A conversation about leadership and mentorship

Introduction to Leadership and Mentorship 0:00 I had a football coach at one of the universities I worked for, and he would say to his players on the field, that you gotta go mad. 0:08 And the president and I were looking at each other like, I don't know what that means, go mad, right? Literally, that's what he's saying. 0:14 And when we asked him, when I asked him, said, what does that mean, go mad? And he said, I can't tell you. 0:19 And he wasn't kidding, he really wasn't kidding. Well, ultimately he told me, and he said, go make a difference on the play. 0:27 So go mad. 0:41 Hello and welcome to the Degrees of Success podcast. I'm your host, Freda Richards, and today we have an incredible guest, Dr. 0:48 Brian Sandusky. From vice president to chief enrollment officer and current economic developer, he's had many, titles. 0:58 But my favorite, my mentor. Help me welcome Dr. Brian Sandusky. 1:03 Brian, thank you so much for joining us. It's good to have you. 1:08 I know it was a long drive, but I appreciate you being surprise is not that far. It's not that far. is not. 1:13 So I know not only are we neighbors, but we worked together for four years. 1:19 Yes, we did. And now you're my neighbor. And you were fantastic, by the way. Thank you. 1:24 Thank you. I couldn't have done half the things I've already done and are about to do without your great mentorship. 1:31 Well, thank you, but it takes great people to make great things happen and you were fantastic. 1:36 Thank you, Brian. Well, I want everyone to know who you are, where you came from, and just kind of where this all started, because you're an incredible leader. 1:43 One of my favorite attributes about you is that you're a servant leader. And I want to not only be a servant leader myself, but I do appreciate what it is that I've learned from you in that amount of time and how you give and lead from the front as 1:56 opposed to pulling from the back. So let's talk about where you learn those things from. So you have a vast background. 2:03 Tell me more. So, well, first of all, I appreciate those comments about leadership because everything rises and falls on leadership. 2:10 So having the right mentors, being the right mentee is really important. 2:15 So, but I really appreciate that. I've been in higher education for 20 plus years, administration and also being a faculty member all across the United States from Michigan, spent time a lot of time in Michigan, 2:30 spent time in Colorado. Nebraska, Kansas, Arizona, and globally. 2:37 So love it, love working with people, love working with students. My passion is helping institutions succeed. 2:43 So from a business perspective, and then also equally important to that is helping the students succeed. 2:52 And when I categorize institutions, really what I'm meaning is not only from the P &L and the financial side. 2:59 but also from the people development side. So helping people get to the next level. To me, that's part of servant leadership, as you talked about, um and really helping people get to that next level. 3:10 Absolutely, and I've personally seen you do that. But tell me if you were to reflect on doing that for anyone else or just a part of your experience, give me an example of what that looks like. 3:22 um A lot of people talk about leadership, but to actually uh implement that and help people get to the next level, I think you have to have emotional intelligence. 3:33 So you have to understand where people are coming from. um And there's different types of leadership style. 3:41 As you know, you've been part of that. um But to me, like I said, everything rises and falls on leadership. 3:48 So servant leadership is really important, although that's an easy tagline to say, harder to do. 3:54 um But it's really helping people get to that next level. um leading out in front, where do we go? 4:02 Setting the strategy. Communications is really important for a good leader. 4:07 I learned a lot of that throughout my educational journey myself, particularly at University of Phoenix and my master's degree program. 4:14 So not only the written communications, but verbal communication, setting the right expectations. 4:20 I think that's critically important for a leader. um Inspecting what you expect as a leader. 4:26 So if you expect certain things to happen uh and certain activities to happen, how are you inspecting that? 4:34 Whether they be quantifiable data or uh through conversations or however that happens. 4:40 What would you say, how important is the level of risk in leadership? Because I remember when you and I were working together and then we had an agency at one point and I was telling you, I could do this. 4:55 We're wasting this money. And you said, okay. And you trusted me to do that thing. 5:00 Now it could have been devastating. Definitely could have failed. That did not happen, but. 5:07 What is the level of risk that a leader should be willing to take? I believe leaders have to take calculated risk uh and learn from the outcomes. Educational Journey and Personal Background 5:20 So in a continuous learning process, so you take risk, you assess how it went, you take particular actions, corrective actions or continuous actions. 