maybe we're just so damn cold up there that we stay warm by just driving harder than a lot of other people. That might be the secret sauce of Iron Mountain.
- [11:17]
B
That is excellent. Well, that's another aspect I plan to drill into, and also how it affects what you think about in terms of talent and talent selection and talent development and mentorship. Now, talking of mentors, you went to University of Northern Michigan, and you were clearly affected by a particular professor you had, David Praticko. Why don't tell us a little bit about that and how. I mean, did you expect to study economics? What was. Tell us what happened.
- [11:50]
A
Yeah, so I'm 18. I've been doing the McDonald's thing for a while. They wanted to send me to Hamburger University and get trained in becoming a franchise owner and manager. So I had that pathway open, and it was actually quite appealing. You know, the. You can do pretty well in life as a franchise owner of McDonald's, but I wanted to give college a try and perhaps, you know, get out of the kitchen and the grease and, you know, the heat and the long hours of a restaurant. Went to college. No idea what I wanted to be my first semester. I thought I was going to be an optometrist, actually. And then I realized I wasn't so good at chemistry. I ended up just stumbling into a class with Dave Prochytko, an amazing professor, a George Mason graduate from the 1980s with Rich Fink, Jack High, a lot of the original GMU. James Buchanan, Don LaValley, you know, great group of GMU faculty. And Dave was maybe the first, you know, like, formal. I never had a teacher who really believed in me. He was probably the first professional in my life who said, you have talent and you should really not underestimate yourself. So it was, you know, taking me outside of class and giving me a few books to read and saying, just let me know what you think of these books. It was engaging in office hours and putting in the time to work with me and tell me that I had potential. And for the first time in my life, I thought I could do something more than what seemed like despi for someone from Iron Mountain, Michigan, which was probably to go back home and boomerang in the local economy. So it was. It was amazing to have that. That kind of guidance and mentorship. And it was really a difficult. It always has been a difficult struggle to come back home then, because people are saying, what are you going to do with an economics degree, an economics undergraduate degree? What do you do with that? You know? And then you're going to school for, like, eight or nine years and you get the Tommy boy jokes, you know, like, well, yeah, people are doctors after that much time tomorrow. And in fact, I ended up being a doctor of economics. But, you know, nobody could picture what was ahead. And getting them over that hump that it will be okay was maybe one of the most difficult, like, coming back home aspects of it all.
- [14:13]
B
Well, Scott, what I've discovered in doing a year now of the Going Big podcast, there are sort of three big things that have come out. One is people talk about finding your gift, finding your contribution, which we'll go into. The other is about risk taking. And the other is the extraordinary importance of mentors.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
What was it about David Praticko, whose name I'm mispronouncing. I believe he's a great guy. What was it that he saw in you that maybe you didn't necessarily see in yourself?
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A
You know, I look back on it, and I think he saw someone who was humble, you know, and. And showed up. So class was always optional, but I was there every day through rain or shine or most often snow. You know, I. I attended every one of his lectures and made it a point to just soak up as much as I possibly could. He had me at some of his first lectures where it was just amazing content. And I had never thought in. In the way economists think. I. I had never just, you know, been dialed in on that. So it was. It was, I think, the humility and the willingness to learn, the curiosity, these are things that he saw in me. I've never asked him, like, why did you do this? He, you know, I think he would just say, well, it was the right thing to do. And it's, it's curious why? Because I caught him at the right point in life too, I think. You know, like I look at my life and if a student came to my office and said, do you have time to work with me? Yeah, yeah, I've got like 15 minutes in two months, you know, and I just cut someone who was absolutely beautiful and generous with his time. And it propelled me. And it's something I've tried to emulate in a lot of the things that we've built in different colleges is experiences for students that are very hands on with professors.
- [16:09]
B
Well, that's, I've not gotten a conclusive answer to the question, do you choose the mentor or does the mentor choose you? I think it varies. It depends a bit. But there's another question that's begged out of this. You did not go to school thinking you were going to become an economist. I mean, did he bring economics to life? Economics can be pretty dry, right?
