Speaker 1: Loot force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Software Radio, special operations, military emails and
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2: Hi, and welcome back to soft Rep Radio. I am
Speaker 2: your host, Rad and I have a wonderful guest today.
Speaker 2: But before I introduce my guest, I want to remind
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Speaker 2: you know, brain food, man, a book is brain food. Okay,
Speaker 2: read a book, especially a band book. Now, without further ado,
Speaker 2: I have doctor Melvin Stith, former US officer Vietnam Military Intelligence,
Speaker 2: Syracuse University PhD Project dot Org on the show.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Thank you, it's great to be with you today.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, there's a whole story that I want
Speaker 2: to read about you right now, and I know that
Speaker 2: we started going through you know, getting everything all squared away.
Speaker 2: So let me pull that up real quick. And it
Speaker 2: tells a little bit about doctor Stith's background. So let
Speaker 2: me pull that up real quick. Here I had it, okay,
Speaker 2: So here's what we're going to read. Doctor Stith served
Speaker 2: in Vietnam as a commissioned officer in the US Army's
Speaker 2: Military Intelligence Corps after graduating from college. When he returned home,
Speaker 2: he enrolled in Syracuse University and earned his MBA and
Speaker 2: PhD in marketing from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.
Speaker 2: He eventually served as dean of the school and in
Speaker 2: fall of twenty twenty two received Syracuse University's Military and
Speaker 2: Veteran Award, the university's highest honor given to alumni who
Speaker 2: have served or are currently serving in the US to
Speaker 2: Armed Forces. Approximately two hundred thousand service members transition from
Speaker 2: the military service to civilian life each year, according to
Speaker 2: the Department Offense, Some veterans may experience difficulty finding civilian
Speaker 2: employment after leaving the service. Under doctor Stitt's leadership, Syracuse
Speaker 2: University became one of the premier campuses for veterans with
Speaker 2: its Office of Veterans and Military Affairs. So I was
Speaker 2: totally interested to have you on the show, you know,
Speaker 2: and I would love to talk more about how you know,
Speaker 2: how old were you when you joined the military?
Speaker 3: Well, I was twenty one.
Speaker 4: I was an OMNIORTC scholarship student at Novia Sate University
Speaker 4: c back commissions through the Advanced OURTC program, and that
Speaker 4: was in nineteen sixty eight, and I was commissioned as
Speaker 4: a second lieutenant then actually in armor. I was at
Speaker 4: Fort Knox and got a call that said that Lieutenant Stiff,
Speaker 4: you've been selected to help integrate the Military Intelligence.
Speaker 3: Command and uh, pack your bags.
Speaker 4: You have to get out of here and go to
Speaker 4: Fort Hollibary, Maryland to the primary Intelligence School. So after
Speaker 4: a short stay I think waiting for the next class,
Speaker 4: I was reassigned to for God and George of the
Speaker 4: Civil Affair School and.
Speaker 3: Then on the Ford Holiberry for the Military Intelligence program.
Speaker 2: Can you tell my listener real quick, we'll even explain,
Speaker 2: you know, educate myself intelligence right. We hear that some
Speaker 2: people say doesn't really exist, but here you are in military.
Speaker 2: So like what style of stuff was?
Speaker 4: We were doing a lot of an intelligent intellipart. We
Speaker 4: were doing a lot of just basic security work on
Speaker 4: preparing documents for people who needed different type of security clearances.
Speaker 4: So whether it was you know, military security or a
Speaker 4: top secret, we would do the background check on those
Speaker 4: individuals to make sure that they should I get, you know,
Speaker 4: the appropriate designation in terms of the security that they
Speaker 4: were having based on their position in the military.
Speaker 2: That's a very important role, you know. I mean there's
Speaker 2: a lot of sensitive information that guys do need to see.
Speaker 2: But what if that guy can't see it? Right? Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, so if you're on the team.
Speaker 3: I actually worked in civilian clothes.
Speaker 4: We were not in military uniforms because we were calling
Speaker 4: on people, you know, trying to get information about depression
Speaker 4: that was being considered usually a top secret, crypto, top secret,
Speaker 4: our clearance.
Speaker 2: You know. That makes I've had people call me as
Speaker 2: an employer asking about people who have enlisted, saying, hey,
Speaker 2: got some question. Guy walks in with an envelope and
Speaker 2: I'm looking into this guy's background. That was us Okay,
Speaker 2: so I do know what you do. Well, lucky for them.
Speaker 2: I always tell my guys, I'm like, you know, you
Speaker 2: got to be nice to me. You don't understand because
Speaker 2: so it's going to come looking into.
Speaker 4: You, and we take it very because you know, again
Speaker 4: it's the security of the country at stake, depending on
Speaker 4: where you eventure to find yourself and what do you
Speaker 4: eventure to find yourself doing as some military command or
Speaker 4: at some post or some agency.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Really, I mean it's a serious thing. You got
Speaker 2: to know. You know, you gotta have guys who have
Speaker 2: the heart of the oath of classified information and women.
Speaker 4: You know, we were in terms of I have an
Speaker 4: access to what we were doing, and we treated you know,
Speaker 4: regardless of of sexual gender. You know, the people the
Speaker 4: same way in terms of finding the appropriate information for
Speaker 4: the appropriate job.
Speaker 2: You know, in the sixties when you were going to school, right,
Speaker 2: there was a lot happening in America changing around, you know,
Speaker 2: and you lived through that. And first of all, you know, wow, okay,
Speaker 2: and congratulations on living through everything that you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't live. I was born in seventy seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it was more interesting than that because in
Speaker 4: the sixes and I grew up in the South. You know,
Speaker 4: there was segregation. There was segregated K through twelve schools,
Speaker 4: vice schools. K through twelve was totally segregated. There were
Speaker 4: any Caucasians or anyone else in my little hometown, but
Speaker 4: African American kids, and my k through not k actually
Speaker 4: we had no kindergarten because it was a farming community.
Speaker 4: Fresh grade through through high school and then I went
Speaker 4: to his Tuggle Black College, Norfilx State University. Very few
Speaker 4: Concasion students at that time was enrolled at Norfolk State University.
Speaker 4: So that's an all black campus was basically at that time. Yes,
Speaker 4: you maybe one one or two football players, the kicker
Speaker 4: or somebody might have been away, but basically it was yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, not a nine nine percent African American.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't know what that's like today.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad because you.