5:31 uh I think taking risks are important, especially in today's climate, right? uh You know, with technology changes. 5:38 uh with the competitive climate in today's world. uh If you're not growing, uh that's a problem. 5:46 So you have to take risks. I think, as I mentioned, you have to take calculated risks based on data um and based on trust and trusting people and letting them do their jobs and supporting them. 5:59 I think that's really important. Absolutely. Clearly, you've learned this after so many years. 6:05 Imagine, I imagine a lot with working in these particular institutions, but tell me about your your degrees. 6:12 Tell me about your educational journey as well. He has a first generation student go to school. So uh I know what it's like for that first generation going to college. 6:23 uh And uh so I have my undergraduate degree in business administration with a major in marketing. 6:29 uh Later on, uh as an adult student, I went to University of Phoenix for my master of arts in organizational management. 6:37 And then I continued on with North Central University to get my PhD in business administration. You know, to me it's... 6:42 uh It's important, it's part of the journey. I view life as a series of chapters and a series of assignments and that type of thing. 6:50 um So I enjoyed it. If you enjoy what you do, that's important. 7:00 You have a different perspective than other leaders that I've met before. 7:05 And I'm wondering, you were adopted. I'm curious, how does that affect or is there a, how do you see that in the way in which you move in your everyday life? 7:15 Because I feel like not necessarily whether you knew your parents or your birth parents or not and having others to love you and to guide you. 7:23 uh Yeah, great question. I wasn't anticipating that question, but great question. 7:29 You know, to me, my parents mean everything, right? So, your upbringing and uh I really haven't looked at that past in terms of my birth mother, uh but uh my parents was awesome, very supportive, very, you know, as I said, I 7:48 was the first generation to go to college to make that happen. They're still in there. 7:54 We're still in another house that I grew up in in Grand Rapids, Michigan. yeah, just salt of the, what did they say? 8:01 Salt of the earth people. um so yeah, you know, the family's important. 8:07 um Taking care of people is important, you know? So yeah, it's been awesome. 8:13 Well, you have an incredible family. Yeah, thank you. You're an awesome dad. Tell me about your two children. 8:18 I was going to say you're two littles, but they're not that little anymore. I know, right? When time goes by. 8:24 So yeah, you know, my wife, she's an engineer. She worked for the city of Surprise, as do I now. 8:30 So we can talk about that too. um But my family is fantastic. You know, we've got a, I've got a 21 year old daughter who's graduating this year from college. 8:39 She's got a leadership and communications degree. And then I have an 18 year old son who's graduating from high school in Surprise right now, for his high school. 8:49 So it's, like I said, it's different chapters in life, but they're fantastic. 8:55 uh I'm blessed to have that and blessed to have friends and blessed to have uh a great group of people that I work with. 9:03 I think that's really important. People make the difference. At the end of the day, to me, it's about people and the relationships with people. 9:11 um So that's, uh it's been great. So I want to bring to your attention that when you and I met, remember you, called me and I was on vacation out of town. 9:27 And uh my little one was screaming in the background. I think he was seven months. Isaac is currently seven, almost eight, which is crazy to think. 9:35 And he was screaming in the background and you were like, if it's okay with you, I'll talk to you now. And I remember just us having an incredible conversation. 9:42 You're like, well, If you come back, have to make the decision by Monday, but I'd love to meet you in person. 9:47 And I came back and you showed me the campus and we were looking at dirt. 9:53 And flags. And the dirt. And we were, this, this blue flag way out there is going to be a football field. 10:01 And so it's crazy to think is like, you know, we live in the city now and these things are here, but. 10:06 What year was that, Freda, did you remember? Was that in 2018? Yeah, in Worcester, we didn't have those buildings and yeah. 10:14 2018, so you were telling me about this dream and I remember being excited for whoever was gonna get this position. The Importance of Trust and Risk in Leadership 10:21 Because in my mind, like, oh, this isn't for me. Like, I'm not good enough to be in this position, but it's so nice to meet him and this is gonna be great in the city that I live in. 10:37 Then you offered me the job and ever since then you have been my cheerleader. 