- [16:32]
A
Yeah. You know, George Mason economics is a little different. You know, it's very applied. It has a reputation for, you know, just tackling real world problems. And when we get into discussions of the Czech Republic and Botswana, everything I've done has always had like this real world anchor or hook to it. Dave trained at George Mason. He dealt with issues related to capitalism versus socialism and just what economic system can perform better, which ones are possible. And he brought a lot of energy and passion for the discipline to my training at nmu. And that is not something you find in every economics class. I went into it with a bias that was, this is going to be a course just to get through. It's a general elective credit. I need to get through this to get on with something else. And little did I know it was going to be so transformative. So luck is a really big component to some of these stories. And I lucked out getting into the class that still had a professor with seats available.
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B
What an impact that that can have. And is he still teaching?
- [17:42]
A
He just retired. Yeah, retired in July. And at it, it's bittersweet. I mean, great for him, but it's hard to believe he's reached that point in his career because I, I picture him, it was his first semester at NMU that I had him for a class.
- [17:57]
B
Yeah, well, I wonder how many other Scott bowl years there'll be over time. And you think about how many other David Procicos have had that kind of consequential effect on others. But Anyway, let's. Let's move on. Okay, then you decide you're going to go to this George Mason University in Virginia. Maybe David influenced you. I know you came to study under Pete Bettke, and I mean, there was Tyler Cowan and others, but what drew you there? And then as you go into that, tell us about this field work you chose to do in the Czech Republic, in Botswana, and why, and does it at all even connect to Iron City? And, okay, take it away. Tell us about this step.
- [18:36]
A
So the decision to do George Mason was pretty easy. By the time I was finishing up at nmu, I had other opportunities to attend other places. But if you want, and this still remains the case, if you want to learn how to apply economics to anything under the sun, George Mason is probably the best place in the country to go to. You have Tyler, who is a professor of mine and someone I got to go to lunch with quite regularly because he wasn't the celebrity that he is today. And he's able to just apply it to anything and any topic that comes up and you appreciate the power of the economic way of thinking. Working with Betke was an absolute amazing opportunity for me. He lives and breathes. In fact, he's written Living Economics as one of his books. He lives and breathes economics and makes it infectious. Like, there is so much at stake in this discipline. And again, going back to this urgency point that I described earlier, it's nothing more than, like, the wealth or poverty of individuals that's at stake here. So if we're not driving good economic decisions and good economic policy, people are going to suffer and starve. And when you are injected with that sense of purpose, it makes everything you do just. It's. It's actually when, when I look back at George Mason, it's exhausting to think about the pace we were going at. It was ideas all day, every day. And I arrived at a great time where George Mason got much closer with Mercatus. And I was one of the very first Mercatus scholars that had a fellowship through the Mercatus Center. And that all was. You were there, Kevin, and it was absolutely amazing to have the resources and the support to tackle questions we were passionate about. And at that moment, in the early 2000s, you may remember this, a big focus in policy debates was how to address poverty in Africa, how to assess the post communist transitions. Because it had been a decade and there were a lot of claims that they weren't going that well. And that took us, many of us, myself included, into the field. To tackle real world problems. And so my first assignment was with Pete for two summers in the Czech Republic, looking at how their transition, post communism, was going. And then I also spent a summer in Botswana, which we can talk about.
- [21:00]
B
As well, a bit, Scott, because they're both very interesting. So you paint a picture even for where things were at that period after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and these transitional economies. As you may know, I interviewed Lech was a few podcast episodes ago. He's still around. He's still speaking out. He, of course, not only led the Solidarity movement in Poland that effectively helped bring down the Soviet Union, but he became a post communist leader. He was the president of Poland. I don't think he wanted to run, but he had to run. So tell us a little bit about that and its relevancy then and even now to what you were trying to understand.
