And I want to, I want to start this off by, sort of by honoring that work 10 years running one of the largest universities, the United States, the world, to think about that journey, when you look back, look back for me, what are one or two of the things you are most proud of, that you go home, if you if you resign today, which you're not going to, but if you did, when you look, if you look back, you would go, you know what these couple of things were the difference makers over the last 10 years.

You know, I don't even know if it's a couple things.

I feel like the thing I would put at the top of the list is standing on the shoulders of Bob Mendenhall and advancing the culture of WGU.

This is a thing that doesn't make the press or doesn't get as much visibility as other things that want to be talked about, whether that's curriculum design, student experience, or technology use, whatever it is.

Not enough is talked about in terms of a leader's impact on the culture of an organization.

That culture is not everything.

Well, sorry, it is everything, but it's not just about people and how we communicate.

All that to say, how over 10 years have you maybe avoided, I don't know, you'll have to clarify whether it's avoided or prevented against that bias for innovation subsiding we have presidents every day we talk to that are just going i can't move this forward as fast as i need to i'm having too many barriers internally the academy is designed to prevent innovation how have you done it and sustained it over time

We have to go back to the second one, but are you seeing your influence impact academic institutions broadly? Are people picking up things that you're doing? Have you sh- created a movement?

Um, well, I don't know if WGU's created a movement, but I, I certainly can point to s- there's catalysts that have, have been forcing conventional institutions to innovate at the edges that they can.

Um, a simple one to point to is, is that whether we wanted it to be this way or not, COVID and the resulting pandemic forced institutions to deal with virtual education and virtual delivery models.

Um, and you know, frankly, most of it was pretty rubbish, meaning all they did was basically replicate that which they did in person.

So if I had a lecture three times a week, I just now did the lecture on Zoom.

And you're like, "I can't think of a more boring thing to do online," like is just to listen to a lecture.

And, and what, what though came out of that is that the student all of a sudden realized that, man, that online thing, especially as, uh, faculty were recording those lectures, it gave me, the individual, so much more flexibility that I didn't have previously that that catalyzed the spike in demand for virtual options, online courses, online learning, online programs, that whether institutions wanted it or not, for them to serve the shifting-- that shift in demand from the students that are trying to enroll is like, well, you better have online.

Yeah.

Hmm

...

if that makes sense.

It's like we're always more anxious about what things need to be than what they are.

Um, even if in what they are is really impressive and really incredible and scaled and everything else.

Like, that's fine, but if the future and the scenarios that comprise that future are gonna demand so many more different things and capabilities that we don't currently have, and program offerings, and course structures, and everything, curriculum, I'd, y- like, they were gonna require wholly different designs.

We are more anxious about accelerating our ability to deliver on those designs than we were, than we are about operationally scaling that which we've already designed.

Yeah.

[chuckles]

Uh, I've probably a few times kind of, uh, pop into my mind.

I think for me, somewhat the most seminal one, uh, probably occurred as I transitioned from Sterling Commerce into Amazon, and, and I was going, you know, from leading the products and marketing function at Sterling Commerce, which is about a six hundred and six hundred and fifty million dollar enterprise software company, and then going into the general management position to lead, uh, a new and emerging business that was called Amazon Webstore at the time.

And, uh, w- what was notable is that, uh, I felt like I had been crushing it, if you will, at Sterling Commerce, that I had gone from a startup, being acquired into that organization.

It k- kind of felt like I was developing my leadership capacity.

How do I connect and motivate and inspire the individuals that were on my team? That I felt like I'd kind of figured this out, and then I was gonna bring all that to, to kind of power things forward, uh, at Amazon and what we were doing with the startup inside of it.

And, and the reality was probably the exact opposite.

In terms of young people pursuing meaningful work for them, any, any advice or perspective that you'd offer to, uh, to the parents and grandparents listening or even potentially some of the kids?