Join us as Michigan Superintendent of the year, Dr. Collier, reveals how focusing on systems over goals can help you build unstoppable momentum, all through the lens of three powerful words: Serve, Innovate, Empower. Discover how these principles can reshape your leadership approach and your organization’s future. Plus, learn how spotlighting everyday wins can transform staff morale and community perception in remarkable ways.
Dr. Jeffrey Collier
Michigan’s 2024 Superintendent of the Year
Learn more about the award at gomasa.org
Join us as Dr. Collier reveals how focusing on systems over goals can help you build unstoppable momentum, all through the lens of three powerful words: Serve. Innovate. Empower. Discover how these principles can reshape your leadership approach and your organization’s future. Plus, learn how spotlighting everyday wins can transform staff morale and community perception in remarkable ways.
Systems vs. Goals
Serve. Innovate. Empower.
The “Our Story” Initiative
Early Childhood Innovation
Positivity & Leadership Mindset
Family, Mentorship, and Personal Passions
Saginaw Intermediate School District (Saginaw ISD)
https://www.sisd.cc
Explore the district’s mission and wide-ranging educational programs.
Our Story Initiative
Follow Saginaw ISD’s Our Story Initiative here or on any of their social media channels!
James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”
https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
Dr. Collier references the concept of incremental gains (1% better every day) and the power of habits in personal and organizational growth.
Saginaw Public School District
https://www.spsd.net
Partner in innovative early childhood programs and community-focused initiatives.
Central Michigan University
https://www.cmich.edu
Collaborates with Saginaw ISD for curriculum development and teacher training.
Standing Tall: Voices in Leadership
Hear in-depth conversations with forward-thinking leaders who are making a real difference in education. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories and actionable insights.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of standing tall. Voices in leadership. I'm your host. Randy Lindquist, superintendent of Muskegon area Intermediate School District, today we have the privilege of speaking with an exceptional leader, Dr Jeffrey Collier, superintendent of Saginaw Intermediate School District. Dr Collier brings over 24 years of educational experience to his role in 2024 Dr Collier was named Michigan Superintendent of the Year for his transformative vision and dedication to public education. Dr Collier has led major initiatives, including passing a special education millage in 2022 the first in nearly 50 years, and in an era where communication is key. Dr Collier has launched the our story initiative to share daily positive stories from the educational community, strengthening engagement and transparency across Saginaw ISD. Today, we'll be discussing Dr Collier's journey, his approach to Transformative Leadership, and the strategies he's implementing to build a brighter future for students and educators alike. Let's stand tall. We choose to go to
the moon. You can't do it alone. Team, Team. Embracing change. There is no courage without vulnerability. Be embraced attitude. Reflect leadership. Captain. Can you rumble with vulnerability? Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Can you stay in tough things, or you tap out, I have a dream, learning how to get back up and keep moving forward, learning how to rise.
Let's stand tall. Well, Jeff, thanks for joining us today, on standing tall. Glad you're with us.
I am so happy to be here. Thanks for considering me as a guest. Thanks, Randy. It's an honor
to have you here. I want to start out with you elaborating a bit on your leadership philosophy and how that has maybe evolved through your your great career so far.
