October 30, 2024 • 55 mins
What if understanding your inner self could be the key to unlocking true career satisfaction? Join me, Keith D Terry, alongside Mr. Steve Hagerty, the brilliant CEO behind Hagerty Consulting and former mayor of Evanston, as we explore this compelling question. We navigate pivotal historical shifts from the Industrial Revolution to the Human Relations Movement, uncovering how these changes have redefined career fulfillment. Our discussion delves deep into how modern factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of purpose-driven work are altering the professional landscape, emphasizing the critical role of self-awareness and mental health in achieving a balanced work-life harmony.
Takeaways
- Career satisfaction has evolved over time, with a shift towards personal fulfillment and self-actualization.
- Self-awareness, strengths, and well-being play a crucial role in job satisfaction.
- Entrepreneurship and leadership skills can be developed from a young age.
- Cultural differences influence the emphasis on career satisfaction and self-awareness.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a reassessment of careers and an increased focus on mental health. Know yourself and showcase your unique experiences and skills.
- A whole-of-community response is crucial in emergency management.
- Misinformation and disinformation pose challenges in emergency management.
- Strong social networks and trust are essential in communities.
- Pursue a career in public service to make a difference in your community.
Send us your thought on this episode.
Keith D. Terry and JJaed Productions, LLC produced this episode. www.jjaedproductions.com
Please Follow us on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@keithdterry
For podcast guest recommendations, contact kterry@terryperformancegroup.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the podcast.
The Next Big Thing I'm yourhost, keith D Terry, a
consultant, a coach and a serialentrepreneur.
The mission here is to teach,inspire and to motivate.
I am truly excited about ourguest today.
Mr Steve Hagerty is the founderand CEO of Hagerty Consultant
(00:21):
and the 21st mayor of Evanston.
Now the topic that we're goingto talk about today is truly
knowing yourself to be the bestguy to having a successful life
and career.
This man has done a lot.
He started a very successfulcompany and he's been publicly
(00:42):
elected as the mayor of a prettymajor city here in Illinois.
But before I formally introducehim to you, like I always do on
my podcast, I like to give alittle bit of a historical
perspective and background onthe topic, so you understand
kind of where I'm coming from.
Now.
You know the history of careersatisfaction in the US and
(01:05):
globally has evolvedsignificantly over the years and
I just wanted to take a momentand give a little bit of
historical perspective.
In the early 20th century thereare two things that happened the
Industrial Revolution.
During this period, careersatisfaction was really not the
primary concern.
It was job security and thefinancial stability.
(01:26):
As you can imagine, factoryjobs, manual labor dominated and
personal fulfillment was rarelyconsidered.
There was a second phenomenonduring the early 20th century
and that was what they callscientific management, where
they emphasize, from a companyperspective, efficiency and
productivity over the expense ofworker satisfaction.
(01:46):
However, as we shifted into themid-20th century, a couple of
things popped up Human relationmovement in the 30s and 40s.
Studies like the Hawthornestudy highlighted the impact of
social relationships and workersatisfaction on productivity.
Then it was the introduction ofMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
Now, if you haven't heard aboutMaslow's hierarchy of needs, it
(02:12):
came up in the 40s and the 50sby Abraham Maslow.
He introduced the concept ofself-actualization Pretty
significant People use thattoday.
Then you move into the late 20thcentury.
A couple things happened.
Job enrichment and designhappened in the 60s and the 70s,
where they were focused onmeaningful work and
(02:34):
opportunities for growth, forworker satisfaction.
Then it was the rise, we allknow, of personal development.
In the 80s and 90s Saw agrowing interest in this area.
You know books came out likeColor your Parachute by Richard
Boyles, who encouragedindividuals to align their
careers to their personalstrengths and interests.
That was pretty successful.
(02:55):
Then we enter into the 21stcentury.
A couple of things Work-lifebalance predominated in the
2000s, brought increasedattention to work-life balance
and the importance of aligningyour career for personal values.
Employee engagement came in.
Organizations started to focuson employees' engagement as a
(03:16):
key driver of employeesatisfaction and productivity.
Millennials how can we get awayfrom them?
They're the new drivers to theworkforce now and the
purpose-driven work.
As millennials entered theworkforce, there was a
significant shift towardspurpose-driven work and, you
know, during this time we saw ameaningful alignment of personal
(03:39):
values.
Traditional markets such assalary and job titles took a
lesser meaning.
Traditional markets such assalary and job titles took a
lesser meaning.
Now, what does all this do haveto do with the impact of
self-awareness on careersatisfaction?
Three things that I wanted tojust mention.