Speaker 4: Know, well, the campus is now much go integrate of course,
Speaker 4: you know when even though they're still call his Truckle
Speaker 4: Black colleges because that's what they are. But the campus
Speaker 4: is a you know, a much more reflection of the
Speaker 4: of a global society because now you have in the
Speaker 4: national students come from all over the world, you know,
Speaker 4: Concasius students, African Americans and African American students now, you know,
Speaker 4: and my Jorge institutions as we see especially every day
Speaker 4: on Saturday afternoon, if you look at the football game.
Speaker 4: So you know the world is very different now in
Speaker 4: terms of higher education and where people go to school
Speaker 4: and choose to go to universities.
Speaker 3: And acceptance of one another, one another as a peer
Speaker 3: on that campus.
Speaker 2: Yes it just as a peer, just as a straight individual.
Speaker 3: Like exactly, Yeah, dude.
Speaker 2: I want to curse right now, but I'm not going
Speaker 2: to keep it real. I just want to say, like,
Speaker 2: look a the hell where we're thinking? Man, you know,
Speaker 2: what the hell you know? And everybody who volunteers and
Speaker 2: fights for our country all the way through slavery to
Speaker 2: just you know, fight for USA and you know, and they,
Speaker 2: you know, willing to die for it. And we came
Speaker 2: in and took the land from natives in the first place,
Speaker 2: you know, and then just said this is our place.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm appalled at that.
Speaker 4: Pa.
Speaker 2: I can't do. I can only be a good steward
Speaker 2: of who I am today moving forward of what I had.
Speaker 3: But I think that's the really important point.
Speaker 4: You can't redo the past, but you wanted to make
Speaker 4: sure the past does not reoccur, because those who have
Speaker 4: know history will have history to repeat itself. So our
Speaker 4: job done is to be good stewards of the land,
Speaker 4: to be good stewards of what we do. And when
Speaker 4: we put on the military uniform, I think that's what
Speaker 4: people try to do.
Speaker 3: It that was their call to arms.
Speaker 2: Yes, now, once you put that uniform on, right, you
Speaker 2: go through college, all right, you put your head into
Speaker 2: the books, graduate, and here you are. You're in the
Speaker 2: United States Military boom right back in. Now you're integrated
Speaker 2: with everybody correctly.
Speaker 4: And it actually was by really first major experience in
Speaker 4: an integrated community, and it was it was fine. I
Speaker 4: don't remember any specific situations so much. That only one
Speaker 4: was when I actually got moved to Fort Garden to
Speaker 4: go to the Military Civil Defense School. While we waited
Speaker 4: to get the Nate's class for the Military Intelligence School,
Speaker 4: African Americans really weren't accepted because it was in uh
Speaker 4: where the Master Tournament is, Gusta, Georgia.
Speaker 3: That's where for Gordon was.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's still a viable post, but
Speaker 4: African Americans really weren't invited to go to the Master Tournament.
Speaker 4: And we went to the post and said, you know,
Speaker 4: the white officers are going and we can't go. That
Speaker 4: can't happen, and they and to their credit, they shut
Speaker 4: it down until all officers are invited regardless of.
Speaker 3: Color of skin. Then not how folks could come.
Speaker 4: And they changed it, you know, but we had to
Speaker 4: go get that, you know, get that done because.
Speaker 2: It was wrong, right so and it was it is.
Speaker 4: But but agatting kudos to the commanders and for Gordon,
Speaker 4: they understood the spear of that issue.
Speaker 2: You know, It's true. They have to, like, you know,
Speaker 2: make a big move because there's a lot of like
Speaker 2: old schoolness that's still hanging over their head and there
Speaker 2: like you know what, this is the new, this is
Speaker 2: the way, and they're willing to put themselves out there.
Speaker 2: You know how I feel I would be that's that
Speaker 2: same way. It's like, you know, I mean everybody you know,
Speaker 2: all the way from the all black you know air Force,
Speaker 2: uh you know redtails that fighting for the same flag man.
Speaker 4: And and and those guys were being told what they
Speaker 4: couldn't do it wasn't capable of though, which is totally incorrect.
Speaker 2: Believe it. In the movie, it depicts like the white
Speaker 2: bomber looking over like all these guys are gonna last
Speaker 2: look at the end results, you know, look at the
Speaker 2: end results. The Tuskegee airmen. Let's just say that I
Speaker 2: said the redtails because their airplanes have redtails.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but that that wholes operates, the whole squadron.
Speaker 4: And they took so much pride in what they were doing.
Speaker 4: But then when they came back to the US, feedback
Speaker 4: like they didn't care what they did because they weren't
Speaker 4: treated the.
Speaker 2: Same way, and they weren't there.
Speaker 3: They weren't Yeah, and they weren't there.
Speaker 2: They didn't see that they had to go through hell
Speaker 2: and back to even get home, to step back onto
Speaker 2: American soil, right, and then with all the hate Riboro
Speaker 2: that was going along with or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yes, and sometimes even whether the uniform then saved them
Speaker 4: from certain unfortunate situations.
Speaker 2: I was hoping that's what would be the difference, is
Speaker 2: that once you put that on. I've talked to other
Speaker 2: people like yourself who have always said, it's always the
Speaker 2: US in front of the army or the Marines or
Speaker 2: the Coastguard that makes us one, you know, right, you know,
Speaker 2: it's about the person next to you, man or woman.
Speaker 4: That's right, when you're in the heat of a bat
Speaker 4: of if you're we used to say you're in a
Speaker 4: fox cell whoever you were. You just wanted to make
Speaker 4: sure that press is next to you was competent. You
Speaker 4: didn't care about the color of their skin, no, because
Speaker 4: it was survival.
Speaker 2: Time, right and Almo, brotherhood, I love you, I love you.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, holy cow, we just like made a moment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we just lived through something traumatic.
Speaker 3: Life changing and minutes exactly.
Speaker 4: Even when you practiced to do that, you understood how
Speaker 4: significant of what you were doing, because it's the call
Speaker 4: to all actually came. You had to be ready to
Speaker 4: respond to that.
Speaker 2: So you stayed in the military for how many years?
Speaker 3: I stayed it for four years.
Speaker 4: Well, because see, I had a four year commitment, so
Speaker 4: fortunate when I went to Advance RTC, I received an
Speaker 4: Army RTC scholarship, so they paid for all of my
Speaker 4: college expenses the last two years. But it meant I
Speaker 4: had a four year commitment. So I stayed in for
Speaker 4: the four years. And I was married by that time,
Speaker 4: and then I decided either I was going to stay
Speaker 4: in the military or making a career, or.
Speaker 3: I was going to get out and go back to
Speaker 3: graduate school. And I got admitted to the University of Virginia.
Speaker 4: Virginia Tech and Syracuse University and decided to go to Syracuse.
