Transcript: Tony Peebles on Banking, Confidence, and Alumni Engagement

Good morning and welcome back to Late Start Show. We are here today with Mr. Tony Peebles, University School Class of 1981 graduate, a veteran in banking and finance, and a dedicated community leader who now serves as the Alumni Engagement Director at Baldwin Wallace University and a board member here at University School. How are you doing today, Mr.

Peebles? I'm doing good. I'm just honored to join you guys here on the 53rd podcast. and there's been much greater folks than me to sit in this chair, so I'm just honored. I appreciate you guys considering me.

It's great to have you here. Mr. Peebles, let's start at the beginning. Could you tell us a little bit about kind of where you grew up and what your family was like?

Okay, I grew up in the Lee Harvard neighborhood of Cleveland. I grew up actually on 155th Street and Harvard. My dad moved here from North Carolina. He attended Central State University here in Ohio.

And then he met my mom who was from Cincinnati. And then she went to Wilberforce University. And then they came to Cleveland when they got married and moved to the Lee Harvard neighborhood. They were both teachers.

My mother was a phys ed teacher and my father was a shop teacher. Actually, when I was young, he was a shop teacher at Glenville High School in the city of Cleveland. I have one sister, and she now lives in North Carolina. She's a consultant, and I'll tell you more, whatever else you need to know.

But, yeah, we grew up in, my sister and I both grew up in the Lee Harbor neighborhood, and our parents were teachers, and we were fortunate. We didn't have a lot of money or anything, but we were blessed and felt good about the childhood that we had. You know, Mr. Peebles, what was kind of young, like, what were you kind of like as a young kid?

What were you kind of into? Were there any interests or hobbies that were really stuck out early? And were you into sports, reading, music? What was it that really stuck out?

Yeah, I was an introvert. It's probably hard to believe now. I was quite introverted, but I played music. I started studying guitar at age seven, and I tried to play sports.

I never got good at sports. I tried everything, though. Little league baseball, all that kind of stuff just never was my thing. Even I played sports here at U.S. too, but wasn't very good.

But I did really learn to be good in music And so music was a fun thing for me I was a cub scout I did all the usual stuff kids do In elementary school Did a lot of work with my dad My dad, being a shop teacher Also did a small home repair on the side To make extra money So he would go out and put in Wood paneling in people's basements And all of that If you look at some of those old homes And you guys have probably been in some of these old homes like in the Cleveland Heights Shaker area where the knotty pine paneling is in the basement. We used to do that. So I learned some skills and had a lot of friends. We had fun in the neighborhood.

We rode our bikes everywhere and tried to stay out of trouble. That's awesome. Who were some of your role models or heroes when you were younger, whether that's a family member, teacher, or even like maybe a public figure that inspired you when you were younger? I think when I was young, it was kind of my dad and my uncles.

My dad was one of nine, so I had five uncles and three aunts. And my uncles were all very different, different personalities, different careers and different things they did. But they kind of inspired me because they all were real hardworking guys and just kind of would always talk about how tough it was for them growing up down in North Carolina and back in a much tougher time in our country. But they kind of inspired me to work hard and never give up.

I think my dad is probably was my biggest as a child. My dad's probably my biggest role model just because of his work ethic and just his really care for the community. And, you know, just a just a just a good guy. Very hard on me, but very demanding.

But he kind of inspired me. I didn't really get into public figures or others too much later in life as I studied history. I'm a big reader of biographies, so I do like to study various, whether it's presidents or I'm really fascinated by the founding fathers of this country and some other luminaries early in the country like Frederick Douglass and people like that that I studied. Some of what I studied here at U.S.

But it kind of starts with my family. It just kind of starts with the men in my family that grew up and they were like the elders. And now I'm the elder. So my younger cousins and kids are looking at me.

So it's kind of full circle. You know, before you came to U.S., was attending U.S. always the plan? How did your family decide to come here? And do you kind of remember some of those early days?

