Brooks Running CEO and Successful Ag Investor Share Career Insights with Hill-Murray Students
Thinking about the future can be daunting as a high school junior or senior. Even as adults, we think about what it would be like if we could go back in time and let our high school selves in on what we know now.
This morning, Hill Murray juniors and seniors had the extreme fortune to hear from two adults who have not only been there but found great success along the way. Jim Weber, a 1974 Hill-Murray grad and CEO of Brooks Running Company, joined Carl Casale, past Chair of the Hill- Murray Foundation, former Hill-Murray parent and Senior Agricultural Partner of Ospraie Ag Science, on the auditorium stage.
Weber, who is credited with the turnaround of Brooks Running Company, told students Hill-Murray was his launch pad. He encouraged students to be a sponge for knowledge, to get involved in everything they can now and build relationships. He said he and his wife, Mary Ellen, who met in the Hill-Murray library, still connect with many of their classmates. He said it took him a while to realize just how important it is to build trusting relationships.
“I would say I started out pretty wonky. I was a strategy person, brand person. I was all business, business, business,” he said. “But I literally woke up in the middle of my career and said this is all about people. Business has always been all about people… it’s really about engendering trust and how you carry yourself within your team. Business is a team sport.”
He told students that trust has been degraded since he was their age but is a key ingredient to success.
“The leadership challenge is to fill that void of trust,” he said. “How do you earn that? By connecting with people, engaging with people. Behavior is destiny. Walk the talk. Ethics and purpose are so important for that.”
Piggybacking off that, Casale encouraged students to start building their own personal brand. He told them to start by considering what three words friends or others would use to describe them.
“It’s not what we think we are. It’s what others believe we are that basically shapes our brand,” Casale told students. “And then you have a mirror or a compass you can hold up and say ‘okay, how am I acting relative to what I believe is really, really important.’” He said you build your brand over time, and it eventually becomes who you are and gains you credibility.
“I never thought about what my next job would be,” Casale said. “The only questions I asked was ‘what am I going to learn from this that is new and unique that I don’t know today’.”
Both said they had no regrets in their career because each experience good or bad, taught them something essential for the next step in their journey.
When asked what their advice to their high school selves would be, Casale told students to make the most of their high school years and reminded them what a gift they have been given to attend Hill-Murray. He encouraged them to focus on things that make a difference in life vs. things that are relevant.
‘Relevance is about you,” he told them. “Making a difference is about others.”
Weber encouraged students to work hard and keep their options open. He said you never know what might come along, and the harder you work the more options you create.
The Hill-Murray Entrepreneurs Panel was presented by the Mothers and Fathers Club.