Speaker 3: And that's when I decided to, uh, you know, lead
Speaker 3: the military.
Speaker 2: Right and just pursue the education and bring you know,
Speaker 2: I call at war college. You go to the military,
Speaker 2: you do your two four six year stint. If you
Speaker 2: go for life, cool doctor it all the way in
Speaker 2: the military, you know, you come out of that knowledge, power, discipline.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would have say then if I had not
Speaker 4: gotten my wife did a lot of the work because
Speaker 4: I was actually in Vietnam when we were making that decision.
Speaker 4: She and another friend of mine. Uh, they did a
Speaker 4: lot of the leg work for me in terms of
Speaker 4: applying to graduate schools and you know, doing those kinds
Speaker 4: of things for me because I was in Vietnam. But yeah,
Speaker 4: if I hadn't done that, I would have made the
Speaker 4: mill a flair career.
Speaker 2: Did you miss her so much over there? Oh?
Speaker 4: You miss everybody because you're you're isolated and you're living
Speaker 4: behind basically you know, wire fences until you spose to
Speaker 4: go out on patrol, a goog whatever you have to do.
Speaker 4: So you miss everybody. And you know, remember then we
Speaker 4: didn't have the zoom, We didn't have the technologies that
Speaker 4: we had. Now, we had the APO letters that you know,
Speaker 4: you would you would get once.
Speaker 2: Or twice longed to hold you in my arms PO
Speaker 2: San Francisco.
Speaker 4: You never forget that as long as you live, you know.
Speaker 4: And when we tell people this story now, the young people,
Speaker 4: they kind of look at it like a huh. No,
Speaker 4: we didn't have the one for technology that you can
Speaker 4: be in touch regardless of where you are in the world,
Speaker 4: like exactly it was.
Speaker 3: It was writing letters.
Speaker 2: Like back in two thousand and nine, I was talking
Speaker 2: to my friends in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, three in the morning exactly. Yeah, unfortunately they were there,
Speaker 4: but you can still have that. You could hear their bosses.
Speaker 2: Them right then.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everyone, you could get on the line, you know,
Speaker 4: the old lines and and and he's but that was
Speaker 4: so difficult to do.
Speaker 2: You had to get I Core on the phone and
Speaker 2: get me radar and send me a line out to
Speaker 2: my wife. Yeah, they're like, oh, yeah, he's going home.
Speaker 2: They're going to have a kid. And then so uh
Speaker 2: it was so you come home and you start your family, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, civilian style, and you're pursuing what kind of
Speaker 2: a agree is it a marketing?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So I was married and actually we had a
Speaker 4: son already, and uh so I came to Syracuse University
Speaker 4: to get an NBA, my master's a Business Administration, and
Speaker 4: then to go to work at in marketing, to go
Speaker 4: to work with you know, some of the big consumer
Speaker 4: good firms, from Procting, Gamma to leave It, to the
Speaker 4: Automobile and to the beer and it's that all of
Speaker 4: those folks were going to recruit me. But the professor
Speaker 4: stopped me one day saying, I think that you would
Speaker 4: make a great university professor, why don't you stay here
Speaker 4: and get your PhD.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing that.
Speaker 4: I'm going out and make me some money with my
Speaker 4: NBA and and talk to my wife.
Speaker 3: She said, well we're doing okay, let's let's try it.
Speaker 3: And I did. And it was really the best.
Speaker 4: Decision that I made to stay at Syracuse to get
Speaker 4: my MB, my NBA, then the then the PhD.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a moment of like why not me,
Speaker 2: why not try it and then see if I can
Speaker 2: do it or not? And now you did it and
Speaker 2: your successful.
Speaker 4: And actually then once we made the decision, like a
Speaker 4: week later, my wife would like, I s something to
Speaker 4: tell you I'm pregnant with our second child. Said, oh no,
Speaker 4: I just decided to be a student. How did that happen?
Speaker 4: She said, I have to have a long talk with you.
Speaker 2: How did that happen?
Speaker 4: But you know, again, things work out in life. You know,
Speaker 4: it didn't. My daughter is just delightful to this day.
Speaker 4: She has our grandson, so I mean, yeah, hell yeah,
Speaker 4: she's all right with me. Yeah right, the only grandchild.
Speaker 4: So uh yeah. But it was just, you know, the timing.
Speaker 4: And I tell studs time, you can't only determine how
Speaker 4: things happen in life. Would just roll with what you
Speaker 4: want to do. Things will work out, you know.
Speaker 2: So was there a time in school when you were like, man,
Speaker 2: I'm just tired of school?
Speaker 4: And uh, you know, I loved it. I loved every day.
Speaker 4: I loved every day being in school. I love the
Speaker 4: interaction with people. Syracuse was just a welcome and community, Pete.
Speaker 4: The professors were great. I never felt overwhelm. I never
Speaker 4: felt that didn't belong. I never felt that I had
Speaker 4: made the wrong decision that I should be all out
Speaker 4: and take.
Speaker 3: My MBA and go you know where for Corporate America.
Speaker 3: And then one of my assistantships.
Speaker 4: My assistanship was to work in the NBA office and
Speaker 4: help with students because I was older, being in the
Speaker 4: military expense at all. And then the director left and
Speaker 4: then I was writing my dissertation and the dean came
Speaker 4: and said, malm, you worked in that office. I need
Speaker 4: somebody to do this. Run the graduate program for me
Speaker 4: for a year while we search for someone. You would
Speaker 4: be the pressure pressure. You can take it. Much time
Speaker 4: you need to write a dissertation, but you can do that.
Speaker 4: And it was the most wonderful thing when I think
Speaker 4: of things. An opportunity happened to be in life that
Speaker 4: goes through the top of the list because that set
Speaker 4: me on the course. I wanted to be an academic
Speaker 4: administrator and that led to me getting jobs and deans
Speaker 4: and things. But it started right back because the dean
Speaker 4: had enough confidence that I could run a graduate office
Speaker 4: while I finished my PhD, and you know, allowed the
Speaker 4: university of time to search for the appropriate presson to
Speaker 4: take the job permanently.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that, right So you're so, let's
Speaker 2: say there's a veteran out there right now who's got
Speaker 2: a GI bill, and maybe they guy schooling underneath their belt, right, So,
Speaker 2: and they should just hit up Syracuse University.
Speaker 3: Syracuse University is one of the lead university now for veterans.