Yeah, so I went to Grace Mount Elementary School, which was in Cleveland, in the neighborhood that I grew up in. And at that time, there were a number of programs where the teachers would identify kids that had some academic talent. And so I was kind of classified as one of those individuals. and then they, all of the CCIS schools began kind of at that time, and this was the 1970s, were recruiting at certain schools in the Cleveland schools looking for students of color and things of that nature that could really handle the work at U.S., Hathaway, Brown, Laurel, and or Hawkin. And so there was a group of us at that time that came out of Graysmount and that ended up coming here. and my parents being teachers looked at what I was doing in the Cleveland schools and then looked at, OK, if we can figure out and can afford the opportunity for our son to go to a Hawken or a U.S. or something like that, we're going to look at it because they kind of being teachers, they kind of knew what was going on in the Cleveland schools, not that it was all bad, but they wanted something more for me.

And so they decided to have me apply to U.S. And then my sister attended a school called Glen Oak, which is now part of Gilmore Academy. And and that's kind of how I got started. So I don't remember how they made the final decision.

I just remember that there was really a group of us. In fact, David Smith, who's a year ahead of me, is class of 80, who's also a board of directors for U.S. He was in my class in my fifth and sixth grade class at Grace Mount Elementary School. there was another gentleman named Tyrone Finch Wendell Thomas they were both class of 80 and so and John Fedekovich and I'm probably leaving out some guys if they listen to this they're going to be pissed there was a group and behind me was Tony Paul so there was a group of us that came out of Graysmount to come to US so it was really cool because all of us were in a program called Major Works which was kind of like the advanced placement It was advanced for students in elementary school. And so most of us came here in the seventh grade.

And what kind of student were you at U.S.? Because you mentioned you were introverted, but also you were a bright student. So what did you really get into once you were here at U.S.? So I was really good in history.

I was really good in anything to do with writing and speaking. I learned to be a really great public speaker here at U.S. through the English and other classes. I really enjoyed Western civilization. I was decent in sciences.

I really struggled with math. I mean, I think I got all C's in math my whole time at U.S. I never could master math for whatever reason. So that's why I went into banking because banking is easy math.

You just add, subtract, multiply and divide, do percentages. But I was really good. And I remember enjoying Western civilization. I remember really enjoying anything that dealt with kind of policy, public policy. and I learned about public speaking.

I won the commencement prize in public speaking for my senior year for my class. And it kind of helped me come out of my shell a little bit too, just because I found kind of my lane, if you will, my lane. And it kind of went from there. So I thought it was good.

So I was a decent student, I think. I wasn't at the top of the class or anything like that, but I was a good student. Do you remember any of those subjects or classes that really stuck out with you? Do you remember maybe a class that you either struggled with or just had the most fun in?

Well, I struggled with calculus and I struggled with trigonometry, algebra, trig. I struggled with that. And we had really great teachers, and so they got us through it. But I couldn't get better than a C.

I really enjoyed it. I took French. I enjoyed it, but I never really got fluent. But I did enjoy foreign language.

I wish I had taken other foreign languages. And I wish I was fluent today because I think, and you guys are probably, in your world, as you go out into the world, you want to be fluent in multiple languages. But again, Western civilization was really a big one for me, just dealing with the combination of history and politics and all of that. And I think that got me interested in public service.

Although I didn't have a public service career, but just being involved and giving back to the community. Do you have a favorite memory from U.S. or maybe I know it's hard to pin down some of those favorite memories or if you can't think of one specific, do you have some spaces where you just remember your favorite memories being had? I really enjoyed, although I wasn't very good, I really enjoyed being on the cross country and track teams. I was not that good.