- [21:43]
A
I think, you know, so we spent a lot of time interviewing people involved in the transition, the shock therapy that was pursued in the Czech Republic. We spent time with state officials. The most fascinating interviews were to talk with people who had been through the before and after. One of the most vivid for me was a person who drove us around a lot during our time in the Czech Republic for two summers. His name was Jan, and he described being a little boy when the wall came down and the economy opened up. And he said, my mother walked with us around to different shops so much that our feet hurt, but it was our eyes that were particularly sore because there were so many goods available in storefronts. And he said, before this period, you had one choice for your different options. And not only did you have one choice, you sometimes waited a long time for that choice. So the before and after contrast that we all just kind of forget now. Now it's been 30 years. Like, I lecture and talk to students about capitalist systems versus socialist systems, and I'm left, like, talking about North Korea, you know, and it's kind of like, look at North Korea. It doesn't have any electricity on at nighttime. That's what we're down to in the world is there isn't that much socialism left. But in 1989 and in the 1990s, there was a lot of it. And people who lived through it remember that it was a period of tremendous lack of opportunity. One of the things that also was a big takeaway in both of my fieldwork experiences was just the entrepreneurialism that is everywhere. You know, you give people a chance to make money and realize their own successes, and you will see markets and opportunities pop up all over the place. Like, Prague today is like Disneyland. Like, it's so boring. But Prague in the early 2000s was still kind of sketchy, but there was this emergence of a lot of market activity. And what a time to be there.
- [23:41]
B
I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, you run into people from any of the what, you know, you could call them the captive nation, so to speak. And if they live through it, they know the contrast. They are so outspoken. And today you might have them from Venezuela or from other places, but it's extraordinary. I remember soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we had a lot of interns from the old Soviet Union that were helping the United States States. And we had a young boy from Lithuania and took him into like a grocery, some kind of store maybe at Walmart or something. Soon after he arrived, and he ran and grabbed a box of tennis shoes and ran to check and pay for them. And I was like, aren't you going to try them on? And he says, no, I wanted to grab the first pair before they took them all away. I'm like, no, they're not going to take them away. This is not magic. This is not a special thing. This is every day. I mean, anyway, we could go on.
- [24:31]
A
And on and on.
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B
Okay, let's jump to Botswana. Sure, Botswana could stands out among African countries, but it has had that curse of being naturally resource rich. And that gives that view that of course they're gonna prosper. Countries that have natural resources always prosper. And countries that don't have natural resources are destined to horrible situations. What did your work discover there?
- [25:01]
A
Yeah, you know, so really interesting country. Again, we're tackling topics at a time where Bono, for example, is talking about, for $10 a day, we can solve poverty worldwide. You know, so it's a really rich period that people have to remember. And one of the things that was happening in this period was a thesis that if you have a lot of mineral wealth, whether it's oil or diamonds, in Botswana's case, gold, your country will have really corrupt and bad institutions. So basically, you focus on getting oil out of the ground as much as possible. You don't build the rule of law, you don't build private property systems, and then your country goes to hell in a handbasket. So think of like Congo, for example, versus Botswana. Botswana started from a starting point of the third poorest country in the world in 1965, and it grew at the fastest rate of any country in the world for 30 years, 7.7% growth over a 30 year period. And it did so because it had leadership in the post colonial period that was so terrified of the curse that we were just discussing that the diamonds were going to become this item that they became dependent on. And through that dependency, they would never be able to enjoy long run robust growth. So they basically imported, and this is a very simplistic description of what happened. They basically imported the British rule of law, systems of private property, economic freedom. And they have flourished for an extensive period of time. A place that believes in transparency. One difference there compared to a lot of African countries is they had a stable transition of power and they didn't put in place a bunch of revolutionaries during the post colonial period. And as such they grew. So it's this really interesting outlier when you look at the data. Typically if you're a sub Saharan African country, your fortunes are not very good when you look at a long term trend of economic growth. Yet you have this country that's bucking the trend and it has to do with good institutions and good governance, really prudent leadership. So much like the Czech Republic. We were on the ground interviewing a lot of expats, people who had lived through the colonial turn. So people who go all the way back to the beginning in 1965 and can remember the formation of a government and what they wanted to do and what they ought not to do. And it was very bottom up, it was focused on consensus building and they have remained one of the free and most democratic places, more comparable to like middle Europe than their neighbors in sub Saharan Africa. So fascinating. You look at Zimbabwe right next door, an absolute basket case over the same period of time. And then you have Botswana, that's flourishing and basically a middle income country.