Speaker 4: We have we have committed. We can get into that
Speaker 4: just the university, and I'm so proud of them. But
Speaker 4: they have continued to do And Syracuse has always had
Speaker 4: a history of being a vout with the military because
Speaker 4: in World War Two, many of the young men who
Speaker 4: came to Syracuse were veterans, and so Syracuse built this
Speaker 4: huge veterans network many years ago. And and and actually
Speaker 4: if you if you read the history of Syracuse, it
Speaker 4: was a veteran that made Syracuse at National University because
Speaker 4: they came back and number the fact, the chancellors tell it,
Speaker 4: admitted so many veterans that some of the fact that
Speaker 4: I had to vote of no confidence in and that
Speaker 4: he was changing the nature of the campus. And he
Speaker 4: survived that and actually built housing. So when I came
Speaker 4: to Syracuse as a veteran, I went to the top
Speaker 4: of the lift of marriage to the housing, had a
Speaker 4: two bedroom apartment and I only paid fifty dollars a
Speaker 4: month and paid for land telephone. They really took care
Speaker 4: of veterans, and for years, even to this day, Syracuse
Speaker 4: were the place where a military officers came to get
Speaker 4: their NBA and finance to go back to be finance
Speaker 4: officers in the military. That program is still in the
Speaker 4: business in the Quindment School to this day. It's probably
Speaker 4: been there fifty to sixty years. So Syracuse has always
Speaker 4: had a way, And in fact, that's how I got
Speaker 4: to Syracuse because Syracuse knew how to get the information
Speaker 4: to me in Vietnam. In addition to my wife that
Speaker 4: the universe of Virginia Virginia Tech didn't know what to.
Speaker 2: Do and Syracuse already had kind of like the way
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 4: They had had the way to do it. The military
Speaker 4: knew how to do it because those officers there were
Speaker 4: officers and it's a change of do the station just
Speaker 4: like they could have been anywhere else, and they said,
Speaker 4: we know how to do this, and they did it.
Speaker 3: And that's how I got to Syracuse. And not like
Speaker 3: the University of Virginia.
Speaker 2: Just because they were able to fall they were through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Where's Virginia Tech probably would like to have done it,
Speaker 2: but they didn't have a follow through process.
Speaker 3: Exactly they didn't understand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and by the time I got there information I
Speaker 4: had already accepted Syracuse.
Speaker 2: Of course, Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you go to Syracuse,
Speaker 2: you've been an administrator, You've received the prestigious award that
Speaker 2: you know. That's got to make you feel good.
Speaker 3: It was really great. But what happened? I just leave
Speaker 3: it to this.
Speaker 4: I was in my office one day I was back,
Speaker 4: came back to Syracuse as dean, and a young fact A
Speaker 4: member came in and said, you know, you a veteran.
Speaker 3: I'm a veteran. We have this wonderful entrepreneurship program. We're
Speaker 3: getting so many young men and women with disabilities coming back.
Speaker 3: We need to do something special for them. Because many
Speaker 3: of them can work nine to five jobs. We should
Speaker 3: create a special program to help them become entrepreneurs. That's right,
Speaker 3: And I said that is and I said, Mike, we
Speaker 3: got to do it. And then he laught.
Speaker 4: He said, and I wanted to be free for them.
Speaker 4: And we ran out and raised the money to bring
Speaker 4: those young men and women to Syracuse University for two
Speaker 4: weeks period of time and then start a relationship with
Speaker 4: them so that they could go back and start their
Speaker 4: career as entrepreneurs and that program has been overwhelming succession.
Speaker 4: That's what led to the whole idea of the Institute
Speaker 4: of Veterans and Families on campus that's grown into a
Speaker 4: multimillion dollar operation with the wonderful.
Speaker 3: Building that one about alone.
Speaker 4: Dan Denello and his wife Gail made a huge donation
Speaker 4: of build a building just for veterans on our campus.
Speaker 3: It is a world class building.
Speaker 2: And it was well, that's nice that their philanthropy was
Speaker 2: able to be available.
Speaker 4: It's huge, yes, and it's all about halving people with
Speaker 4: disabilities to have a reason to want to get up
Speaker 4: every day and to work and to know that there
Speaker 4: were people that cared about them. And that had just
Speaker 4: led to just this wonderful programmers at Syracuse University.
Speaker 2: And what a legacy they leave too by donating, you know,
Speaker 2: to the housing and to the cause and to this whole.
Speaker 4: Built Yes, yeah, establishing and the building is built so
Speaker 4: much with people with disabilities in mind in terms of
Speaker 4: making the building very easy to access, you know throughout
Speaker 4: the building.
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really very few stairs, more ramps and stuff,
Speaker 4: you know for people in wheelchairs or other kinds of things.
Speaker 3: It's just it's it's it's an amazing program. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And it started just with one person coming to me
Speaker 4: saying we ought to do this, and I listened and
Speaker 4: I said, let's roll, let's roll.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah like it.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm happy that that's what happened exactly.
Speaker 3: And the same thing happened with the pH d project.
Speaker 4: We we didn't think that there were it wasn't designed
Speaker 4: so much for veterans, but veterans are now taking advantage.
Speaker 3: We didn't think there were enough people of color.
Speaker 4: Teaching in business schools, right, so we said, look, let's
Speaker 4: go out and tell people. Because most people think that
Speaker 4: they get that NBA, they can go out and live happily.
Speaker 4: Ever after make a lot of money. They never thought
Speaker 4: about getting the PhD. And we started said, let's try
Speaker 4: to change this model. Some of these people might not
Speaker 4: want to be in corporate America working for a big nonprofit.
Speaker 4: They might want to come back to get a PhD
Speaker 4: and stand in front of the classroom and teach business
Speaker 4: instead of you know, being a manager every day. And
Speaker 4: that happened too, and that led to a huge success.
Speaker 4: We are more than called drouble. The number of people
Speaker 4: of color now teaching and business schools across this country.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I chuge. You have you know a Hispanic
Speaker 2: African American Native American.
Speaker 4: Yes, And a lot of people had never even thought
Speaker 4: about that they should do this before the PhD project.
Speaker 4: And when they come to the conference, we explain all
Speaker 4: the information how you can do it, when you can
Speaker 4: do it. And it had just been overwhelmed and successful,
Speaker 4: much more successful than I think that all of us,
Speaker 4: Bernie and Terror and all of us who were there
Speaker 4: from the beginning thought that it would be.
Speaker 2: And here it is.
Speaker 3: People like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, how old are you today?
Speaker 3: I am seventy seven years old?
Speaker 2: Seventy seven So you've seen it and grow?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, wow, like a child like we birthd it,
Speaker 4: you know, we breathed it from a meeting and my
Speaker 4: clan New Jersey Brendan Malano at KPMG myday in New
Speaker 4: Jersey and the first night of the meeting and we're going.