One positive psychologymovement happened in the 2000s,
where, you know, psychologistMartin Slugman emphasized the
(04:02):
importance of self-awareness,strengths and well-being in job
satisfaction.
Then we also saw careerassessment tools and coaching
like Myers-Briggs, likeStrengthsFinders.
Career coaching became verypopular during this time.
Then the third one ismindfulness and self-reflection.
(04:23):
This is all the rage.
People are talking about it,but there are a couple of things
that I have yet to say Now.
When you consider what'shappening in the United States
versus what's happening globally.
There are some things that comeup that are different in this
country than out.
Cultural differencespredominate outside the United
States.
What I like to call careersatisfaction and the emphasis on
(04:47):
self-awareness vary acrosscultures, as you can imagine,
individualistic cultures likethe US, where personal
fulfillment andself-actualization often
dominate, but in those othercountries they don't.
Last point, as you can imagine,in developing countries we
revert back to the economicnecessity.
It's less about personalsatisfaction versus stability.
(05:13):
Now, the last thing I'm going tosay before I introduce our
guest is we've just went throughsomething pretty significant,
which was the impact on COVID,and I just want to take a minute
and talk about this.
The pandemic accelerated atrend towards remote work and
flexible arrangements, where weall saw that, you know, many
(05:35):
individuals have reassessedtheir careers, leading to what
some would call the greatresignation, and then the
emphasis on mental health.
There's a growing recognitionof a link between self-awareness
, mental health and jobsatisfaction.
Now I did some more researchjust to look at a couple of
things pre-COVID, post-covid.
(05:56):
I looked at overall jobsatisfaction and, based on my
research, 55 pre-COVID if youask someone were they totally
satisfied with their job About55 percent of the respondents
said they did Post-COVID, itdropped 50 percent and this was
across.
(06:17):
Were you not somewhat satisfied?
There's about a 5 to 7 percentdrop in every category, about a
5% to 7% drop in every category.
Then, when you look at it froman age perspective the 18 to 29,
the 30 to 49, the 50 to 64, 65plus again every category
dropped by 5% to 6%.
(06:37):
I then went on to look at Isthere an industry difference?
As you can imagine, whenlooking at healthcare,
technology, education, retail,manufacturing, finance again
there was a reduction, thehighest being in healthcare.
As you can imagine, they werereally taxed.
(06:57):
Now the conclusion that I cometo here is we're seeing a trend
towards people being aware ofwho they are, which leads me and
gets me excited about thisconversation, because the person
that I'm about to introduce youto has started a pretty
successful, well, verysuccessful company, and it's not
easy to get elected publicly inthe city of Evanston.
(07:20):
He did that having run a majorcampaign.
So who are we talking about?
Let me introduce Mr SteveHagerty.
Steve Hagerty is the founderand president of Hagerty
Consulting, one of the nation'sleading emergency management
consulting firms.
Steve also has served as the21st mayor of Evanston and is a
(07:40):
fellow of the National Academyof Public Administration, napa.
Hagerty Consulting now employsmore than 450 professionals in
emergency management nationwide,helping clients to prepare for,
respond to and recover fromdisasters, including federal,
state and local governmentsacross the United States, as
(08:02):
well as global and I didn't aswell as large and private
corporations.
Steve, welcome to the show.
How are you, my friend?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I'm good, thanks for having me, keith.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I'm looking forward to this discussion, all right.
Well, steve, I just want tostart by saying I've known you
for many years and you are adelightful person and I love
that and I'm just lookingforward to this conversation.
So I know you, but my listenersdon't.
So who is Steve Hagerty?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Steve Hagerty, you know, is just like anybody else.
Really, I'm no different thananyone else, you know.
For me, you know, I grew up ona small farm in Massachusetts.
My parents were school teachers.
They had read these JamesHarriet books all things, you
know, great and beautiful, andhe had a whole line of books and
they, you know, became consumedwith the idea that they should
(08:54):
build a farm, build a barn andfill it with animals.
And they did that.
Back in like 1975, 1976 period.
My dad and a friend built itover the summer and you know, a
farm creates a lot ofopportunities for kids and in
their case there are three.
In my family.
I'm the oldest, I have twoyounger brothers.
(09:15):
We're all two and a half yearsapart and at a really young age
we just started working the farmliterally, you know collecting
the eggs, milking the cow,planting the garden, harvesting
the garden.
We all had a section of thegarden that we were responsible
for.
All the scrap lumber that mydad didn't use for the barn
(09:38):
turned into this magnificentthree and a half story fort that
we've built.