- [27:49]
B
Yeah, I have a friend who just recently gave me a $100 trillion note from Zimbabwe, which of course is virtually worthless. But yes, anyway, could go on and on there. Okay, so that was your PhD work. You get your PhD, if my recollection is correct, you went first to teach at Beloit College in Wisconsin, then you went to Mercer in Georgia, then you went to Troy in Alabama, Arizona State. So you're getting sunny, you're getting away from the north and then boom, you go to North Dakota State. That was an amazing story of what you did there with the chalet program and then, and a lot more to it than that, the whole center on growth and stuff like that. But then you came to Wyoming, where you've been since 2022. Are there a couple of lessons from all of that that jump out to you, I've got some follow up questions, but are there some lessons that jump out to you that really influence how you think about driving change, innovation, leadership, even disruption?
- [28:54]
A
Yeah. You know, one of them is I think I can't sit still. You know, so there is some movement around. And I'll be honest about it, that, you know, nobody is dying to move that many times. But in each of those cases, it was a move for something that was really better and an opportunity that was unimaginable. And there's several in there that are like, huh, you moved to Troy University. That's kind of interesting. And I have zero regret in terms of, of what it created for me in terms of learning, knowledge and growth professionally. One of the takeaways for me is that right now in America, there's a mobility problem. People generally don't move much at all. They don't want to change jobs. They don't get much farther than about 150 miles from their hometown. And as such, this narrative that we have of Americans will chase opportunity and Americans will chase jobs is actually running into data that shows we're pretty complacent. Tyler Cowan talks about this a lot, that we're actually a pretty complacent group of Americans when it comes to movement. And that is not me. I'm interested in what opportunities are available. Those first couple jobs were about just cutting my teeth as a scholar, publishing a lot, being a respected professor, and then starting at Troy and moving on. It was about leadership roles where I could basically manage at scale and lead teams and create and build things. I've always approached higher ed as something that's moving really slow and too slow. But that's the opportunity is if you're actually moving at velocity. People get excited about that because it's so different from what they're typically encountering, whether it's alumni or whether it's the teams you're leading. Like, this guy wants to move, move fast, let's give him a chance. And that kind of explains 15 or 20 years of my career trajectory.
- [30:49]
B
All right, well, let's drill into that. And by the way, yeah, I just saw some data that the mobility is the lowest point since maybe the 1960s or something like that.
- [30:58]
A
That sounds right.
- [30:59]
B
Okay, so how do you identify leverage points at any of these places that you see are ripe for innovation and maybe some really positive change?
- [31:14]
A
Yeah, I think that the most obvious ones are when something is broken or it's not working and everyone's banging their Head into the wall and saying, what are we doing wrong here? And often it's like, do the opposite of what you're doing. So something that you find across higher ed is the. This aspiration to be elite and selective. And even I love working at land grants. My last two jobs have been at land grants, NDSU and Wyoming. They drive access hard. Like, we are here to give every student who meets the very minimal qualifications. We put up a chance. We're not here to have wait lists. We're not here to put a high tuition sticker on our price. We're here to give students a chance. And this is like me in my lane. Nonetheless, in both of these environments, there's always this tension to try to put barriers up or make it a little more difficult or say our students aren't good enough, like, we probably need to be more selective. And this gets you into all kinds of trouble. In our case, it's like, this is going against the very purpose of our institution. But then you wonder, like, why are we having enrollment challenges or financial challenges? It's because we inflicted this on ourselves, you know, so to go to the leverage point, the point of making a difference in some of these cases is to remind folks of what our purpose is. And it's. It's to serve, you know, students and give them an opportunity or a chance. Where I have specific energy to bring to that conversation is I can make it really personal and say, look at what's possible when we're opening or clearing the gates for more students to just have a possibility or a chance, give them a chance, and you never know how things may turn out.