Speaker 3: Home that night.
Speaker 4: We were the last plan to get out of New
Speaker 4: Jersey because it was snowing, so but we all got home.
Speaker 3: We always laugh.
Speaker 4: About that, you know, but it is growing and it
Speaker 4: continues to grow to this day and have an impact
Speaker 4: to this day.
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to try to give it a shout
Speaker 2: out right now on this show. And just make sure
Speaker 2: that you know PhD project dot org.
Speaker 3: I think it's pad project dot org.
Speaker 4: If you just google PhD project, everything gonna come up
Speaker 4: all the information and the thing about that again to
Speaker 4: if you're selected to come to the conferences, the conference
Speaker 4: is free and then the universities come and have a
Speaker 4: like a job fan. So most of the leading and
Speaker 4: PhD programs are there so you can talk to schools.
Speaker 4: If you in California want to talk to the schools
Speaker 4: in California, there there if you're in Florida, in New
Speaker 4: York the difference, or if you want just to talk
Speaker 4: to school and other parts of the country to have
Speaker 4: a different experience. Most of the major PhD programs are
Speaker 4: there for job fare that you meet key people that
Speaker 4: you can start, you know, contacting when you want to
Speaker 4: apply to those programs.
Speaker 2: Who's your ideal candidate right now? If they're listening, what
Speaker 2: are you looking for?
Speaker 4: The idea candidate is someone who wants to get a
Speaker 4: PhD and they're willing to put in the time and
Speaker 4: effort to do that. You can be as young as
Speaker 4: are reaching college graduate, or you can be funny as though.
Speaker 4: So one person at the meeting, I'll tell you this
Speaker 4: said and I was at the mic. He said, I
Speaker 4: am as funny years of I get a PhD, I'm
Speaker 4: could be forty five, I said, Way in five years,
Speaker 4: you could be forty five, whether you have a PhD
Speaker 4: or not. So if you want the PhD, do it.
Speaker 4: So there's no idea of candidate. The idea candidates the
Speaker 4: person is willing to commit before or five years to
Speaker 4: study in their writing, to get the PhD and then
Speaker 4: go out on their own and build their own brand
Speaker 4: and their own career. And I think that's the beauty
Speaker 4: of it. You know, you don't you don't have to
Speaker 4: fit a certain mold to say I can be part
Speaker 4: of this. You bring the mold and what you want
Speaker 4: to do it. And that's the beauty of being in
Speaker 4: the academy and being a college professor a university professor.
Speaker 4: You build your own mode, you build your own own
Speaker 4: own kingdom, what on the teaching you want to do,
Speaker 4: the research you want to do, and then you move
Speaker 4: forward on your own and you're going to have mentors.
Speaker 3: I mean, we now have all types of mentors because
Speaker 3: we've been in the business I think forver twenty five years.
Speaker 3: The PE project has been around for twenty five years,
Speaker 3: so there are mentors everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody can give you some help and some advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And with all of the knowledge combined, it's
Speaker 2: hundreds of years of experience.
Speaker 4: Hundreds of years. And it's an annual conference, so you
Speaker 4: have people. And it's also now segment about discipline. So
Speaker 4: there's a marketing group, there's a finance group, there's accounting group.
Speaker 4: So if you're in accounting, you know that there are
Speaker 4: people you can just send an email or message and
Speaker 4: say hey, I need to talk with you, and and
Speaker 4: and people respond.
Speaker 3: So the bond is just tremendous.
Speaker 2: So let's let me ask you this. You would probably
Speaker 2: be in your best justice at least have a bachelor's
Speaker 2: degree to apply for this.
Speaker 3: Oh, you do have to have at least a bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, so you've had got to have some school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, that that's a good point. Yes, you have
Speaker 4: to have at least a bachelor degree. But one of
Speaker 4: the miss was you don't have to have an NBA
Speaker 4: or master's degree.
Speaker 3: To apply.
Speaker 2: That's what I's picking up because you said about a
Speaker 2: five or six year commitment.
Speaker 4: You could be as youngest you want to be, as
Speaker 4: old as you want to be, depending on how you
Speaker 4: want to spend. Then they say maybe four or five
Speaker 4: years of your of your life. That's more the key
Speaker 4: than how.
Speaker 3: Old you are.
Speaker 2: Would you write your dissertation on?
Speaker 4: It was about consumer behavior and consumer spending patterns, how
Speaker 4: people decided to use that discretionary money. And we did
Speaker 4: a compare to study on what African Americans would buy
Speaker 4: versus what other people would buy.
Speaker 2: And you know, so it was a big difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now you know everybody's toilet paper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but people do have preferences. Sure, that's what we
Speaker 3: talked about, Uh, preferences. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2: So my father, former Green Beret, he had a master's
Speaker 2: degree in business and human resource management, and so I
Speaker 2: feel like this would have been right up his kind of alley.
Speaker 2: He was studying for his doctorate before he passed to
Speaker 2: by the way, So you know, a consistency. That's why
Speaker 2: I was excited to have you on. Plus, there's that
Speaker 2: non love dad quote unquote. You know, now when you
Speaker 2: were in the army, did you wear like the E. R.
Speaker 2: D L uniform. Do you remember what is it? No,
Speaker 2: I don't know this pattern? And we we will in
Speaker 2: the in the military, uh, we will.
Speaker 4: Greens and then we had the green khaki uniforms, the
Speaker 4: khaki uniforms where the green kaki uniform was basically the
Speaker 4: dress of the day. And then you could dress up
Speaker 4: in greens. And then we used to call them then
Speaker 4: the dress blues. They were for special case but now
Speaker 4: they're more of an every day where the military has
Speaker 4: really changed, you know they Yeah, but we we will,
Speaker 4: you know, we will. We had the traditional military khakis,
Speaker 4: you know, cotton kakis, and then in the winter you
Speaker 4: had the wool kind of heavier.
Speaker 2: Coats camouflage just yet No.
Speaker 4: We weren't now, we didn't. We didn't get to really
Speaker 4: into any any any camouflage kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's what I was.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No PhD project.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just really grown people and just making them
Speaker 2: to be PhDs.
Speaker 4: And and what we started with the conference that people
Speaker 4: come to because that gives you a sense of belonging,
Speaker 4: but it also tells you whether you want to do
Speaker 4: it or not. Because we don't sugar coated. We tell
Speaker 4: you what to expect and and we tell people if
Speaker 4: you walk away saying it's not for me, then you
Speaker 4: have made a life decision on what you want to
Speaker 4: do and what you want to be. And you take
Speaker 4: then getting a pad off your plate and you go
Speaker 4: back to work for you, you know, for corporation or
Speaker 4: nonprofit or what you want to do. But then it's
Speaker 4: for you. You said, Okay, you know, I want to
Speaker 4: fill my plate by becoming a PhD.