10:42 I'm not going get emotional. totally just made you cry. But you've been by cheerleader from so many aspects in life. 10:52 There's been so many times where you have said, need to, like you have room at the table in places where I was like, I'll just set you up for success. 11:01 Like you, here's all the information and here's the presentation. And you're like, no, we're gonna make room for you at this table. 11:08 You belong in this room. You belong at this table. As a matter of fact, go to the front of the table and make the presentation. 11:15 um having someone in my career to believe in me in that way and to continue to push me, which sometimes, 11:22 you know, we're fighting words. I'm doing what now? I remember those days. 11:28 Freda, I've literally hired hundreds of people throughout the country. And I remember that day. 11:33 I remember, I think it was 2018, 2017. So Ottawa University had a couple of hundred students, didn't have the buildings. 11:41 We were looking for a director of marketing, if recall, or marketing manager, I think it was at the time. 11:46 And there was something about your resume. I was like, oh, your background with what you did online, with what you did for websites, with churches and that type of thing. 11:54 And then when I spoke with you on the phone the first time, I just remembered you had a great personality. 12:00 So again, it's about the people that you work with. There was something about you. So then when we met, I'm like, absolutely, she's the one. 12:06 And we took, we, there was a lot of us, a lot of people that made that happen. 12:12 But now today, as you know, under your marketing leadership and a lot of other things too, but now there's a hundred million dollars in buildings. 12:21 There is, we went from zero students in 2017 to over 900 students. 12:26 Many of them are residential students, $23 plus million in tuition revenue. 12:32 You managed a large marketing budget that not only included the residential campus in Surprise, but in our adult learning programs too that we had in Phoenix and online and 12:42 different states. And I just, you, so as a manager, obviously we inspect what we expect and that type of thing. 12:50 But I also learned a lot from you, right? You learned so much in terms of digital strategies, SEM, SEO, and everything else. 12:59 And you'd go somewhere and you'd take the information back. And I'm like, I don't know that, right? 13:05 um So I learned so much from you. I think that's an aspect of a good leader too, that they can take down and take the shield down. 13:16 and say, you know what, we're all in this together, right? We're going this way. But you got it. You picked it up, you ran with it. 13:22 um And you did an incredible job. You really took that to the next level. Thank you. 13:28 To your point, it takes a special leader to say, I'm comfortable being dumb in this thing. 13:34 Like, I trust you to go do it and to educate me as opposed to, you know, some leaders want to pretend that they understand and know all the things. 13:43 um And, know, that could cause problems. because of what I learned from you. Now, I wouldn't say it's definitely a strength of mine, but I learned, like I said, I learned so much from you on the digital side. 13:57 I don't live in that world day to day, but now I got enough information to know what works, what doesn't work, what type of return do we get on things of that nature. 14:05 So you've tested things, you found out what worked, what didn't work. to me that, uh again, it goes back to leadership, yes, but it's also believing in the people that work with you. 14:17 I think that is important and helping them get to the next level. People often ask me in my career, what do you like most? 14:25 And there's a lot of, there is a lot of good things in my career. That example was one of them, taking and building something out of the ground in surprise and making it very cool. 14:33 So I was with them for six years. And there's been other aspects of my career, but I reflect on what's really important as the people. 14:41 So people like you, and I'm so proud of you, what you've done. And now in your doctoral program too here at the University of Phoenix is just incredible. 14:49 I remember that call too. You know, what do I do? How do I do this? So that to me is at the end of the day is what's important. 14:58 Yeah, and that's clear based on the way that you lead and just the way that you stay investing in those that you care about. 15:07 Once you decided, I'm going to help this young lady throughout her career, you were the reason I left. 15:16 You can talk about character with people, work ethic with people. That's important to me. Trustworthiness. 15:22 You know, as you know, Freda, you know, I'm not afraid to part ways with people either. Right. Right. So it's not just a, you know, I'll say a kumbaya, hey, we're all in it together. 15:31 As a leader, you have to make those tough decisions. Yes. um And definitely I've had my share of scar tissue on my body, being working with HR, having hired many, many people. 