- [32:57]
B
All right, so, okay, here's a follow up, though. When you go into a place and there is a resistance to change, at what point do you play the Kenny Rogers point of knowing when to. When to fold them or when to hold them or when to walk away? How do you decide to. To try to drive challenge and disruption? Or do you say, it's not going to work, there's got to be a better opportunity somewhere else? Because frankly, your answer to this actually helps us address some of the mobility challenges and the complacency issues more broadly. How do we decide at what point to jump to try something better?
- [33:39]
A
It's a great question. In my case, it's really dependent on the team around me. If my team is still believing in where we're going collectively, then I want to go there and I want to drive as hard as we possibly can together. When you are at a point where they're not sure of what they want to do next, the going gets tougher. Or when you're reduced to your direct boss has your back, but your team doesn't necessarily support you anymore, or there's just a conflict or a mushiness of what are we trying to do or what are we trying to accomplish. That ambiguity can be the opportunity, but that also can be evidence that we don't have a clue where we're going or trying to go. And that gets old really quick when you're directionless or just kind of spinning your wheels. The move, for example, for me from North Dakota State to University of Wyoming. I joked with you pre broadcast. I moved for the warmer weather to Wyoming. But you reached a, you reach a point. I had been through two accreditation cycles with my team. I had been through Covid with them. I love them. I love the people of North Dakota State tremendously and in many ways, Ms. Ms. Fargo, North Dakota, if you can believe that, like it. It actually is a really cool, fun town. But there was just a, a feeling of I have led and I've taken them where I want to go and where, where, where we can go together. And then it's, it's at a good spot to just, um, hand off and let someone else deal with the challenges. On the poll side, Wyoming had challenges that I've never encountered before, and I really wanted to sign up for, for that task, and we've accomplished a tremendous amount in a short time.
- [35:29]
B
All right, well, I want to, I want to dig into that as well and some of these lessons. Scott, you're just so good for this, for going big, and I'm so glad we are connected. So many lessons from, from, from your experiences. So I reached out to a lot of, of your colleagues and they're all fans, and they gave you some good questions somehow decided probably not appropriate to ask, but you're almost always described as an educational entrepreneur. What does that mean to you? How would you define that? I know that you rethink incentives. You really challenge how we should think about expectations. Also the idea of just disruption and continual innovation. What, what is an educational entrepreneur?
- [36:15]
A
Yeah, I think it's, it's someone who is, is interested in shaking things up or, you know, interested in, in being comfortable with things not being normal. One of my mentors, Michael Crow, just recently wrote to me and he said if it, it's not unstable, it's really boring.
- [36:40]
B
And.
- [36:43]
A
I think there's this natural desire in higher education to try to bring things back to a really stable complacent. Boring place. And the entrepreneur is there to shake things up and just break them out of their natural inertia. So you think about a place like ASU where Crow is the natural inertia is probably to say, we're good enough. We've got 35,000 students. That's plenty. We're covering our costs. We don't really want to be much bigger than that. But you have a change agent like him who's pushed them over 100,000 students. They are the dominant player in the online space right now. My daughter is taking classes at Arizona State University. And it's all through someone who is not content with, with just good enough, you know, And I think that that's what any entrepreneur is, is someone who wants to bring velocity or drive or motivation to an environment that is naturally tending towards constant or a stasis, you know, and, and that's, that's my view of what I do. It's, it's not that you're better than anyone else. It's just the, the comfort with change and with the desire to move an institution forward and even if it takes just brute force.
- [38:06]
B
Well, there are a lot. I mean, you have a lot of roles, a lot of hats. You're a teacher, you're a researcher, you're an administrator, you're a leader, you're a marketer, you're a fundraiser. I want to talk about a couple of these things. In kind of the current space at North Dakota State, you help bring in a massive gift and gifts. And then similarly, my understanding at Wyoming, you now hold the Tru family chair, Dave and Melanie Tru. The whole Tru family, TRU companies and the Chowleys, these great people. So glad that you're associated with them. Tell us about that aspect. Is this a matter of sort of, of shared values, shared vision and shared values, shared objectives. How do you think about partnership partners, be they financial supporters or they may be political actors or they may be faculty or whatever that help you lead and drive change?