Speaker 2: Right, And you'll probably want them to stay within the
Speaker 2: maybe the university too. It's like, hey, there's gonna probably
Speaker 2: you know there.
Speaker 4: And that is another thing that's I think that's a
Speaker 4: really good point is that we are really trying to
Speaker 4: prepare people to become university professors. We're not trying to
Speaker 4: and you can't always tell people what to do, but
Speaker 4: we're not just trying to get people to get a
Speaker 4: pH d because they want to be a consultant and
Speaker 4: have a pH d behind In the end, our primary
Speaker 4: goal and primary mission is to continue to integrate the
Speaker 4: head of the classroom with people of color.
Speaker 3: Yes, so so that's the goal.
Speaker 4: And we tell people up front if if you're in
Speaker 4: this too, become just a consultant with a PhD. We
Speaker 4: we really don't want you to take a slot, but
Speaker 4: you can do it on your own, you know, but.
Speaker 2: Of course chase that, but you would like to try
Speaker 2: to keep that pool, uh, you know full for the program.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because there's never enough people to fill these positions
Speaker 4: across the United States and now and some people even
Speaker 4: maybe even I should say globally if they choose to
Speaker 4: do that, that we need that pressing in front of
Speaker 4: the classroom.
Speaker 2: You really made a big, cool program happen.
Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, that's it's been.
Speaker 3: It was wonderful from the beginning.
Speaker 2: I bet people are looking at me like you're talking
Speaker 2: to a rockstar. Rad recognize it, you know, like, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know no, And I'm just like, you're
Speaker 2: a father, you know, at a PhD, at a professor.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 3: I'm just a gotcha boy trying to make it.
Speaker 2: That's all because every boy who's made it right. I
Speaker 2: think that if you were to leave today this earth,
Speaker 2: you could leave with a smile in your soul knowing
Speaker 2: that you've left such an awesome, badass legacy and helped
Speaker 2: helped you just help.
Speaker 3: Well that's that is true.
Speaker 4: I mean I have to admit that because I've gotten
Speaker 4: certain recognitions and things that make know that you've had
Speaker 4: a tremendous impact on a number of people, and that
Speaker 4: is very rewarding.
Speaker 2: It's a mentor, yeah, it is. Yeah, and you have
Speaker 2: mentors so many. I mean right now, I'm just I'm like,
Speaker 2: what do I say to him? He's a rock star,
Speaker 2: you know, he's It's like, you want to talk about
Speaker 2: marketing and business strategies. It's like, you know, I want
Speaker 2: to know what you wrote on I love marketing. I've
Speaker 2: worked in radio television. You know that kind of marketing.
Speaker 2: You know, if you have been on radio, you need
Speaker 2: to be And here we are still.
Speaker 3: On radio on radio, which is wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, but the days have changed. Right, let's talk
Speaker 2: about that marketing. Right. The days have changed where you
Speaker 2: used to find the static dial and set it on
Speaker 2: your jams, and then the same advertiser would always be
Speaker 2: able to repeat to you.
Speaker 4: Today we have, Yeah, because the listenership now is much
Speaker 4: more diverse. And because one other thing that's fascinating to
Speaker 4: me is because you have so much at your fingertip,
Speaker 4: you don't have to listen to the commercials if you
Speaker 4: don't want to anymore.
Speaker 2: Exactly do you even pay for commercial free?
Speaker 4: You could be commercial free, And that's what I More
Speaker 4: and more, you know, people are trying to pace stuff.
Speaker 4: When you open up a site, the first thing you
Speaker 4: see the commercial or something you know, before you can
Speaker 4: get to get to you and get to to other people,
Speaker 4: because they have to respond to the change of the environment.
Speaker 4: Because I mean, if I could, I could take your
Speaker 4: show and just blast you if you had commercials and
Speaker 4: not ever listen to one.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm like, okay, back to the show. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't mean that.
Speaker 3: With you advertising, but but they understand that my.
Speaker 2: Heads are in the trenches here man, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 2: bringing the talent.
Speaker 3: But they understand.
Speaker 4: They find numerous ways to get you to hear about
Speaker 4: their products, to hear about their services.
Speaker 2: So well, like on some of these big streaming services.
Speaker 4: They stream it, they do different things now, so they
Speaker 4: have they have a justin well you can tell them
Speaker 4: about the cost of what people pay down to be
Speaker 4: on a streaming service or you know, all such shows,
Speaker 4: high power shows like yours.
Speaker 2: So well, now they have like digital billboards all over
Speaker 2: the place where you can just pay like eight cents
Speaker 2: yeah for a ten second blip, you know, and then
Speaker 2: and the average person drive on the f takes like
Speaker 2: seven to thirteen seconds to read a billboard. So if
Speaker 2: you have something like.
Speaker 3: A word, yeah, but then you're going to go back
Speaker 3: to what was that? What was that about?
Speaker 4: So in the West, appetite to say, okay, I missed
Speaker 4: it this time, what were they really talking about? And
Speaker 4: so the next time you say, you might pay attention
Speaker 4: sy And that's part of the way to get people
Speaker 4: to to actually there at some point, pay some attention.
Speaker 4: And that's why they're so quick now, because they wanted
Speaker 4: just to plan a ceed for you to come back
Speaker 4: to say, well, what.
Speaker 3: Were they really about? What were they really about? What
Speaker 3: were the product? What would the service?
Speaker 2: We call that keyword spamming?
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. So my my business here, I just
Speaker 2: have one word and it says Airsoft.
Speaker 3: See yeah.
Speaker 2: Every time somebody drives by it, they see a thousand cars, right,
Speaker 2: and then google is then I know what it is, right,
Speaker 2: and then they come in. I always ask everybody, how
Speaker 2: come you're here? Yes, I ask everybody that because I'm
Speaker 2: so I'm like and they're like, oh, I just saw
Speaker 2: your sign about forty times and I finally came in
Speaker 2: from work, like there we go. Yeah, you know on
Speaker 2: the internet or you know, saw YouTube video I love.
Speaker 2: I love to dive down and dive deep on how
Speaker 2: did you get into my store? Right? Yes, that's correct. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's the marketing in me because I'm guerrilla marketing. Yes,
Speaker 2: exactly at its finest, Like right now I'm talking about
Speaker 2: my airsoft shop. See it's just gorilla marketing.
Speaker 3: Get it the word out, and that's right, exactly right.