15:43 um and also had to part ways. And sometimes that's the best thing to do. But when you've got people that work hard, they're ethical, um they get it, they get the technology aspect of it too, you wanna do everything you can do to help and support and Transitioning to Economic Development 15:58 keep them. And um to me, you were fantastic. 16:05 I appreciate that. So give us a little walk us a little bit through your your career. 16:10 Well, thank you. You know, like I said, 20 years plus in higher education, been with many nonprofit, private, tuition-dependent institutions. 16:19 So as a business person, you know, I want to help the institution succeed. 16:24 And many times in higher education right now, it's challenging for higher education, particularly tuition-dependent ones that... 16:32 uh that struggle with enrollment. So enrollment's declining, revenues are declining, they got operational budget issues, those type of things. 16:39 That's my specialty um within enrollment and marketing and that type of thing. um But I've done that for 20 plus years, multiple schools. 16:48 We've had a couple of schools that were operating in an operational deficit. Can't do that for long, right? 16:54 So bad things happen with the budgets when you look at the P &Ls and the financials. um And I've had the... 17:02 the good fortune to be part of a team that turned that around to an operating surplus. 17:08 And that's hard. So sometimes you have to make cuts, then you add revenues, you try to get enrollment back up and going. 17:14 So I enjoy that. But I also at the end of the day too, being around the campus and being working with students, whether an adult student or it's a traditional student. 17:22 So that's been the majority of my career. I've been all over the country, as I mentioned, managed multiple residential campuses, different states. 17:31 multiple uh adult program centers throughout the country and online and international programs. 17:37 So uh did a lot of that. I got, uh Surprise is a special place as you know. 17:43 uh And I was with our university for 10 years as vice president uh and chief enrollment officer and I was been an officer of the institution. 17:52 uh And Surprise is going through a change with their small business development program. 17:58 So uh I'll... transition into that real briefly. We are a growing community, as you know, we have 170,000 plus people and it's growing like crazy. 18:09 One of the things that really excites me about my new assignment with the city is to transition their current business incubator program. 18:18 So somebody that wants to start a business or grow their business, small business folks, they have a 60,000 square foot campus that used to be old city hall. 18:28 And they're transitioning that if you're not for those folks that are not familiar with Surprise. It's kind of neat, it's in Surprise, but we're transitioning that facility. 18:38 We're gonna close down our services there and move closer to City Hall. So our goal is to create an environment where entrepreneurs can come, business owners can come and work on their actual business problems and their business, grow their business. 18:51 Cause that's something that I certainly like to do. And I did start a business. I started consulting business too. So I know what it's like for a business owner. 18:58 But what we want to do is we want to get students involved in this model. So if you're a business owner, you want to take your program to the next level, your business to the next level, whether it be revenue or I don't know what to do with my 19:09 business, we're going to build an educational curriculum model for you. It's called our fitness for businesses. 19:16 if you go to a gym, right, if you're new, you go to a gym, you want to get in good shape and you don't know what to do, right? 19:23 Your first time in the gym, it's like, hey, I want to get in shape, but I'm kind of fearful. So if you have a business idea, you're gonna come to our new facility, and basically in the heart of the a surprise. 19:35 And we're gonna have an educational curriculum for you, so that you'll be with a mentor, a professional mentor. 19:41 Then what we wanna do is build uh in the curriculum where an undergraduate student or a graduate student from the school can help you, for example, with your marketing plan. 19:51 So it's kinda like a three-legged stool. You would have the entrepreneur. as one leg, you'd have a mentor as a second leg, you would have a student as a third leg. 20:00 And the idea, because I work in economic development now, which is a new assignment for me, like I said, it's been incredible uh workforce experience and economic development 20:09 experience. But if we can take that model and help the community and help them grow jobs, help entrepreneurs, help business owners to the next level and... 20:19 Equally important to that is also helping the students get involved in that from a workforce development perspective and from a skillset perspective. 20:26 So we have that partnership and that's highly unique. We'll be teaching classes at our new programming. 