But I remember running on a team where one of my classmates was an amazing distance runner David Mitchell who in my class He a lawyer now here in Cleveland And he and I both ended up going to the same college where he was and I didn't do any athletics once I finished U.S., but he ended up being almost an Olympic caliber distance runner. So it was just good to be around really great talent, of which I was not one of them, but it was good to be around great talent. So I really enjoyed athletics, although I just never mastered it. I played club soccer.

I ran cross country and I ran the 1600 meters on the track team. My biggest fun thing, just total fun, was playing in the university school jazz band. And so we did a tour my junior year up to Boston and where we played at Groton and Middlesex and Roxbury Latin, some of the schools up there that are like us. So that was a lot of fun.

And we caught the Amtrak. we did a we caught a train ride to Boston from here in Cleveland and I think we were there like a week and it was that was a lot of fun that was like one of my big highlights uh the other highlight was probably um just being involved in um some of the student government stuff I wasn't an officer or anything but just kind of staying involved in that regard anything with leadership I really enjoyed you know when you finally graduated from us in 1981 what kind of lessons or valuable core ideas did you take from the school that still stick with you today? Maybe some stuff that you look back on and you're kind of like, wow, U.S. really did teach me that. I think first confidence with humility, knowing that you are capable of doing the things that you want to do because U.S. was rigorous, as you guys are experienced probably more so today than it was then. And I think building the confidence in your own capabilities, but keeping the humility to be able to connect with other people and build teams, working.

And one thing I enjoyed about sports, even though I wasn't very good, was learning how to be on a team. And then being in the jazz band, when you're in a band, when you're a solo musician, it's you. But when you're in a band, it's a team. So I think teamwork was big for me, understanding what your skill, your strengths and weaknesses are, and being honest about it and having confidence, just really in being able to try new things and get out there and explore, whether it's your career or other things that you want to do.

I think U.S., I felt I had a little swagger when I came out of U.S. I felt like I'm a U.S. man. I can do anything. So shifting gears now to your graduating U.S., you went on to Duke University.

What made you make that decision to go there and what did you study and did you kind of have an idea of what you wanted your career to look like? So I kind of remember during the college advisory time period, like junior, senior year, I was interested in, I think one of my first choices I was interested in going to Stanford University and my mother said it's too far, it's California, take it off the list, you're not going. One of my other choices was Morehouse College in Atlanta, which is a historically black college and my father said well that's okay but I didn't send you to the U.S. to just do that, let's make sure you cast a wide net. And so I started looking at different schools, I even looked locally at some of the schools here in Ohio and then my family is from Raleigh, North Carolina.

My dad grew up in Raleigh and Durham, where Duke is, is about, it's like from here to Akron, from Raleigh to Durham. And so he said, we ought to go visit Duke. And so it was my dad, I think my grandfather came with me. And it was real special because my grandfather grew up at a time where Duke would have been segregated.

And even my father, Duke, would have been segregated. So as an African American, neither my father or grandfather would have been able to attend Duke by law. And so they were like, you should go to Duke. And I was like, I don't know.

I don't know. I got other ideas. But then I visited the campus and I was like this is the most incredible place just walk around the campus and I said I want to go to Duke and so I applied early decision and I got in I didn't think I was going to get in I probably wouldn't get in today but I didn't think I was going to get in and I got in and I said wow and so then I dropped all my other apps and I committed to Duke right off the rip so I think I got I applied to Northwestern I got waitlisted but I didn't care because I was already accepted by Duke and was ready to sign. You know, one of the really cool things about Duke at that time is the rivalry with UNC in basketball is huge.

And that first year that you kind of came would have been that, like, Michael Jordan to be here. Do you remember Duke as being that sports school? And what's just kind of the social scene like that? So Duke was very energized.

North Carolina had some great rivals. You had North Carolina State, Wolfpack. You had, obviously, University of North Carolina, Tar Heels, and a number of other schools, Wake Forest University, the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest. So my freshman year at Duke was, I think, Coach Mike Krzyzewski's second year.