Some people that have been to myLinkedIn page or my my Facebook
page have seen this for it, andit literally elicits so many
comments.
You look at this for you likehow in the world is Steve
Hagerty still alive?
How did he and his brothers notlike you know crash?
And my father did inspect thefort.
(10:00):
Uh, it would never have passedany kind of city permit process.
Luckily we didn't do that.
But it was a great way to growup, because on a farm there's a
lot of work that needs to bedone, but there's also a lot of
opportunities to becomeentrepreneurial.
At a really young age and mybrothers and I were that way.
(10:21):
Literally, we'd harvest thevegetables and we'd have so many
zucchini and summer squash andtomatoes and everything.
Literally my dad would be likewell, get the wheelbarrow and
start going down the street andknocking on doors and seeing if
any of these neighbors want tobuy it.
Yeah, ok, yeah.
I mean, we were organic beforeorganic was a big thing and you
(10:42):
know who knew I could have put apremium on.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, you know, who knew I could have put a prime
premium on?
Well, you know, it'sinteresting, you know, does your
?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
family still have the farm.
You know my father.
My parents divorced when I wasin my separating the divorce
when I was in my 20s.
Uh, my dad still uh lives nextdoor to where I grew up, um, and
has a little farm.
He has a horse, he has a goat,he has, uh, some chickens a
couple of them get to run freearound around the yard.
He had about 10 acres.
He gave eight of those acres tothe Audubon Society a few years
(11:10):
back.
But yeah, I was just there lastweek and it's great.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It's.
You know, steve, I was going tosay you know my, my, my family
hails from the south and my mom,my mother's side, still has the
family farm.
It's about maybe it's a hugeone in mississippi, and I, I
think back to you know, when mymom they're 11 of them get
around the table and they'retalking about what they did the
(11:35):
entrepreneurial spirit.
If you want something to eat,go out in the field and get you
some blackberries, autumnyelling and, and eat it and do
what you need to do.
So that's great.
So you know you, you, you, youleft there and did you ever
become a big city guy?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
or you went from there to no, I mean I would do
like the class trip, like a lotof us did in high school, to say
New York city, and oh, I didn'tlike it.
It was way too big, there weretoo many people, all all of that
.
It was only later in life thatI came to love urban areas in
this country and have spent alot of time in urban areas.
But no, growing up I meanAttleboro, where I grew up, was
(12:14):
a manufacturing town.
It used to be the jewelrycapital of the world.
Balfour's and Jostens Jewelerswas there.
Everyone worked, had someconnection to that industry and
then with globalization it leftand it's pretty much sort of a
commuter town now, affordablecommuter town to Boston or to
Providence, but it was a greatplace to grow up.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
So, as we meander this conversation, what you know
reading your bio and using yourbackground, did you see?
Is there a connection betweenwhere you are now, both as a
public servant and as a CEO?
Is there a journey that you canshare?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Sure, Of course.
I mean.
I think everybody has a lifejourney.
The problem is none of us knowexactly we're on the journey
each of us individually.
We don't know where that journeyis going to end or where that
journey is going to take us.
But in hindsight we can look atour journey and say, yeah, it
made sense until I was really inmy 20s.
Later in my 20s, mid-20s, youknow, all those things that I
(13:27):
was doing as a kid absolutelyplayed a part in being willing
to go out on my own and startsomething.
I mean, we were big time into4-H, and so 4-H is a youth
development organization focusedon kids that you know tend to
grow up on farms.
4-h is a youth developmentorganization focused on kids
that you know tend to grow up onfarms, and lots of people in
Mississippi or Kansas where Lisa, my wife, is from, you know are
(13:49):
members of either 4-H or FutureFarmers of America.
Those are sort of the two youthdevelopment organizations.
And so we were really big into4-H, and so 4-H provided all
sorts of leadershipopportunities for me and my
brothers and other members.
My parents were both the leadersof the club.
It was the Red Wing 4-H Club.
(14:11):
It was focused on poultry andgardening and I ultimately sort
of rose up through 4-H at thecounty level, at the state level
, at the national level to winsort of a national leadership
award when I was quite younglevel to win sort of a national
leadership award when I wasquite young.
And so you know a big part ofbeing an entrepreneur and
starting a company thatultimately, you know, has, you
(14:33):
know, 450 employees and hundredsof other independent
consultants that work with us,you know a big part of that is
creating a sense of purpose andinspiring people to join you on
this mission that you're on.
And I think a lot of thatstarted just with the kind of
childhood that I had and all thedifferent you know 4-H clubs
(14:54):
that I was involved in and wassort of a leader of at a young
age, or the sports clubs atAttleboro High School that I was
a member of and ultimatelybecame the you know what I find
interesting when you start, whenI do my podcast and I've done
40 of these sessions now it'sinteresting how people where
they end up from a careerperspective.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Is there a connection ?
