Crimson and Gold Connection; Ed McKechnie

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected with the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. The Pittsburgh State University Alumni Association established the Meritorious Achievement Award in 1958, and it is the highest award based on career achievement presented by the Alumni Association. Candidates must have demonstrated substantial professional growth and advancement over an extended period of time. I'm joined today by Ed McKecney. Ed is currently Chief Commercial Officer at Watcoe, where he's been since the year 2000. He has a degree in Communication and Media Studies. He has been a member of the Kansas Legislature, director, secretary and treasurer of the Kansas Bioscience Authority. He has been a member of the Kansas Board of Regents, and was chair of the Kansas Board of Regents in 2011-2012. Welcome Ed. Thank you. Thanks for having me. How does it feel to be a recipient of the Meritorious Achievement Award, and what does it mean to you both personally and as a former member of the Board of Regents? Well, it was a great honor. I certainly appreciated it when I got the call from John Bartlow, letting me know of the award, and certainly humbled by it, and so it's been a great honor and was glad to be back on campus. You've had a long relationship with Pittsburgh and with Pittsburgh State both in your business life, and as a member of the Board of Regents, would you like to tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, so my mom was on the faculty here, and she began teaching here in 1969, and I went to school at Horseman, which was the school here on campus for kids when they were with student teachers. That's how they used to do the student teacher program. After I graduated high school, and 81 from Pittsburgh High, came to school here in the fall of 82, got my bachelors, and so Pittsburgh State was a big part of my life growing up, and then when I was in the legislature, I represented Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh State's the largest thing in Pittsburgh. And that was really helpful when I was on the Kansas Board of Regents. So I served a little over four years on the board, ended up serving as chair, just the timing worked right, some other folks were going off, and they were looking around and said, would you serve as chair? And it really gave me the opportunity to contrast Pitt State to the other schools. Pittsburgh State does very, very well head to head with any other schools. I've gotten to see from the outside, how other people view Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh State, and what I can tell you is that Pittsburgh State has a tremendous amount of respect in the board, has a tremendous amount of respect in the legislature, and people look to this university to provide good solid graduates, and really leadership not only in the region, and I think sometimes we think of ourselves as a school in Southeast Kansas, but our mission is really statewide, national and global inspector. And you understand that when Wattco has international operations, and I got on a flight in Sydney, Australia one time, and there was a guy that came through the door of the aircraft behind me with the split face gorilla cap on.

You can be just about in place in the world, and you'll find a gorilla, and there's good reasons for that. I was going to say I've noticed as a bread that there are a very large number of Googlers in influential positions in and around both the state and sort of further abroad, and that's really been your experience too. I've seen gorillas in business and industry, and also in political positions, very proud of the school. I was with some guys at a dinner, and one of the former assistant basketball coaches, for Pitt State, I bumped into him at a reception. And he was just speaking very fondly of his time at Pittsburgh State, and all the folks that he met along the way. And you find that in the gorilla family, people look back, and it's been years since they've been here, but it's a very positive experience those graduates have. And that's because of the caring faculty, the caring leadership, and the caring community, and the great relationship between the university and the community. Pittsburgh State made my life better, and I appreciate that and remember it.

So you would say there's a considerable amount of truth in the once a gorilla or almost a gorilla attack. Yeah, I really think there is. I think back of people who impacted my life with folks in student affairs, Don Wilson, who was former president of the university. I used to watch how he would come into a room and talk. He was a guy you looked at and said, I don't want to go follow that guy. I want to be part of his team, and I think you've got the same thing with Dr. Scott. And I think when you say the name Steve Scott around the state, people pause and take notice and say he's a leader who's getting things done and is a person that people have confidence in. Those are the kind of people that I want to associate with. You want to hang out and you want to be around and you want to associate yourself with other good people, because other good people around you make you better. In conclusion, as a recipient of the Meritorious Achievement Award, what's a message or advice would you have for the class of 2016 or other students working the way through Pittsburgh State right now? I think after graduation, there's a couple things.

One is get up every day and try to consistently make good choices, and that is easier said than done. But when you try for the shortcut, sometimes you'll get lucky, but really in life, people will look back at you and say, well, you had a lucky break here or lucky break there. And you really want to have a consistent work ethic as you move forward. The second thing I would say is that this is a combination of being a marathon and a sprint. And in the long term, consistently making good decisions, going back and working off the things that you learned and things that you know in life will get you to a better place than kind of guessing and taking some shortcuts. And so I think back to some of the professors I had, Mary Roberts, Don Curle, Pete Hamilton, folks like that who took the time, after class, before class, who knew that I could do better, who maybe knew I wouldn't have focused as I should have been. Who encouraged me, pushed me, directed me. And I look back and I really appreciated those folks, maybe not at the moment when I was being encouraged to do more than I should be.

But I really appreciated them later on because I learned a lot from them. And those were three names of people who passed on, but folks who had a positive impact on me. And I know they had a positive impact on so many students just like I see with the current faculty and I students don't always say thanks when they're there that they mean to, they don't necessarily know how to. But I see the great work that the faculty here is doing and really appreciate it. And I think this awards an opportunity for me to look back and say thank you to all those folks who helped students like me out along the way and I appreciate the recognition. At McKecney, thanks for joining us for KRPS and for Crimson and Gold Connection. My name is Robert Smith. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection Wednesdays at 850 and Fridays at 350.