So he had just started as the head coach of Duke. And Duke was good but not great then. Carolina was great. So Michael Jordan was probably – he's probably my age, so he's probably like a year or two ahead of me, So he may have been a sophomore at Carolina.

And all of a sudden, he exploded as this phenom. And so going to Duke games, the students in Cameron Indoor Stadium, the students get all the best seats. So the students are on the floor. And no matter how big you are as an Iron Duke or a Duke big donor, you're in the rafters.

Students are on the floor. So we got the best seats. And so we got to see Michael Jordan. we got to see Mark Price, who was playing for Georgia Tech, which was in the ACC. And so we got to see some of the really some of the best basketball in the country.

And so that spilled over into Greek life, into the parties, into the energy. And we would line up for the games. It's not like it is now. Now it's just Shevskyville where you have to line up three or four days to get in the games.

We didn't have we could just go right then and line up and get in the games. So it's exploded from there, but it was exciting. And then visiting the other campuses, going over to Chapel Hill for the Carolina-Duke game or going over to North Carolina State. And then the late, great Jim Valvano was the coach at North Carolina State for Wolfpack, and they won the national championship while I was there.

So it was a fun time to watch. And our football was competitive, not as good, but competitive. So we had good sports and good energy on the campus. And the whole ACC, those schools were, we made friendships at other campuses and you really had a lot of nice camaraderie.

While you were at Duke having fun, were you also planning like of what your future may look like? I know your first job began at Amherst Trust Corporation. Did you know that you wanted your career to go in that direction and what that kind of looked like throughout your time at Duke? So what I got to do, I was actually pre-law.

I thought I wanted to go to law school. and so I was taking kind of political science classes and I have a political science degree. And what is interesting is I need to take a couple steps back. My junior year at U.S., my father made a connection with Mr. Bruce Akers, class of 1952.

And Mr. Akers at the time was the vice president of corporate affairs for Ameritrust Corporation, which was the old Cleveland Trust Bank. And he got me a summer job at Ameritrust. So I was a high school student in the college internship program.

So I worked two years, my junior and senior year at Ameritrust in the summer. And all four years of Duke, I worked at Ameritrust in the summer. So that was like my every I would come home and go right to work. And Mr.

Akers is responsible for that. And I'm grateful to this day for his his mentorship. So I didn't when I finished Duke, I wasn't the best student. I was a C student.

Part of it was maybe I got U.S. was so rigorous. I got there and I just kind of relaxed too much. I joined fraternity and did a lot of stuff. So my first couple of years, my grades were not that great.

So I felt like I needed, when I graduated, I felt like I needed to work a while before applying to grad school because I wanted to have a little bit of a resume because my grades weren't the best being a C student. And I kind of regret that to this day that I didn't have the discipline to do better. I didn't do as well as I was capable of, I must admit. But my experiences and my exposure were incredible. and then the opportunities to work summers at Ameritrust led to me graduating from Duke and still thinking about law school, but I said, I'm going to work a little while.

So I joined Ameritrust as a management trainee in commercial banking program and started to learn the banking business. And as I learned the banking industry, I fell in love with it. I said, well, banking's in everything. Banks are the arteries of the economy, and we get to do just about everything.

So what was going to be two or three years and I was going to go to law school, I had taken the LSAT, I was going to go to law school, apply to law schools. It ended up being a 30 year career in financial services. I just never left the industry. And but I owe that a lot to class of 1952, Mr.

Akers, who who got me, placed me into the summer internship program while I was here at U.S. After a few years, you made the move to Fifth Third Bank. What prompted that change and how did that opportunity just come about for you? Fifth Third was a bank out of Cincinnati that was a small regional bank.

They had offices in mostly Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Indiana They were opening up an office in Cleveland the team that came up from Cincinnati there was a gentleman that who still a mentor of mine, a gentleman named Don Graham. He was from Cincinnati. He had played basketball for Youngstown State and he was a career banker, a great individual who I'm still in touch with. And Mr.