Oh, that's kind I can speak to this in in maybe two segments. One segment comes in an area that I'm almost embarrassed that I hadn't considered it. I inherited it as I came into Saginaw Intermediate School District. I am the superintendent at Saginaw ISD. This is my fifth year, hired in July, 1 of 2020 and one of the first things I learned about our dynamic organization was our they called it a the mission, and we've now taken away the vision part of it, but it was vision mission combined. And it was three words, three words with punctuation. It was serve period, innovate period, empower period. And coming from where I was, I was, one, very enticed and leaning into it. Two, embarrassed that I had never considered those powerful words of what an organization focused on servant leadership could do. So my philosophy is very much rooted in the concept of providing incredible servant leadership, innovation, creativity, always dreaming to be big and expansive in thought, challenging the concepts always of what if and why not, and then empowering all people through an equitable lens that is my professional philosophy, my personal philosophy is braided in very closely along this, and it comes along, probably through my background and where I came from, and in all the very unique things that make us who we are today. But we have two rules in our household, and my wife, Yolanda, who is a master teacher. She's a Spanish teacher in Midland Public Schools, we have two beautiful children. My daughter Gianna is 19, and my son, Gabriel is 15. And we, my wife and I, have been aligned in our parental approach, which is always great as well. But the two rules for our household and the Collier household has been first and foremost, strive to be the kindest person in the room. The golden rule, turn the other cheek. Be kind. Just be super, super cool. When that happens, good things happen, and there are typically more natural positive outcomes than negative. The second rule is, never get out worked. So if we can strive to be the kindest person in the room, and if we can strive to never be outworked, I have a feeling we're going to be okay in where we're going to move and try to find shooting for the stars in that North Star metric. And as I've shared with my kids forever, I know if they were sitting here at the table Randy, they'd be able to say, oh my gosh, their eyes would be rolling. Yes, Dad, be super kind. Never get out worked. It's become a mantra for us, but really, I've said to them, and this is this is us. It's a concept of always trying to seek balance, and I think it's a fool's errand to try to find this work life balance, and where we're going to be able to find that ability to feel sated and believe that we're doing everything that we can within our servant leader. Ship roles, and let's be honest, Randy, our jobs are very difficult, but they're also very privileged. And for whatever reason, we've either hit the the unlucky lottery of being a superintendent for our counties, or we've had a very fortunate opportunity to be able to express, hopefully, some moments of wisdom throughout our careers that we can pay forward. And that's what I that's what I choose to believe, although these are very, very big, hairy, difficult jobs when it comes to the balance aspect, James clear talks a lot, and I kind of referenced him a minute ago in the 1% talking about atomic habits and making sure that those habits are really moving into strong strategic focuses of tactics. But he also references the fact that we talk a lot about goal work and a goal could be balanced for me, but we do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the levels of our systems. And I love that line, and I love the I love the framework that that gives because what that has done is it's challenged me to be able to refocus how, as an organizational leader, we're providing the balance, not only for myself, but really a great leadership. I think leaders eat last we know, and we should be the inverse part of the pyramid. We should be at the substrate of the pyramid, never at the top. Our teams are always above us. How are we building the appropriate systems for which everyone can find balance, and how are we putting our talented team members, some of the most beautiful people I've ever met in my life? How are we putting them in positions to be celebrated and to employ their talents in a way that supports all of us? So a lot of my balance work is always thinking about systems and cultures. How are we analyzing if we're moving from good to great, how are we going to move in a way that is dealing always with a scarcity of resources, limited resources, both economically, financially, human capital. How are we working to be able to re employ, reimagine, to build better systems for today and tomorrow, while finding and seeking that balance, to be able to be the servant leaders on Community Action boards and be able to braid that rope, if you will, to be able to make sure that we are actionable with our community, working to build our community, and never losing sight of our grand responsibility of being first and foremost servant,
innovative and empowering leaders. Yeah,
I love that piece of balance because we've worked on systems well in our organization, we've seen in wellness surveys that that's been a trouble spot for staff, right, that that work life balance has been hard, so hard we can't contribute to that in the wrong way. We have to think about our systems to realize that will help people find that balance. I think you bring a critical point to that