Speaker 2: Because if you want to play war games in Utah,
Speaker 2: I'm your huckleberry. You can find me and then I
Speaker 2: take care of you, or anywhere. I got friends all
Speaker 2: over the place. You want to play in Nevada, Look
Speaker 2: these guys up. But you know, it's that kind of
Speaker 2: marketing that you know that.
Speaker 3: Bring people in.
Speaker 2: The recruiters need to do that with the military.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not so bold. Yeah, you know, you know speaking
Speaker 4: or goodness is really having a tough time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you think it's branding? Do you think it's marketing?
Speaker 2: What do you think is a military person?
Speaker 4: I just think the demographics are there, you know, and
Speaker 4: uh remember and for instance, when I was back in
Speaker 4: college the first two years of alr TC was manager
Speaker 4: at the Latin Grand Institution.
Speaker 3: That doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 4: And the largest age in terms of demography has passed
Speaker 4: through the system. We don't have the big democracy groups
Speaker 4: coming at seventeen eighteen's anymore. You know, it's a smaller,
Speaker 4: smaller pool to to try to recruit people to join us.
Speaker 4: John serious, And I'm not sure, And again I don't
Speaker 4: I don't know, so I'm probably speaking out of terror.
Speaker 4: I don't know how well the militaries are really marketing
Speaker 4: the skills set in changing to what they really need
Speaker 4: to suit what they need to do, and how innovative
Speaker 4: they are in terms of so what they'll say to
Speaker 4: a kid is, look, okay, you take the test.
Speaker 3: You failed it, so you can't get in. Well maybe,
Speaker 3: and I've.
Speaker 4: Seen a couple of these they're beginning to do this,
Speaker 4: just say, some of the kids, but we're going to
Speaker 4: put you in kind of a boot camp to have
Speaker 4: you improve some of the skills that you need to
Speaker 4: be in the military for what we need. And we're
Speaker 4: going to invest in you and if you and if
Speaker 4: you you do this, then you'll move into a military
Speaker 4: you know, opposition. So the militant is going to have
Speaker 4: to invest the money up front to recruit people to
Speaker 4: to come to be part of that military community. Whether
Speaker 4: they said either you're in or you're out, you know right,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, you know, just say okay, you pass
Speaker 4: the tests and you're in. Well, and as I and
Speaker 4: I told some people, especially with the young African American
Speaker 4: kids in the steam areas with the military when I
Speaker 4: was the ancient president of Norfolk State and the coast
Speaker 4: count trying to have these kids in the Navy was
Speaker 4: trying to get these kids Anna invest David Progress said, look,
Speaker 4: you're competing against some of the world cooperations that's paying
Speaker 4: these kids six figures right out of undergraduate school.
Speaker 3: And you wanted to be in a ship under water
Speaker 3: for six pus. There you have it.
Speaker 4: You know, unless you change what you're doing, how you
Speaker 4: how you're going to go about and what you're gonna
Speaker 4: invest in these these you might get one or two,
Speaker 4: but you're not going to get a big quarter because
Speaker 4: you can't compete with the microns and and you know
Speaker 4: the other big now with all the its AI stuff
Speaker 4: coming and all these exciting new careers coming with these
Speaker 4: kids from the same area. Yeah, who are recruiting already,
Speaker 4: and they recruit. So what when I remember I talking
Speaker 4: about investment, So what do they do? They take these
Speaker 4: kids as sophomores or junius and they give them what
Speaker 4: they call internships. But that's just a pre recruiting deal
Speaker 4: that if you do well when you finish your undergrad degree,
Speaker 4: they're gonna hire you.
Speaker 3: The military doesn't do anything like that.
Speaker 4: You take the test and either you fail it and
Speaker 4: you go on your way, or you are you passing,
Speaker 4: then we might talk to you.
Speaker 3: But they have an advancement thing up front.
Speaker 4: They have that presson pass the test and exactly or
Speaker 4: stuff like that, right, so they have to be a
Speaker 4: lot more proactive up front. They're just waiting for somebody
Speaker 4: to walk through a recruiting door to say I wanted
Speaker 4: John the Army of that force, David Marines or Coast Guard.
Speaker 3: You ain't gonna get the numbers.
Speaker 2: Oh right, you know, yes, Yeah, it's not so much
Speaker 2: it's like, how are you competing in the career field exactly?
Speaker 3: And who is really your competition?
Speaker 2: Yes, because you do have competition, because it is a
Speaker 2: career field. You could be twenty thirty years and you
Speaker 2: can go all the way to sixty five years old
Speaker 2: in the military if you have a great.
Speaker 3: Career, if that's what you choose to do.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, So the military needs to kind of groom
Speaker 2: maybe this seventeen year old who they say hey, your
Speaker 2: mask or suck you're out, and say hey, you know
Speaker 2: what we have like an army math program.
Speaker 3: And try to show them some Korea paths, you know, and.
Speaker 2: Extending olive branch to them exactly, say hey, we are
Speaker 2: here for you.
Speaker 5: We're not going to sweep you out, and you can
Speaker 5: have a good career path that's correct, and tell the
Speaker 5: person how they envisioned certain things happen. You're playing out
Speaker 5: for you to become, you know, East sixty seven or
Speaker 5: a clonel or maybe even a flag officer.
Speaker 2: Right, you know. And so I mean, if that kid's
Speaker 2: out there thinking, well, hey, I can either go work
Speaker 2: over here for thirty dollars an hour or work in
Speaker 2: the military for ten bucks an hour plus clothing, housing,
Speaker 2: and maybe little and then.
Speaker 4: The importus of those survival things that you need like food,
Speaker 4: shelter and health benefits. Right, And because young people don't
Speaker 4: calculate that into what they think they need to be
Speaker 4: to live.
Speaker 2: Initially, know, they just want to go out and buy
Speaker 2: the flash and get it and have it, and then
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, I oh on it. Six years later you.
Speaker 3: Have access to finances and access to cats.
Speaker 2: Right, And I'm not saying it has to be you know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be like a general salary for
Speaker 2: a private, but it has to be competing.
Speaker 3: It's somewhat competing because you're competing against other people.
Speaker 4: And it's also the freedom of fectibility that you have
Speaker 4: because the military, you know, you're gonna have some rules
Speaker 4: and regulations that you have to follow. But if I'm
Speaker 4: not in the military, I have a little more freedom,
Speaker 4: personal freedoms because you do give up some personal freedom
Speaker 4: to be part of a team in the military.