What led you into emergencymanagement?
I you know, in the context ofknowing yourself.
I mean, I get it from thecontext of being a smart
businessman seeing anopportunity.
But did you know you would beas successful or happy you know,
looking at the happy happinessmeter as you are?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Keith, I had no idea what emergency management was.
So let's be honest here, Inever thought when I was young,
or even like in my 20s, like, oh, I'm going to have a career in
emergency management.
What I knew is that, you know,I had an interest in public
service, in government.
I mean.
Both my parents, again, wereschool teachers my mom just for
a couple of years, and then sheraised my two brothers and I, my
(15:58):
dad for his entire career.
Um, you know, I was a goodstudent and athlete and all that
stuff.
Uh, grow growing up, Um, but Iwasn't good enough to like play
in college or anything like that.
So then, when it came time toapply to college, um, like lots
of young people, uh, I said,okay, have I done everything
(16:19):
that I that I can in terms ofbeing involved in things and
have studied hard and all that,and I probably had a B plus
average in high school, thething that I did really poorly
at, and I still do to this day.
If you gave me, if you gave me,a standardized test to take, I
will guarantee you I will finishprobably in the bottom 10 or 15
percentile and, true to form, Idid back then when I was in
(16:42):
high school and you know thatcreated some real challenges for
me, because we have relativesin Ithaca and I really wanted to
go to Cornell University.
I've been up there a few times.
Okay, Beautiful, but I hadterrible SAT scores.
I took Stanley Kaplan, which isthe prep class, four times.
(17:02):
They guarantee that they'regoing to get your, your, your,
your score up so many points andif you don't get it up, then
you can take it again.
I had to take it four times andmy score went up like 30 points
and it was literally.
I don't even want to share itwith your, with your, with your
listeners here, because it's so,it's so amazing.
Other than I set the bar so lowthat my children will be able
(17:23):
to exceed this.
Okay, Like that, that, thatthat should be a.
The bar has been set pretty low.
Um, but I applied to a lot ofcolleges and this is at a time
right when you and I appliedwhere there weren't these
standardized forms, that theuniform, right, and so I ended
up applying to 16 colleges.
(17:43):
Wow, that is a lot.
That's a lot at a time when youhave to do separate
applications for all of them andeverything.
I had gone on a tour of thecountry to visit these colleges
and literally my parents wereworking, they couldn't come with
me.
I drove the family station wagonaround the East Coast by myself
and stopped at all theseuniversities and the last one
(18:05):
that I go to is Syracuseuniversity.
And I go and I meet with one ofthe admissions counselors and
she spent about an hour with meand at the end, and we have a
nice conversation and at the endshe says you know, Steve, it
might be best that you not applyto Syracuse, Like your SAT
scores are just too low, thatlow.
And so I applied to the 16colleges and my mom says Steve,
(18:30):
would you do an application forSyracuse?
I was like mom, didn't you hearwhat I told you?
Like the lady told me don'teven bother applying You're.
you're that dumb.
And she's like, just do it forme.
And you know how moms can beright which is a wonderful
quality of moms, okay, and stuff.
And so I'm like, fine, I'll doit just for you, mom.
But I wasn't happy about it andso I submit the application.
(18:53):
Well, I get the you know the,the feedback you know, three
months later, from all theseuniversities, of the 17 total
colleges I've applied, I'vegotten rejected from nine,
including my own state college,which was UMass, which people
still give me a hard time aboutthat.
I couldn't even get into my ownstate university and um, and
(19:13):
again, you know, I had goodgrades, I had leadership,
extracurricular activities, Ihad all of that.
And um, I get this letter fromCornell and the Cornell letter
is a rejection letter, but it'sthe nicest rejection letter
you'll ever get.
It was like dear Steve, thankyou so much for applying to
Cornell.
We wish we had a position herefor you, but we don't.
(19:36):
But we want you to go toanother university.
We want you to take theseclasses and they specifically
laid out the classes they wantedme to take and then we want you
to reapply to Cornell.
And so I then, of those eightacceptances, I get into Syracuse
University.
Despite what that admissionscounselor said, they accepted.
(19:57):
And we do have a family and Imay have been the beneficiary of
legacies, right, because myuncle went there, my cousin went
there.
It was very close to that partof the family.
I ended up going there.
My younger brother, my middlebrother, jim, ended up going to
Syracuse.