well, and a lot of that I'm challenged with Randy. I am not good at it. I am terrible at taking vacation days. I'm terrible at modeling sick days when I'm not feeling well. This concept, and maybe it comes from where I where I came from. Obviously, it's built into my DNA somewhere else. I want to be conscious of modeling good practices. I want to be conscious of celebrating people who have earned the right and privilege to take days off. And I want to make sure that people know that that's not part of being outworked. That's part about working smart, yeah, making sure that we are physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually charged all the time. Because our communities, you can't give it all right? We can't in our community's greatest resources. Our children are are waiting on us, yeah, and we are in Randy. We we have two very similar ISDS. I do think we are so blessed and fortunate to be able to serve the communities we do in Muskegon and in Saginaw, and we are charged supercharged to be beyond servant leaders for our children only. We are community builders, and we have this wonderful ability as being two of the largest organizations in our entire counties and two of only 56 ISDS in the entire state of Michigan, that we have this ability as this framework to act as Switzerland. So even though we're in charge of everything, we do not necessarily have a lot of autonomy to tell people what to do. So we act as this, this real great security dome for our communities. And we have to be able to be mindful not only of our presence, but how are we feeding our teams to be able to do what they do? So magically, yeah, great
Switzerland analogy. I've never thought of that way, but that's a great analogy for the work we do. We're pretty neutral. So a feather in your cap, or the organization's cap, is that you successfully passed a special education millage at Saginaw ISD a somewhat historical accomplishment, I believe. So What strategies did you employ to secure the passage of that special education millage after nearly a 50 year gap, and what's been the impact so far of that accomplishment? I
really appreciate that shout out to our community, because it was it was a team lift. It was a community that came out and voted. And provided a strong referendum of support in my team members who were able to take the vision and the challenge of what if and why not and bring it across the finish line that impacts every single student in Saginaw County. So our Saginaw county millage system, prior to this enhancement, millage had not been at a point in the last 48 years of consideration of an enhancement millage. So the first time, I'm almost 50 years and as I came in new in July of 2020, and this is just a new opportunity to look at a system we're going through the beginning stages of a world pandemic with COVID. I was meeting my teams, and I was just asking, how are we funding special education? Who's receiving these funds? Are these equal and equitable? And what if we were to challenge the paradigm of how we've been doing this? What if we went for a millage that led to deeper conversations it employed all of our thought leaders to be able to come in and say, Well, if we do this, then that could happen. If this, then that, and then then we brought in our local superintendents, we brought in our local school boards, brought in our local community members, and we began to say, if we are able to enhance to the state minimum statute of what we could levy for our special education millage as a county, we could potentially provide, and we ultimately did an opportunity where there are no build backs to our local school districts. So we now with it's as long as the services remain in the area that they are. We are now in our third year of absolutely no build back of special education. We've been able to increase our services with the provision of support, robust support from our community in every one of our local school districts. Now our 12 traditional public school districts and our five public school academies do not have to budget anymore for special education. What an amazing financial piece. So just incredible. Not only do we best ensure free and appropriate education for all of our civil liberties, for our students, all of our babies, but now we have an opportunity where those dollars that once were being budgeted to have to be spent on Special Education to provide those civil liberties no longer have to be which means that those are general fund, non restricted dollars that can go to every single student to be able to build up what they're doing. I like to think that we've created, as I mentioned earlier, this insulatory dome around Saginaw county that is creating a financial advantage as we move through the days of economic turmoil, where we hope to be able to have this in a sustainable give back in perpetuity. Yeah,
kudos to your community for passing that, oh my gosh, being a part of that vision for that work as well.
And you know what I what I call my community, we're sagging Awesome. Yeah, I know he was sagging, awesome. It was so cool. That's
a good description of the community in that way, for sure. Yes, I'm going to turn internally now a little bit, and I know you've created a program called our story at Saginaw ISD, and I want to know how that's influenced the culture within your organization and maybe even beyond them.
