215: Tara Jones, The University of Memphis.

And so that really kept me challenged as well.

But the dean came to me and he said, I'm going to retire at the end of December 2010.

And I thought, well, if I'm going to work with a new dean, because I, from my friend who said, The leader of the unit, it's so important that you connect and that they understand that your visions and your goals are aligned could not have been more true.

And I, again, I didn't know it at the time when I interviewed, but looking back, that is so much true.

And I'm so fortunate that I was able to work with that dean.

His name is Dan Bennett, and he and I are still in touch.

He's fantastic.

But I thought, well, if I'm going to work for a different dean, I'm going to look around.

And so Bill Hargrave had become the dean of the College of Business in August of 2010.

And so I didn't know him.

I just reached out and said, may I take you to lunch? I was a two time business graduate at Auburn.

So I wanted to hear what his vision was for the college from an alumnus standpoint, but also a potential future partnership.

And so we went to lunch.

I loved all the plans he was thinking about.

He'd only been there for a couple of months.

But I said, well, there had been a departure of the leader of that development group.

And I said, are you going to rehire that? He's like, I don't think so.

I need to assess it, but I don't think I'm going to rehire it.

I said, well, if you ever think you might, then I would be interested in interviewing.

And so a couple of months later, he decided to post for that role and went through the interview process and started and got the job, started there in January of 2011.

And so had a bigger team.

So that was amazing.

of great interest to me being able to manage a bigger team, having the opportunity for larger gifts at the College of Business.

But there were so many things that he was a new dean.

And so at that time, I thought all deans are the same.