- [39:08]
A
Yeah, I think in, in both of the cases you mentioned, but just more generally, the breadth of fresh air that, that comes to the conversations with them. So if you think about Bob Challley, wonderful human, Bob and Sheila, wonderful family. Their typical conversation with a higher education representative is please support this because we've always needed support for this. It's very scarcity driven. It's not necessarily forward looking. It's just here's how we can potentially maintain or get a little bit better with a lot of money. And I think that in my engagement with them or with the Tru family here in Wyoming, the perspective that I'm bringing to the table is one that is of abundance. Like, look what we could do as partners. That is completely unimaginable and it has never been thought of before. So to go back to the Bob experience, Bob and Sheila experience, they wanted something big. They were driving the capital campaign for ndsu, the biggest campaign in state history at the time. They were the campaign chairs and they wanted a vision that was going to transform the university and reflect their values too. This is really an important piece. Like you can't just be taking a person's money and saying, well, thanks for the money. We're going to do what we want to do with it. You have to have some kind of connection to what they care about. And Bob had been through several iterations of consider investing in this, consider investing in that. And they weren't quite doing it for him. And I was brought into the conversation quite late and was asked, can you put something together? And we cast a short proposal that was focused on opportunity. Again, just going back to my basics, something very personal. Opportunity and economic growth in the upper Midwest. And Bob looked at it and he said, sheila, that's it. And then it was just a matter of rallying other supporters and creating a $50 million named institute in a six month period. We put that together in six months. And again, it's purpose driven in that we're discussing and trying to tackle opportunity and how to make people better. It's aligned with their value values. But I think most importantly it's focused on what's possible as opposed to what currently exists. You know, and I think higher ed in general represents the scarcity mindset that just isn't very compelling to a lot of people. And I try to do things a little differently by selling. I mean, in part it's sales, Kevin, but by selling an alternative that makes them feel like they're founding something or involved in a venture that is. Is going to be tremendously satisfying to both parties.
- [41:52]
B
Love that. Well, I can see why you've been successful, but that's a great story. The North Dakota state is its own. Just going big. We could do a whole episode on that in Wyoming. So Wyoming, a lot of, I'm presuming a lot of first generation students there, rural, blue collar, not unlike Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I don't know. This kind of. You stitch all of this together, but how do you view the environment, the opportunity? And here's a question for you. So what's your vision there? And what would happen if somebody dropped $50 million on you and said, hey, you're an educational entrepreneur. You've done great stuff. Did great stuff in North Dakota State. Now go do something big at Wyoming. What would you do?
- [42:40]
A
That's a big question. I can tell you about something I'm doing with a $50 million investment right now. I'll get to that in a second. Just a quick plug about how amazing Wyoming is. We're the only four year in the state. We're the land grant and a flagship for the state of Wyoming. In many ways, I'm one of the 10 most prominent people in the state of Wyoming. The business dean. You cannot have a robust Wyoming without a strong business school. So it's an amazing platform to lead from. I feel tremendously honored to have the position. I do. But you're right, Kevin, that these last two positions are just right in my wheelhouse in terms of driving opportunity. One third of our students are first gen. You know, this is deeply personal to me. Many of the students come to the big town of Laramie, population 32,000, and they feel like it's too big. And they have to be instilled with things that I had to be encouraged through Dave and. And others at NMU back in the day. They have to be instilled with confidence and, you know, how to shake a hand and how to just present and stand on their own two feet. And this is where I thrive because I care deeply about that personal journey and think there's so much untapped potential out there in. In students like the ones we serve here. So it's.
- [44:01]
B
Can I dig a little bit more into that? I'm so glad you brought that up. And this kind of does bring back to the sort of the grit of Irons Mountain. And in terms of bringing things to the real world. I saw recently you were part of a panel the governor was leading about the state of the economy, the look ahead in Wyoming, and you were bringing up inflation, rising costs, food costs, the cost of just a bag of chips and what that means for family and things like that. I think you bring that together very effectively. Why is that important?