Well, that's a great question. Our story is an original concept that focusing on the ability to better impact, not only psych, positive psychology, staff engagement, but really an an altruistic opportunity to create a dynamic, positive narrative of what we do in education. It doesn't matter to me, we are obviously public education servant leaders, but we exist for all students. We exist for every community, and we exist anywhere around the world. So this is an opportunity for us to bring up the level of positive awareness and understanding about education in itself. If you were to Google, if you were to go into Google and type in just a natural search of teacher or education or school system, typically the first few feeds are going to be very negative, and that's usually what sells in our social media awareness right now. But we know that that's not the case. We know that those feeds are outliers of really big proportions, and it doesn't hit the million magic moments of awe that take place every single moment of every single day with our staff, our educators, our support staff, our bus drivers, our community volunteers. So our story is an opportunity for us to, quite literally provide an opportunity where in Saginaw County, at Saginaw ISD, all 750 of our employees have direct, easy access to all of our social media feeds that are curated through an app and a process that we've created, and it allows them to be able to share their million magic moments of awe. We're coming up on 4500 positive stories in less than a year and a half now, and that is not everybody. So I would love to be able to look you in the eyes Randy and say, oh my gosh, this is such an amazing. Idea, and everybody has jumped off the deep end with me like a lemur. That's not necessarily the case. What has happened is we are continuing to increase the trust quotient of what it means to share the story, because we have also created a subculture sometimes of gotcha moments by educators that say, Wait a second. You're going to ask me, Jeff, to be able to put a positive story out there. Are you checking me? Are you going to be are you going to be watching me now? Where's my cadence? So I didn't get it this week. Is that going to hurt me in evaluation? No, quite literally, all I want to do is share you and celebrate you and what you're doing in your school, whether that's helping a first grader learn how to tie their shoes or a massive celebration or an award. It really is about the minutia, because at the end of the day, we are the in loco parentis guardians of our community's most prized possessions. There's not a greater profession and the history of Earth, and there's not a greater sensibility of the million magic of moments of awe that are not captured otherwise, and that's all we want to do. Want to celebrate our teams. Want to celebrate our educators. We want to celebrate our students. Want to celebrate our families. We're just out on a mission to celebrate the positive.
Yeah, and our educators, anybody involved in education, they do great work every single day, and too often that's outweighed by the negative stories that get put on social media and every other every other place, right? So how do you you have to use the internal capacity of your staff to spread that message that's really important? Well,
when I was when I was a classroom teacher, I was a nine year, nine and a half years, I was in two different districts. I loved what I did. I've loved I've had this wonderful privilege of every job that I've had has been my next best job, and here we are impacting more and more students. But I used to get frustrated because the amount of work that I was doing. I believed that I was impacting my students every single day. But there was a part of me that had a bit of a chip on my shoulder that principals didn't know what I was doing. Department chairs might not have known. Community members might have been disengaged. And I started to think, Gosh, I know that my impact is every day with these babies. However, wouldn't it be nice if somebody else recognized or had a word of affirmation or an acknowledgement of the 80 hours that was going in to be able to provide these things? And that's all we're trying to do, is to allow people to share the unbelievable positive things that are happening every single day. Yeah,
well, it's good to hear the impact that's having, and I'm sure it's going to grow even more as you get into this even further. So kudos to you and your team for creating that. Thank you. Can you share some examples of innovative practices? So this, I would say what you just talked about was one of them, but any other innovative practices implemented under your leadership that have significantly benefited students and staff that you want to talk about?