Speaker 2: Because the patriot, let's talk about the patriot out there,
Speaker 2: they're going to join, You're not going to make them
Speaker 2: enough money to do with that job. It's the guy
Speaker 2: that's like, I need to go to a career and
Speaker 2: I want to work sonar or air traffic controller. You know,
Speaker 2: you may have a civilian air traffic controller who could
Speaker 2: go military air traffic controller. What are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: And to entice that guy at least be National Guard
Speaker 2: in the system to help out. I mean, you know
Speaker 2: air traffic controllers. If you're out there, you want to
Speaker 2: be an air traffic controller? Hit him up, tell him
Speaker 2: RAT sent you.
Speaker 4: Best place to start to get the training and experiences
Speaker 4: in the military plans.
Speaker 3: All over the world.
Speaker 2: Here I have nineteen year olds coming into my airsoft
Speaker 2: shop wanting to play war games, and I'm like, what
Speaker 2: are you gonna do with yourself? He's like, I want
Speaker 2: to fly a commercial. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 2: as he said commercial, I said, you need to go
Speaker 2: to the military. He's like, no, I'm just doing a
Speaker 2: civilian program to learn how to fly commercial. But you
Speaker 2: could commit to the military and get through all of
Speaker 2: that and still get that experience and.
Speaker 4: You don't have to pay for it that yes training program.
Speaker 3: He is in the private market player. I don't know
Speaker 3: what something that costs.
Speaker 2: I bet you someone in his school that's teaching him
Speaker 2: is former military. A funny feeling, I have a hutch exactly.
Speaker 2: Someone tells me he's flown some rubber dog dude out
Speaker 2: of Hong Kong or something. You know that guy some
Speaker 2: top gun quote two guys. Now you're gonna go round
Speaker 2: the school.
Speaker 3: Yes, give that good military training.
Speaker 2: Exactly and shoulder shoulderness. You know, there's nothing like that.
Speaker 4: And it also has talked how to be part of
Speaker 4: a te how to deal with people again from diverse environment,
Speaker 4: because we're doing the military. People come from all walks
Speaker 4: of life, which is wonderful.
Speaker 2: Well, as a manager yourself, you know, it's about surrounding
Speaker 2: yourself with good people to make you look like a
Speaker 2: good manager.
Speaker 3: That's what happens. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, so you do
Speaker 3: as they do. People work for you that's smarter than
Speaker 3: you because they're gonna make you smarter.
Speaker 2: That's right, Like I just got smarter off this interview.
Speaker 3: No, you're very kind.
Speaker 2: Oh stop, you're very kind.
Speaker 3: Really interest Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: You know I've had you for a good forty five
Speaker 2: minutes talking about you know, the PhD project dot org,
Speaker 2: talking about how you grew the Syracuse University, you know,
Speaker 2: diversity program for PhD me e PhD project dot org.
Speaker 2: I love your picture is on your wall and yes,
Speaker 2: I just want to let you know that and I
Speaker 2: hold you in the highest regards of that.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Yes, Actually, uh, the lady was Actually my wife worked
Speaker 4: and then actually I was here in graduate school. They
Speaker 4: look the lady. Actually that was paid by a prisoner,
Speaker 4: is that right? Martin Luther King picture. My wife was
Speaker 4: in the audience and he was on the stage. This
Speaker 4: is an amazing picture if you can.
Speaker 2: See this, and he's so young and he's just showing.
Speaker 4: Well, the guy sitting next to my wife said, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna take this picture of Martin Luther King because I
Speaker 4: think he was waiting to speak, and when it comes out,
Speaker 4: I want to give you one. That's the way that
Speaker 4: picture came out. Amazing. It's just like it's so it's like,
Speaker 4: is there every things he stood for?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And and so the uh, it's the pictures that my
Speaker 4: wife has one the guy kept one as the one
Speaker 4: is that the King Center in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Those are only three of that pictures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh wow that so it's even on display. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to mention that to you in the background. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're very welcome. We see it works. Yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: this works. This is great. You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of my favorite rooms. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you brought the show to the room
Speaker 2: here where we could display those wonderful pieces of art. Okay,
Speaker 2: of huge the computer will it will Yes, it has,
Speaker 2: and you've been wonderful, Doctor Melvin Stiff of the United
Speaker 2: States Army Officer Military Intelligence. Now you're a dad and
Speaker 2: a grandpa. Let's go army. Let's go army. That's right.
Speaker 2: My dad agrees with me, right, but he hadn't right
Speaker 2: exact that's right. So with that said, I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: go support our merch Go check the book store out
Speaker 2: for any of my listeners. Do that on behalf of
Speaker 2: doctor Stiff and myself and Syracuse University.
Speaker 4: Program for the young men and women getting out and
Speaker 4: look at Syracuse. It's a great place to continue your education.
Speaker 4: You're going to find one of the most supportive environments,
Speaker 4: and if not, I'll say the most supportive in the
Speaker 4: US academy.
Speaker 2: And they broke him down in the bottom of the
Speaker 2: website for people and click on it. Just go straight
Speaker 2: to the website exactly. Okay, okay, so we'll have that
Speaker 2: all set up.
Speaker 3: Oh great, we appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And thanks to William for coming to Hell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, William bailed me out, yes, but he made it quicker.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I'm going to give a shut out. I
Speaker 2: think to pat I heard you say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Patricians my wife in fifty three years.
Speaker 2: I think we should give her a shot one more time.
Speaker 4: Yes, she did all the hard work for me to
Speaker 4: get to Syracuse University. I told her the press day
Speaker 4: I saw her, I'm going to marry you one day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's up? And it worked out. You're a determined individual.
Speaker 3: I know what I want. That's what's up. That's what
Speaker 3: I love it exactly.
Speaker 4: You've been a very well You're a wonderful host, and
Speaker 4: in the future, reach out to me if you think
Speaker 4: I could be helpful and all. It was really been
Speaker 4: and it's always a pleasure for us to talk about
Speaker 4: the PD project.
Speaker 3: It means so much to me and as well as
Speaker 3: Syracuse universe. And it's specially the Veterans program.
Speaker 2: I can I already know and same here. I'm so
Speaker 2: excited to have you on and thank you for making
Speaker 2: me fit on your schedule on this beautiful Sunday right
Speaker 2: after Veterans Day. So happy Veterans Day too.
Speaker 4: It was great, yes, but we had a great ter
Speaker 4: Day series of activities here in town.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, I'm sure if you were there, it was
Speaker 2: a it was a rock star show.
Speaker 3: Okay, well you take care of yourself.
Speaker 2: Back you too, Dean, Thank you so much. And on
Speaker 2: the behalf of all of us, here a soft rep
Speaker 2: and the Dean. I'm saying peace.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to self reparata.