20:32 We're gonna rebrand it. It's almost a startup for us too. So we have a new facility. uh I'm leading that charge. 20:39 So that's my new assignment as the project manager for uh the city of Surprise with us. 20:44 uh So to me, That's exciting. Although, you know, most of my experience has been in higher education administration. 20:50 I love it. It's my passion. It's what I do. But this is a new assignment. It's different. And I want to help the community. 20:56 um To me, that's, uh we want it to be um kind of the West Valley's premier business development hub. 21:04 Right. As a new model. So not only is that exciting for me as a resident, but it's also very exciting period to have a city come and support residents and their drive and desire to be business owners Creating a Business Development Hub 21:19 and for it to come from and be managed by someone who was a business owner themselves. 21:25 then also just very successful throughout your own career and having a lot of different networking opportunities to set these people up for great success. 21:33 Yeah, so we had to go to the council last week City Surprise Council. They had to prove we have a new lease program or new lease at a brand new facility be at about 3,500 square foot facility where business owners can go to to get that help. 21:45 uh And it'll be rebranded. We're gonna rebrand it, remarket it. um So if you own a business in the City Surprise, you'll know where to go to for help, whether it be licensing, whether it be, you know, I just don't know what to do with my 22:00 business. Take it to the next level. We're looking at gym memberships like, you know, if you have a gym membership, but this will be a membership for businesses where we can involve the student, um the mentor, um and really 22:14 help them make those decisions and help them with their business problems. And as they advance, they advance through their membership. 22:21 Yeah, well, and the whole idea is to grow jobs. So it's a workforce development initiative as well for the city. 22:28 So if you think about it from the student's perspective, if you're a marketing student, what better experience than to work on an actual marketing problem for a small business 22:36 owner as part of the curriculum. Yeah, so we're putting that together. 22:41 uh And so that's neat. To me, when I was approached to consider that, I thought it was sure, uh as a fun next step in my career path. 22:51 It's like, okay, so if I can gain the economic development experience and work with the university, the community, uh the city of Surprise to make this happen and have a large 23:03 impact for the community, that's what we wanted to do. So it's been a lot of fun. 23:08 And we have to lead the transition. We have got business owners at our current facility that, you know, we have to close that facility at 60-some thousand square feet. 23:17 There's 25 or so business owners in there. They have to find new. new location, because our new model is going to be more of an uh educational model. 23:26 So we have to lead that. We have to uh manage that. And it gets back to leadership. 23:32 It's the communications, the expectations, those type of things. And like I said, I learned a lot of that throughout my... 23:40 uh And I remember back at University of Phoenix being in the classrooms in a cohort model. 23:46 And I remember the instructor up in front. And we had to write a lot. You had to write a lot. 23:51 you had to think about, had to problem solve, and you had to get up in front of class, make a presentation. 23:56 Those are all skill sets that I think is really important in a leader. Absolutely. 24:01 Absolutely. You've had so many different positions, right? So from vice president to chief enrollment advisor, and now the economic development. 24:13 With your vast educational journey and experience, how do you think that you implement that with all of these different? 24:21 Because even this current project, not only are you removing people from one place, 24:27 And totally, then you completely change the business model or the value proposition. Yeah, you heard that. 24:33 Quite a find a few times or the value proposition. And then on top of that, you're now creating a curriculum. 24:41 Yep. And it just seems like there's so many spinning plates. There's a lot of moving parts and to me it starts with vision and strategy. 24:50 So it is not just me in some room, you know, cooking this up somewhere. I think it's important to pull people in when you develop a new strategy. 24:57 So we have a board of advisors that are entrepreneurs themselves that care about the community, that are executives, uh folks from university. 25:08 So we pull them together and be like, okay, what could this look like? What are the strategies involved? uh 25:14 That's important to me. And develop a written plan. I think that's really important in terms of where are gonna go? 25:21 How are we gonna get there? What does that project look like in terms of timeline and implementation? 