Well, I appreciate that. I'm going to use the the me and I, but please, please take those out and put in we and our this is all about the team and the community. We are re imagining our belief of what early childhood programming can be. So we've had a really great partnership build with Saginaw public school district, and they've had two elementaries that became offline for them based on demographic shifts, and we were able to work with them to purchase two historic elementary buildings in what is the boundaries of Saginaw public school district. And what we're doing right now is we are going through capital projects to completely overhaul these two elementary schools that are in predominantly socioeconomically mitigated communities, marginalized communities, I should say, and we are providing really in depth early childhood programming. That's birth to five. Early on, it's great start readiness programming. It's early Head Start and Head Start. But what we're doing, that I believe, is making this innovative in working with curriculum teams in the College of Education at Central Michigan University, we are creating what we're calling a green stem overlay that is going to act like, I would say, a shrinky dink bit. I don't know that all of our listeners would remember that generation back a little bit. Yeah, and it's not really the right thing. It's really more of a saran wrap type of piece that we would put over something. And all it is is more of a security blanket because we already have curriculum. We're not changing curriculum work, but what we are doing is looking at how we can build community in the places that we are. So if we're the acting switzerlands of our community, we have net neutrality. We don't we do have boundaries by our tax bases, but we don't have mascots. We don't have athletic teams. So that allows us to be able to move within a very nebulous way that is often very non threatening, but it also gives us these vast amount of resources with community partners to be able to work in our community, to lead where we're at and in both of these campuses, what we're doing is we're creating this green stem. Overlay to highlight and heighten and enhance the experiences of our three and four year olds, or our early on students birth to five in a way that will allow them to very in very real matters, taste, touch and feel produce. So we've built in this overhaul of capital projects we have in built this massive greenhouse attachment that is all built is really cool. All the beds are at three and four year old heights, so you have to get down on your knees. It's super cute. We have purchased adjacent lots that are contiguous to our campus to create community gardens this campus that I'm speaking of right now, that'll be coming online in the next several next several months, is called Jerome preschool, and it is in the middle of a food desert. We are creating green walls throughout the campus. It's a two story campus with living green walls. Every one of the classrooms has a hydroponic incubator that students and staff will be able to physically transplant plants, take them in, turn them into salads. We have our healthy, healthy bodies, Healthy Minds, coordinators who'll be coming in, doing taste tests and samplings and working with local grocers to be able to provide opportunities for people to come in. We've turned the gymnasium that was not previously licensed for preschool into a brand new community Professional Development Center, and we've trans transposed that place that is for activities for our babies into another part of the building, and just re imagine what this unbelievably cool space is going to be. We've attached and created a medical clinic for parents to be able to come parents guardians to be able to come to the clinic after they drop their students off. It's it's attached to the building, but it has a separate entrance for school security purposes. These are some of the things that we're trying to do. This is a very dynamic community build that I always say we're literally planting a seed in our community to grow.
You are building a pretty strong foundation for early childhood in your county, and you're really focused on growing our smallest learners.
I like that. I see that's really good. Well, it's thinking, well, you planted the seed for that one just so you. I appreciate that. It is an opportunity for us to rethink how we are going to red shirt our kindergarteners, and as we take a look at what the impact may be, we were setting the stage for a very longitudinal study to be able to gage where these gorgeous students are coming from and possibly where they will go. What will their ultimate earnings be? Research is very robust about the impact of preschool and the impact of great start, readiness and Head Start, but we've never done a very good job in our immediate community to be able to track where these students have gone. That's going to be part of what we do. We are literally focusing on whole child and whole community. Excellent,
excellent work. I'm going to shift back to a leadership question and just ask you how important mentorship is for leaders, and then maybe, how do you help provide that for your own team of leaders at Saginaw ISD?
Oh, that's a great question. We were talking about systems and goals earlier, strategy and tactics when it comes to mentorship, mentorship is a sticky thing, because mentorship just assuming somebody needs or wants mentorship or deeds or wants coaching, or needs or watts of pure influence is something that I work really hard to try to foster relationships, first and foremost, very, very transparent, kind relationships that hopefully provide an opportunity to either model, because somebody is always watching that's the first, first step of mentoring. I think somebody is always watching you, even when we don't think they are. So being very cognizant of what we're doing, what we're saying, how we're acting, but also living, hopefully a very fulfilling life, and then being open to anybody that wishes to ask a question. And one of the things that I don't think I've been very good at in my career was the understanding of when people needed me to listen and when people needed a response for a solution. And I think all too often, early on, and I'm embarrassed by this, I would lead into the solution or say, Oh, well, that if you just do this.
I think that's somewhat natural though for people, isn't it?