- [44:40]
A
I think it's so important. Again, going back to the GMU roots and the Beckys and the Prochykos to bring economic ideas down to a level that you can connect with people. And yeah, the bag of chip example, I don't pay attention to my grocery bill very much. It's just like I have four mouths to feed, four kids to feed lots of kids, kids. And you just throw things in the cart and say, we're almost done. But I looked at the bag of Fritos and It was like 8.99, couldn't believe it. And I'm like, how did that get so expensive? And then you open the bag and it's like 3/4 air. And I just used that example to communicate with people that, yes, inflation has come down, but the price still remains really high. And folks just really appreciate the example and it sticks with them. I, I, I try to do that in a lot of my work. And, you know, it goes back to Walter Williams, amazing communicator at George Mason, Tyler Cowen, and, and the pedestal that he speaks from. These are people who have like this internal drive that is driven by the fact that these ideas are so important, they want people to not forget them. And that's what I'm trying to do, both in my, my work to keep barriers down on our students, but then also in some of my popular writing and the presentations, like, I get a chance as business dean to give economic talks and forecasts in every tiny community around the state. And it's really amazing to go out to them and try to explain to them what's happening in the economy. So it's, it's a tremendous honor. On the $50 million question, by the.
- [46:13]
B
Way, before you say that we can't believe Walter Williams was one of the best at community. I can even think of some of the things now he would say were so brilliant and so funny too, but so, so good for you. Because that is, I think, one of the biggest complaints against the academy. Academics, intellectuals, obviously higher education. It's so far removed from reality and people think that, and I want to get in before we conclude this conversation, how you're focused on an education that is real, world relevant. And what is the role of a business school today and for the next 10 and 20 years? And what is the role of an education for somebody? If somebody's going to, you know, spend all this money to go to college, what are they going to get out of it before maybe you can tie it to this? But before we even go to that, how would you spend the $50 million?
- [47:06]
A
Well, one big thing I'm working on right now with another university is really trying to build out a program that paints a very positive picture for students going forward about what the future is going to look like. So it's all driven by some of the abundance research and, and the fact that one of the, one of the founders of this big project is his line is just stay alive 10 years. You won't believe how good things are going to be in 10 years. And unfortunately, students are not getting that message. You know, lecture after lecture, class after class, the message is still about inequality and poverty, and, you know, how the world is getting. It's dirtier and there's more uncertainty. In fact, by almost any metric you look at that the world is ridiculously better. And the, the entire framing of a honors type college is around. What if we engage students in a philosophical framework focused on abundance? And, and I think that that's a really important counterweight in higher education to just doom and gloom, which seems to be like our bias, like dark and, and, and negative is just so in right now. Like, it's cool to be dark.
- [48:15]
B
Yep.
- [48:16]
A
And, and providing a counterweight to that. It's amazing. Like, we're. Look, I'm, I'm helping the university, and I'll keep it quiet on which university it is, but they're enrolling their first group of students. They have 300 applicants already for 30 seats. You know, and, and, and it's that parents are actually hungry as our students for an alternative to same old, same old. And I think opportunities like that are exactly what alumni and investors are starving for when they're looking at the higher ed landscape.
- [48:47]
B
I couldn't agree more. And Scott, as you may know, that's the whole purpose for this podcast, is to encourage, inspire people to cast those big, bold visions. And I couldn't agree more. What better way to invest in higher education than lean into the opportunity, lean into the innovation, lean into the power of abundance, rather than just accept your plight and just have a constrained vision and just. No offense, but stay working at that McDonald's. All right, bring this to a close. I got a couple of final questions, but I think you're a marathon runner. If I, I know you're a runner. I think you're a marathon runner. I'm not, but I've always heard the thing about kind of hitting the wall, and I'm sure you've got some stories. You got to draw that into some of the challenges you faced in this stuff. I mean, aren't there some times that you just kind of like, I can't take. Do this anymore for sure.