Graham met a friend of mine, just a boyhood friend from the old Lee Harbert neighborhood. And Mr. Graham said, hey, I'm looking for, we're looking to hire some young branch managers or commercial lenders and things of that nature. So it was kind of a referral from a buddy of mine that I grew up with who knew Mr.

Graham. He said, I need you to meet this guy. He just moved in town. He's setting up this, he's the city manager for Fifth Third Bank.

I'm like, what's Fifth Third Bank? I never heard of it. And so I interviewed and said, it's probably worth exploring because I've been in Ameritrust about four and a half years. and I just said, you know, I'm still young. I'm still thinking about going back to law school.

I'm not quite sure what I want to do. And that really launched my career because I got a lot of great mentorship and it was a growing company where I got a lot of responsibility early. So it came from a referral, like a lot of my career moves have come, but just because of the networking skills that I actually learned here at U.S. And it just kind of led to that career.

I think I stayed at Fifth Third about 24 years. And while you were at Fifth Third, you decided to go back to graduate school, not law school, but to pursue an MBA at Baldwin Wallace. What made you decide to go back to school for that MBA? And why did you choose BW's program?

So that's a good question. So probably about seven or eight years into my time at Fifth Third, I had made the commitment that I was going to stay in banking. So I knew that banking was going to be my thing. I was a commercial banker, and then they had assigned me to run, become the managing director of public finance where I ran a group that financed cities, school districts, colleges, hospitals.

I did institutional financings for large institutions like colleges and hospitals for all of Northern Ohio, North of Columbus, all the way to Toledo and the Western PA. But I didn't have a business degree and I was competing against professionals that had more of a business degree. I had a political science degree. So everything I learned about banking, I learned through the training program and I wanted to kind of show up my skills in terms of accounting, in terms of finance, in terms of all those types of things where many of my colleagues and counterparts had come up through the business route because they probably knew in college they wanted to to study business.

When I was an undergrad I was still thinking of law so I was a political science major. So that's what prompted me. So I looked at Case Western Reserve and I looked at Baldwin Lawless and the two, they're both great schools. I ended up choosing Baldwin Lawless for two reasons.

One, I met a number of middle managers and executives that had gone to Baldwin Wallace, and they were doing very well. And I asked them, what did you like about Baldwin Wallace? He said, well, it's very practical. It's stuff that you're learning in the classroom that you're applying almost the next day in the real world.

And a lot of the professors there were adjunct professors who were also practitioners. For example, the gentleman that taught us managerial accounting in the MBA program was a CFO of a small company. So he'd come to class and say, here's something I worked on today, right, that you can apply in your world. Secondly, Fifth Third had a tuition reimbursement program, which said you have to you pay for your class, you get a beer better, and then they reimburse you.

And so it was more affordable for me at the time to do ball and wallets because I could put my entire semester on a credit card. And then when Fifth Third Bank, when I passed all the classes, which I did, I was a much better grad student than I was an undergrad student. They would just reimburse me and I would flip it for the next semester. And it was also the hours and the convenience.

I was already like an assistant VP, so I looked at Case Western and I said, well, I'll go to BW, it's more practical, it's easier for me to manage, and the cost. And so, but I'm glad that I did because it really made me a better manager, a better leader, and it gave me some tools that I didn't have because I had been more of a political science major. up my analytical skills where I already had developed the people skills. You know, how do you kind of juggle the demands of graduate school with full-time banking career at the same time? Obviously, it must have been kind of a lot to juggle at one time.

It was a lot. By that time, unlike my undergrad years, I had learned time management. You set your priorities and you stick to them, and then you build a rhythm around what you want to do so you have some relaxation time, you have some time for enjoying your friends or whatever, but then you know that you've got to set goals and you've got to move forward. The other thing about me for grad school is because I was really applying in my day-to-day work, I was kind of excited to get in the classroom and work on projects with my classmates and work with the faculty because it was allowing me to constantly be about improvement in my professional life.