But it's so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing, because that's not what I want, yeah, but it's immediately what I think we can do to either fix it or help, maybe alleviate time and get back to that balance. And one of the things that I'm focused on very intently is the ability to use the old axiom I have two ears and one mouth. Let's, let's double it up on that equation, and let's only provide the solutions when we know that that's what's being sought. And that has really worked, not only building the relationships being patient and then providing, if desired, maybe some of the experiential wisdom or experiences that they other people could buy or sell based on what. Happened in my past. So mentoring and coaching is really big, and continue to work and strive every day to be a better listener and be a better coach, to be somebody that can be there for anybody whenever they need it, but also making sure that I'm not trying to force them into something that's uncomfortable or not unique to them. You
have a key point that mentorships not telling people how or what to do. It's more about listening and helping them grow. So you really got to lean into that, listen to them and try to help through that process, but not simply just say, here's how you do it.
Sure, and it shouldn't be about solving is it? No, it should be about the experiential wisdom of failure, yeah, and the ability to fail, but never allowing somebody to fail, necessarily, on learning from that exactly. It's the it's the apple versions of fail, first, fail fast, fail forward, the opportunity to learn of it. The problems come when you continually fail, first, fail fast and fail for the same thing. So maybe there's some mentoring coaching, depending on what happens there, but I think that's a very delicate piece that I'd like to think that I've I continue to improve on. And I would like to think that the the massive amount of phone calls and communications I get, which are so flattering and humbling throughout the weeks, indicate that I'm opening that door in suggestive ways, that's allowing people to to know me as a trust partner. Yeah,
I'm absolutely sure you are. So what drives your passion for education? How do you stay motivated in this, all this work that you do? You mentioned the tough job, et cetera, but in your role as superintendent, what drives your passion for this work? Well,
first and foremost, as a host, you're incredibly adept at this, but because you keep saying you, but this is you. I'm a mirror to you right now, Randy, I'm following you, and I know what you're doing, and it is lights out, amazing. So first and foremost, I need to give you those words of affirmation. We're in this together. We know that what drives me is an insatiable quest to continue to get better for our kids. That's it. It really is it. Has my wife, Yolanda, talks to me all the time. I it positivity is a choice. There's no question about it, and it can turn people off. I know that, but I would rather turn people off by being positive and know where I stand than try to be flimsy somewhere else and not know where I stand and I'm I'm super cool. People don't want to be in my circle because they think I'm going to be poly Annie ish or maybe have my rose tinted glasses all the time, I truly am looking at any problem and thinking, okay, cool. All right, we got to this point this. Is this a first world problem? Is this a galactic ruin? What's going on here? Let's, let's find where our resources, what do we have to do? How do how do we have to do this? But every single day, when we have the privilege and the positions that we have to be community servant leaders for our ISDS and our counties, I have an insatiable I'm going to double down on this, an insatiable desire to improve the quality of life better than we found it today, so it's just an opportunity to continue to get better, and I Jones on that. And then the maybe, the sin in this Randy is maybe, maybe there can be a blindness or a bias or a stereotype that what we're doing is good, and then we have to step back and have those trusted thought partners that say, sure, hey, we recognize that you have an a sunk cost aspect into this, but it's not working. Let's, let's reiterate, and that's where I have this wonderful cast of team members to pull me back to. But I just think that we are we get to do this as hard as it is. We get to do this every day. And if us, if not us, who, yeah, and if we can't do this, or don't want to do this, we can step aside and allow somebody else, but we have a privilege to try to increase the quality of life for our community members, especially our students, who I always reference as our babies, colloquially, in a way that I never dreamed that we could have this potential impact, positive impact for generations that we will never meet or our future and beyond, right? We will never meet students of today and tomorrow.
Yeah, incredible. Well, your passions authentic and it can tell it drives you. Thank you, really. So I end every of one of these standing tall podcasts with a little rapid fire session. Okay, these questions may or may not be education or leadership related. We'll just see how that pans out. Okay, super cool. All right. So first question, downhill skiing or cross country,
cross country and I'll go snowshoeing. Before I do either skiing, snow showing, really, absolutely, not a big skier, but I'll go cross country. And besides snow showing, and it's difficult, I think, yeah, but you get to see the country you do either beautiful, yeah, you're basically your own tank. You'd go to places that you never can any other time. I agree.