- [49:41]
A
You know, it's. For me, the running is just a release. I'm out early in the morning yesterday, Kevin, it was four degrees here to get started, and I, yeah, I got out and ran. I'm just getting going. I've run Boston four times. I'll do the Boston Marathon, health permitting, in the spring, and I get out for a release. You know, it's just a mental escape for me. It's a form of meditation in some respects. But, yeah, the wall is a real thing. You get to about mile 20, and you've got nothing left. And that's really the moment. And much like a lot of the decisions you make in, in, in your job, too, in your leadership roles, that moment where you've hit the wall is the moment where you know you're either going to define your life in one direction or another. You give up, you slow down, you bonk out and give up. That's, you know, something you have to live with and swallow. And I've had many days like that where it just wasn't there. I can remember one marathon, I needed to. Needed to be 12 seconds faster to go to Boston. And my wife, like, tears are running down her face, like, faster, faster. And I just had nothing left. And, and, and you know, that carries over into decisions you make and, and opportunities you're pursuing where it gets really, really hard and you feel like you just. You want to just give up and fold. Budget reductions, for example, I had to cut in my first year as a dean, the youngest dean in the country. Back in 2016, I had to cut my budget 20%. Like, nobody signs up for this. And it would have been easy to just hand over the cut and tell my boss, like, you help me figure it out. I can't. But those are the things that harden you and, and really make for a really rich story over the last 10 years. You know, like, it's not pretty or fun, but. But those are the walls that, that you run through, and you become a person who can go big with you.
- [51:28]
B
So, yeah, this has been awesome. Okay, the final two questions. These are the questions I like to ask my guests, and that is first, thinking of a younger version of your. You're still young. Youngest business school dean when you were. You're still very young, but thinking of a younger version of yourself, maybe back at. In the U.P. of Michigan or, or, Or George Mason. I don't know. What would you tell that younger version of yourself today to have done any differently?
- [51:59]
A
Something I still deal with every day is stop being so hard on yourself and just get going with action. Action builds competence. Action helps you figure out direction and course, and you can get paralyzed with your own insecurities. And, you know, that humility that I described that a lot of us in the upper Midwest have, it's a double edged sword. That same humility can lead to insecurity and a lack of confidence. And I, I would, you know, looking back, tell my younger self, just get going, you can do it. And, and thankfully Dave Projetko said, get going, you can do it. But not everyone has that mentor. And you hope that some people can just have their inner voice. Tell them to get on with it and get moving. So don't be so critical and get moving.
- [52:48]
B
Awesome. All right, here's the final question. And this is I'm going to ask you to take everything and put this into the final bit because I want you to anchor this in risk taking and challenge and leadership, learning from failure, learning from mentors. What advice would you give to anyone listening, anyone from around the world? We have a big audience, whether they're in Botswana or the Czech Republic or Laramie or Fargo or Marquette or wherever. What advice would you give for any of us to think about how we should go big in our lives?
- [53:30]
A
Boy, you know, I think it's recognizing the dignity that comes from work and purposeful work. If you look at the Czech Republic, if you look at Botswana, if you look at Iron Mountain, Michigan, there are amazing opportunities there for you if the incentives exist to pursue them. And in fact, in this country, there's all kinds of incentive to improve yourself and take off and have an amazing trajectory. So just realizing that those opportunities exist and we are so blessed and fortunate to have them available, I think would be the big takeaway for me. And then realizing that it's not something to take for granted. The Czech Republic is a case study in what can happen when you don't have dignity, celebrated and rewarded. So I, I think that would be my, my, my biggest one, that, that when I look back at the whole arc of my life, it, it sums it up pretty well.
- [54:35]
B
Well, Scott Boyer, Dr. Scott Boyer. Dean Scott Boyer, it's been a real pleasure having you as part of the Going Big podcast and wish you all the best and we'll look forward to having you back in another five and 10 years to talk about the next big leaps that you've taken. Thanks a lot.
- [54:51]
A
Sounds great. Kevin, thanks so much.
- [54:53]
B
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more more content, resources and updates at our website goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep Going big. See you next time on the Going Big podcast.