And it was stuff that I could apply right away. So it was like an immediate impact to what I was doing. So for me, I was kind of motivated because I was, you know, I was running an enterprise. I was growing a department that I started from scratch.

When I started public finance for Fifth Third of Northeast Ohio, they just gave me a desk and a phone and said start to practice. So I was really looking to use those skills right away. So for me, it was just kind of like part of my it just became a rhythm because I knew that Tuesday night I'm in class and Thursday during the day I'm in front of a client and I'm applying what I'm learning. And your career has taken you from banking, financial planning, you've done some insurance, and also nonprofit leadership, which I also want to get into.

But eventually you moved into higher education, you joined Case Western Reserve University, and then more recently in 2023, you took new opportunity back at Baldwin Wallace as the Director of Alumni Engagement. What has that varied career path taught you and been able to kind of move through all those things and transfer your skills through each one? I think the first thing it taught me is that, like you just said, skills are transferable. My banking career afforded me some choices to try other things because I was very successful and I was able to position myself and still take care of my family.

And so I wanted to try some different things while I still had some time. Right. And so I left Fifth Third Bank in 2008 and became a financial advisor. I did that for about seven or about nine years. with New York Life, and then with Skylight Financial Group, which is a mass mutual group.

But a lot of my moves, oddly enough, were similar to the move to Ameritrust because of relationships. One of the things that I learned at U.S. was building relationships. So just as I told you the story of how Mr. Akers' class of 1952 got me my first summer internship, which launched my banking career, later on in life, similar things happened.

I was at Fifth Third, and I got a recruiting call from a gentleman who was a fraternity brother, a member of Kappa Pasa, which is a fraternity I joined in college. And he was an alumni member of the frat, and he was at New York Life. And he said, I just want to have coffee or lunch with you, tell you about this opportunity. I think that you have a lot of great relationships.

Your skills are transferable. You can impact a lot of people. And so I ended up becoming a million-dollar roundtable agent for New York Life, and it opened up some doors for me. But I kind of had an itch to do some other things.

So some of the nonprofit leadership I've done came out of people discovering me, knowing that I had a certain skill set because I kind of by this time in my career, I had a brand. They knew that I could raise money. They knew I could do different things. And so my nonprofit involvement, including what I'm doing now in higher ed as a fundraiser, also started at U.S.

And I'll tell you about that in a second. But I hope that answers your question. It's just it was part of it is relationships, because sometimes I wasn't necessarily looking for the opportunity. But someone that knew me and knew my skills and knew my integrity would say, here's something that we need, somebody that can do this.

And you might be the right guy and you might not. But at least let's have a conversation. So I think some doors open for me because of relationship building. And it wasn't always like I want to go do that.

I wish it was. I mean, you probably have people that have sat at this table and said, here's a plan. I didn't always have a plan, but I had a lot of relationships that led me toward here. Here's a place where you can have an impact and then take it from there.

So and I'll talk about my fundraising career, which was also impacted by my experience in the U.S. I'll tell you about that in a second. You know, if you ask me, you know, kind of going to that, you know, did I ask you a question? You did.

OK. All right. So for those who may not be familiar, what does alumni engagement director actually do day to day? and how does that role kind of really shape, obviously you said you kind of learned from U.S. Yeah, yeah.

How has that really shaped your experience and just your work now? Right. So an alumni engagement director is similar to what we have here at U.S. We have an alumni office that works to engage alumni, bring them back to the school, interact with you students, learn about what we're doing today, learn about what our faculty, staff, and leadership are doing so that alumni of U.S. will give time, talent, and treasure back to U.S. time meaning come out and volunteer and speak to a class or judge a speech contest, obviously have fun by coming homecoming and all those kinds of things in the games.