Do straws have one hole or two? Oh,
clearly two, absolutely, I would disagree. Well, clearly we have now found where we have we're gonna be at loggerheads. That was it. It was the great straw democracy. Well,
this this question I have asked many guests, and it's really pertinent as we look at a Super Bowl with the chiefs in it. But are you a Swifty?
You know I ah, boy, this dates me more than the mirror does when I say this, because I'm consciously aware of who Taylor is, and I absolutely have mad respect for her, but it's not my genre of music, and I'm finding that I'm choosing to read and listen to other things than I am with current pop culture. So that's okay. I'm not educated enough, but yes, I'm a fan. I'm a fan, but I don't know much about her, all right.
Well, that's okay. Do you believe in Bigfoot?
I want to believe in Bigfoot. What? I absolutely want to believe that there is so much we have not discovered. And I think, I think it is, I think it's, I think it's grand hubris and ego for us to believe that we've discovered everything. So I want to believe but I am also a data guy. Show me the proof. I hear you
on the data side of it. Wow. You need to be need to be careful snowshoeing in the woods. And if you have some belief
there, no, I'm looking, I'm looking go high five. We'll knock it up. You
know, I've seen this trend with men now for quite some time that mustaches are in. You've got some graph on but it's not just a mustache, only you've got kind of beard and everything else going. So mustache trend, yes or no for you.
Oh, totally, totally, yeah, I'm camouflaging my stash right now. My Mustachio, I'm camouflaging right now for my bride, who is super embarrassed, and she she believes that it's causing her stress right now. Actually, she says, How in the world can you be the superintendent of the county, and how can I put you out there every day in public. I said, Look, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I don't know if you just heard it's been it's been trending now for the last couple of weeks. How we make decisions? We make decisions that can be impactful with hats, hair and tattoos. Have you heard this? Not? No. So conversation goes, and I have to go back, and I'm sorry I can't cite it right now, but it might actually be James clear, I've used them a couple of times, but the conversation goes, we can make decisions that are going to have depending on the lasting impact a hat. So we can change our hats, very, very little impact, right? We can cut her hair, cut hair or grow back. Might take a little bit more time. Might give us a little bit more challenge in the area than others. But yes, well, it could be a mustache and, you know, it'll change, but it's pretty harmless. It's not going to leave a lasting impact, maybe. And then we can get tattoos, which are very lasting. So I keep reminding my wife about that, that we're in the middle of February, and, you know, a razor can take care. It's all this absolutely and it's, it's kind of authentically me. I don't have to look at myself.
What do you do to unwind?
Oh, I try to spend as much time with my family as I can. I'm blessed to have two very active and healthy parents who live about a half hour to the north of me, where I grew up, in essexville, Michigan. I love spending time with my wife. My daughter plays collegiate soccer at Madonna University in Livonia, so I love following her. My son is also an active soccer athlete who plays in the Midwest League, so follow him a lot. I love to get outdoors any chance I can. So whether it's snowshoeing, I love hiking. I love walking. I love working out. I love reading. I love listening to podcasts. I love trying to challenge myself with new concepts so that I can improve. That's
great. That's great. And of course, you're a new standing tall podcast listener now, so you have more to listen to, right? I'm on it. If you could host a game show, which one would it be? And why? Oh,
man, that's easy for me. It would be, I say that's easy for me. And then I can't remember the name of it. What's the one with Jeff Prost, where they go on an island? And survivor? Survivor? Yeah, yeah, I actually had an audition tape for Survivor. I sent one in, so let's be careful on that I did not have an audition for Survivor, but what I was successful when I sent one in, and there could be some footage somewhere, but, yeah, it would definitely be. So that's how much I love it. Randy, you put me on the spot in this surefire I think I've been pretty quick, and then all of a sudden you can tell my pop culture, uh, inability. Which one would you Oh, I say, Oh, that would be easy. What's the name of that one?