25:29 And we're right in the midst of that right now. So like I said, the city surprise council just approved our lease on our new facility, which is unusual and they've been fantastic and they support the initiative. 25:40 And we started with the value proposition. What is the value proposition of this program, right? Well, the value proposition is to help this price small business community with support, because it's gonna be an investment for the city. 25:54 And it's, uh like I said, it's been incredible. So we're right in the middle of that change. 25:59 And a lot of it, like I said, is communication. So we're gonna be basically a startup ourselves. 26:05 So we're developing the marketing plan, the communication plan, how are gonna open this? 26:11 we'll do a soft opening and then in January we intend to open it on a full-time basis and communicate it. 26:18 You've been great, Freda. You and I met before and you're like, well, what are we gonna call this thing, right? 26:24 And so it'll be Spark Surprise, but the tagline will be Business Development Hub. So people will get it and they'll know where to go for that help. 26:33 So that's important. So for me and my career, it's like, if we can get this up and going and make a difference. Final Thoughts on Leadership and Community Engagement 26:39 You know, I'll share one more quick one. um I had a football coach at one of the universities I worked for. 26:47 And he would say to his players on the field, I'll never forget, I was with the president, and he would say, you gotta go mad. 26:55 And the president and I were looking at each other like, I don't know what that means, go mad, right? Literally, that's what he's saying. 27:00 And when we asked him, when I asked him, said, what does that mean, go mad? He said, I can't tell you. 27:06 And he wasn't kidding, he really wasn't kidding. Well, ultimately he told me. And he said, go make a difference on the play. 27:14 So go mad. Get it? And so if we can make a difference for the community to start it from nothing to now what it is, like I said, a hundred million dollar in buildings and many students are attending 27:27 there and da, da, da, da. That's my passion is to get things up and go in and make it work, make it successful. 27:36 um That's important. Tell me about what it looks like to communicate with those that are either that you're working with, whether it be residents or students or uh your employees, because you bring 27:52 a sense of self, you bring a sense of, again, you belong here, but then also uh still understanding and respecting that you're the boss. 28:02 How do you do different? You know, it's so funny you asked that question and I hope I answer it correctly. 28:08 uh A good leader, in my view, has to have the ability and the skill set to speak well to everybody in the organization. 28:17 And everybody's important. Right. And sometimes you get leaders that miss that, particularly at the top level. 28:24 uh You know, you get so focused on board meetings and financials and, you know, that type of thing. 28:30 And that's all important, hugely important, right? I get it. uh But it's also important to talk to folks that make things happen. 28:36 And so that you learn from them, whether it's the custodial crew, right? 28:42 mean, you you have the secretary that's upfront. I'll tell you, that person knows probably more than a lot of people. 28:48 That old saying is true. So I think, you know, a leader needs to be able to recognize that within an organization, the organizational culture. 28:57 The floor is yours if there's any last thing that you wanted to say to our listeners and viewers. 29:02 Go ahead. Yeah, Freda. Grateful for the time, grateful that you invited me to the podcast. 29:07 It's great to see you again. uh I'm a proud University of Phoenix graduate and it had an impact on my career, there's no question. 29:15 uh But no, it's like I said, the world needs leadership right now, whether it's at your family level or it's running an organization. 29:24 uh Everybody has that potential. Right. Right. Leadership is not something that you're born with. 29:30 I view it as an art and a science. There's a science to it, right? But the art is how you do it and how you engage and the experience that you have. 29:39 But it's a pleasure seeing you again. And I'm really grateful to be here on the podcast. 29:44 Love to network. So I do have a LinkedIn. So you can find me on LinkedIn at Brian Sandusky. 29:50 uh You can also find me at the city surprise. So email is brian, b-r-i-a-n dot sandusky. 29:59 at surpriseaz.gov. uh Happy to network, happy to talk to people. 30:05 Thank you so much for joining us. was just such simply a pleasure to have you as you've heard it here. 30:11 Leadership is a science. It's not for everyone. But if you have a good mentor or if you'd like to be a mentee, make sure you reach out to Dr. 30:20 Brian Sandusky either on LinkedIn or his email. Somehow that brings us to the end of this episode of the Degrees of Success podcast. 30:29 Don't forget to like, subscribe and comment. I'm your host, Freda Richards. reminding you that your next chapter might just be your best one yet. 30:38 See you soon.