Talent, many of our alums have various skills whether it's architecture or understanding construction when we're adding to our buildings in our campuses or we have some brilliant financial folks much more brilliant than me that have helped us with their talent in terms of how we been able to manage the resources of the of the then of course Treasure as we would like all of our alums to give back to the U And you guys will hear that story when you graduate. We want you to start where you are and give back to the U.S. and hopefully create an opportunity for a young man like you, like each of you, in the future to come here. So that's what I do at Baldwin Wallace. I'm working in our Center for Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement.

So we're we're charged with raising funds for endowment, raising funds for the programs and the faculty and the research and all the things that go on at university. And part of that is to engage alumni. For example, last night I hosted an event with our MBA Association, of which I'm a member, to get them reconnected to what the faculty are doing around business education at Ball and Wallace. And how can they help?

Can they mentor a student? Can they create internship opportunities at their respective companies? Can they can they can students shadow them in their careers and those types of things amongst a number of other things? And so apart from planning the big events like homecoming, I'm also working with individual alums.

For example, I just met with an alum down in Texas who is engineering grad from the late 80s. He wanted to make a career change. He's in the auto industry, wants to make another move. So I kind of work with him to connect with our career center and plug him back into the alumni network, similar to what you guys will experience in U.S. to find out where there's a new opportunity.

I also work with another alum who's retired. He was a veteran, so we thank him for his service to the country. But he was interested in what is Balmawaks doing around student veterans and alumni. And he wanted to give a major gift to something specific for supporting veterans.

So we're exploring that with him right now. So that's a couple of examples of the type of work I do. When I was at Case Western, I started out in the corporate relations space, working with companies to do investment in research and in scholarships and co-branding opportunities with Case. And then I moved into major gifts where I traveled the country looking for gifts anywhere from $100,000 to a million from our individual alums from Case Western Reserve.

And that exposure got me on the radar of Lee Fisher, who's now the president of Ball Wallace, who's our former lieutenant governor and the former dean of the law school at Cleveland State. And his team was the one that recruited me to BW. Again, relationship. And you said that started at U.S.

Can you explain a little bit about that? So as much as I was in banking and finance, once I decided that's what I wanted to do and not law, I wanted to give a little bit back to the school because I had a good experience here. So there was a lady named Trina Sivorosky, who was our alumni director at the time, and she recruited me to be a class agent, which meant she would give me the list of the class in 1981, And I had to call them. And this was before a lot of the social media and emails and stuff.

So it was all phone calls. You'd call the members of my class to get them to donate to the U.S. Annual Fund. And we're young guys, so you want $100 or whatever, right?

And so I learned how to fundraise because Mrs. Simorowski said, we need a class agent for 81. Will you do it? I was like, what is that?

She kind of explained to me the job. I said, OK, I'll do it. And I did it for like 10 years because nobody else wanted to do it. So I became the class agent for 81.

And then from there, because I started to learn how to do fundraising, different nonprofit organizations like the City Club of Cleveland, of which I was president, and the City Club Forum Foundation, I was president, because I knew how to raise money. They were like, well, we want you on these nonprofit boards because all nonprofits are trying to raise money. But it was a good experience because it taught me some skills. a lot of guys would hang up on me and you're interrupting my dinner, the US has got enough money or whatever. But over time, I built relationships with my own classmates and we're one of the top giving classes now.

I don't take full credit for that. I think our current class agents are better than me. But that started to be kind of like an application, not my career, but I was like, wow, I'm good at fundraising. So every time I would get involved with somebody, I'd say, well, we hear that you're not afraid to make calls and you're not afraid to cultivate relationships to raise money and so I ended up being kind of known as a bit of a fundraiser.

And so fast forward a number of years later, I think I did two, at least two tours of duty on the University School Alumni Council and I think the last time I was president of Alumni Council, I've chaired the annual fund and I've chaired the Tower Society and then I was a trustee and now I'm on the board. So, and I'm on one of the advancement committee which is raising money. And so then while I was doing my financial planning and advisory work, one of my clients relationship, one of my clients was on the corporate visiting committee at Case Western Reserve. And he said, well, they're looking for somebody that can raise money and make connections.