I'm gonna be on the search for that film, by the way, see if I can find that video evidence. Yeah,
it would be survivor. That sounds fun. Do you sing in the shower all the time? Nice all the time. How about when you're alone in the car all the time? Okay, all the time. In fact, I know that I will be listening some some music on the way home. It's about an hour and 45 minute drive back to Saginaw. I know that I will cry as well. Wow, that's quite the trip. Yeah, we're, you're really breaking me down through some candor right now. But yeah, yeah, I sing in the in, the more reflective I become in my age, the more emotional these these lyrics are hitting me right
voracious, morning person or night owl,
both, both. I don't get a lot of sleep, so, um. Usually it's a five o'clock wake up on the dot for me every day, and I try to hit the sack before somewhere between midnight and one, wow, yeah, you don't get a lot of sleep. No, I know it's not healthy. So going back to that whole balance question, right? Listeners can rewind and recognize that a bunch of BS,
my last rapid fire. What advice would you give to leaders who want to innovate and help their organization grow and shine? Do?
Do? Just do it. Just do, stand up and risk failure lean into the opportunity to be vulnerable and courageous. I truly believe in order for anybody to be courageous, they must be vulnerable, and that means that we must be willing to talk, we must be willing to volunteer, we must be willing to do we have to be active. We cannot be passive. So my quick response in your Rapid Fire is, do, do be be active. And it doesn't matter where we are in our organization. Doesn't matter if we're an education. Doesn't matter what we do. We can lead from where we're at as long as we're willing to be vulnerable and active.
Love it. Love it. Well, Jeff, thank you for joining me today. My pleasure. So thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank
you. What an absolute home run of an idea. Randy. I am so grateful to be a guest on on standing tall.
All right, let's bring in producer Ben for a little debrief. Quite the dynamic, and I would say humble leader we just heard from today. Ben,
yeah, Sweet Mother of Mercy. That guy was awesome. Man, felt like I was shot out of a can, and I'm ready to run through that wall over there. Very motivating. Yes, so many big takeaways I had, I think the first thing Mark Twain famously, like, wrote a letter to someone, and in the letter said, I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one. And being like concise with your thoughts is so much more difficult than just word vomit. And so I loved Saginaw approach to their mission and vision statement, just having three words of serve, innovate and empower. And I think sometimes as organizations, we're like, Well, if we have all these words, people would think we're doing big things, but it actually takes a lot more work to really just be honed down on like, Hey, we are going to serve, empower and innovate. I love that, yeah.
What a great focus. That brings the organization too, right? And it's very simple and very focused, which I do appreciate.
Yeah, I also, as a communications director, love what they're doing with our story part, where they're empowering their whole organization to help share the wins. What did you think about that initiative and just his positivity,
just to focus on the positive side of what we do? You know, you've heard me say many times that there are great things happening in our schools each and every day, and too often, the focus is on the negative stories that come out, the strange things that may happen occasionally, as opposed to the positive. And I think what Saginaw is doing, and what we're trying to do here in Muskegon is stay focused on the positive, tell the great stories that are happening out there. And utilizing your staff like Saginaw is tremendous. That's a great effort to make sure that good stories are happening each and every day.
Yep, and hopefully we just keep bringing more good stories here on standing
tall, yeah. What about that? That early childhood center pretty amazing how he's got that focused and and looking at how to develop a true, authentic learning experience for the youngest kids starting off their schooling
years. And it was cool, because a lot of times, like the the episode before this talked about place based education, and it was like the theory of it, so then to see him actualize that, and the connection those kids at Saginaw are going to have to the place, and the project of like, you have a hydrophonic garden in your four year old classroom, like that. That was incredible. Yeah, not, pretty
amazing. Well, I can think you can see why he was the 2024 Superintendent of the Year. Very deserving individual, a great leader in Saginaw. I appreciate him spending time with us. Hopefully you all grab something from my interview and can maintain the positives and keep focused on the great things happening each and every day in our school systems, until the next time. I hope you keep standing. Kalb you.