And I know a little bit about your background. Why don't you consider it? And so that's when I decided to leave financial services for good and join higher ed. And because my parents were educators, I've always had a passion for everything that's going on in education. so it just became a good fit but it's interesting because sometimes the skills that you build are through your career but sometimes the skills that you're better you guys are learning this now because what you're doing here today is is is a skill what you share with me about the um the community outreach that you're doing with your fellow CCIS students and the organizationally that's the skill and I'm sure you're doing some similar things you never know where that's going to take you right so you learn a skill and you think you're doing it just as a volunteer or you you're just doing it because it's fun then years later they'll say we need somebody to do this and you say well i've done that i wasn't doing it in a job i was doing it as a volunteer but you're still doing this you're still building skills and that's kind of what happened that's how us kind of put me in play that's why i encourage alum young alumni and i'll encourage you guys when you graduate just stay involved find find a lane in our alumni network and do that because you're going to build further relationships across decades and you're going to build more skills and you've done it that does make a lot of sense and you practice what you preach by staying connected with the us community yourself like you talked about so what kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind through all of your contributions i think first uh just making sure that us remains a place that creates opportunities for boys like me i didn't come from a lot of money or means being African American.

But when I got here, I felt welcome and I felt that I was part of the community and I didn't have to look at it as a diversity because I just felt like I was a U.S. boy. So I want to make sure U.S. always is open to the best talent first, the best talented boys, but at the same time a cross section of different types of, because we all come from different backgrounds, none of us choose who our parents are. So I hope that my example shows that anybody can make it. Like I said, I grew up in the city of Cleveland.

I didn't have a lot of money. My father was a shop teacher, and I was able to excel at U.S., and U.S. has given me more than I've given it. So I hope to continue to support U.S. and hope to encourage others who may not think they can reach for a U.S. to consider U.S. Well, Mr.

Peebles, you know, finally, we like to end every episode by asking about purpose. You know, you've been a banker, nonprofit leader, board chair, mentor, and now leader in higher education and civic life, all while staying deeply rooted in Cleveland and committed to service and this school. When you step back and look at all these chapters together, what is your why, the core purpose or belief that ties all together and drives you to keep showing up, leading, and giving back every single day? I think it's what you just said, giving back.

It's been said that unto those who much is given, much is required. So I think I was really blessed by some great opportunities here at U.S., my family, my collegiate and graduate school experiences, my career experiences. And I've always been hopefully in the right place at the right time, but also willing to put in that time and the effort to do good work. My father gave me three rules to live by, and I'll end with this.

He said, first, always put God in your family first. So however you, you've got to know something that's bigger than you from a higher power perspective. And you put that first to put your family first. He said, second, always try to be a leader, only follow by choice.

It doesn't mean that you have to be in charge of everything. It just means that you need to carry yourself as a leader, someone that people will respect and follow. Because if you think you're a leader and you look back and nobody's following you, you're simply out for a walk. And then finally, always be a man of your word.

Your integrity is everything. If people trust you and they know that you're a person of your word or in our case, it's being a man of your word, then people will come to you to get things done. And if you know that you can get things done and you don't make promises that you can't keep. But he always told me, the third thing he always told me is always be a man of your word.

And so I've tried to live by example. I've succeeded and failed. But I think that hopefully as I talk to young people like you guys, I can say there's a path for success for everybody. But you've got to kind of keep those fundamentals in front of you.

And, of course, always remember responsibility, loyalty, consideration. Well, Mr. Peebles, it's been great having you on the show today. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts, experiences, and stories with us. to our listeners.

Thank you so much for tuning in and we'll hope you'll join us next Wednesday for the next episode of The Late Show. Thank you, Mr. Peebles. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. It's an honor.