So I go to Syracuse and I misshome for the first year, like a
(20:21):
lot of kids, especially thatfirst semester, you know, and I
thought I was doing well.
And then I got my grades and Igot like a 2.7 GPA.
And then the second semester Isort of turned it around, I got
a 3.4 GPA.
It's all together it's like a3.0.
I'm like, okay, well, I'm goingto apply to Cornell again.
So because Cornell, told me totake classes.
I applied to Cornell and I gotrejected again, so I'm a twice
(20:45):
rejectee from Cornell.
That will come back later inour discussion.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
So now you know what I'm going to ask.
So from there you go toPricewaterhouseCoopers and then
you start Hagerty Consulting.
So very quickly is there, youknow.
Since we're talking aboutknowing yourself, clearly, I can
see that you knew yourself incollege.
You knew you need to hustle,you needed to do all those
(21:10):
things.
What's the connection?
What gave you the inspirationto first go into consulting?
And then the second one is howyou, you know, start Hagerty
Consulting.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, it's the same thing with emergency management,
keith.
I knew nothing about consulting.
I couldn't tell you whatmanagement consulting was.
All right, I mean, the realityis, you know, I have four great
years at Syracuse.
I have to, of course, listen tothese Cornell students.
When we'd be playing basketballwith them at the Carrier Dome,
(21:42):
syracuse would be beating themby like 30 points and they would
start to chant that's all right, that's okay, you'll be working
for us someday.
It was like a dagger in my, inmy heart, you know.
And so, um, uh, you know, I Ithought I wanted to go to law
school.
Uh, I did as poorly on the LSATas I did on the SAT.
I um was in tears when I gotthe feedback about what my
(22:08):
scores were.
I went to an advisor of mine,dr Margaret Charters, who's
deceased but was a wonderful,wonderful advisor, and she was
like well, why do you want to goto law school, steve?
And I'm like well, I don'treally want to be a lawyer, but
I want to have the skills of alawyer.
And she said well, you know,we've got one of the best public
administration programs ingovernment schools in the entire
(22:28):
country right here, the MaxwellSchool of Citizenship and
Public Affairs, and why don't Iset up a meeting with you over
there?
And so I went over there andthey were kind enough to accept
my LSAT score not make me takethe GRA and I put my application
in and.
I ended up going straight fromundergrad to grad school, so I
spent six years at Syracuse, andnow it's time to graduate.
(22:51):
Now it's time to get a job, andall I know is that I want to
work for the government, keith,and so I apply for 50 to 75
government jobs.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Now why the government.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
You know what?
Again, I think it was I'vealways had an interest in
serving other people.
Again, I think part of it's thefact that my parents were
school teachers and all of that.
And so you know, that's why Iwanted to study government and
everything, and so it sort ofmade it made sense to me and I
thought, like I should get oneof these jobs.
I mean, I was qualified, in myopinion at least, for a handful
(23:28):
of these jobs, but I wasrejected from all of them.
Again, you know, rejected fromCornell, rejected from all of
these jobs.
And so you know, here I am.
We finished school on, let's say, may of 93.
I don't have a job.
I see this thing in August of93 in the SU Career Center
(23:51):
newsletter.
It wasn't even coming out ofthe Maxwell School and it
basically says hey, we'relooking to hire a management
consultant at Price Waterhousein the Office of Government
Services.
I have no idea what managementconsulting is.
I have no idea what PriceWaterhouse is, but it has the
word government in it and I wantto work for government.
So I'm going to apply for thisjob.
I apply for this job.
(24:11):
I should also say, aftergetting rejected 75 times from
all these government jobs.
I retooled my resume because Ithought this must be the problem
it's my resume, and so Icreated a four-page resume.
Wow, early's my resume.
And so I created a four pageresume.
I'm not communicating enough tothese folks why they should
hire me, and but it was really aone page resume.
(24:33):
But it was on paper, where youcould fold the paper in half,
where it would become eight anda half by 11.
So on the front it had my name,it said Steven Hagerty, and by
each letter of my name I had anadjective to help them
understand who Steve Hagerty was.
And I differentiated yourself.
Exactly so.
My favorite one was why, and mywhy adjective was youthful,
(24:55):
because isn't that what you needas an employer?
Doing?
You would think, like man, Ineed a youthful employee here.
And so you know.
You open it up and it's got allthe my quote, my quote, my
experience.
And then on the back page, it'sgot my thing.
So I, I, I sent out my retooledresume.
Price water house calls andsays hey, we want to fly you
down here and interview.
(25:16):
So I fly down and I and Iinterview with them.
And the last guy that Iinterviewed was the most senior
guy at price waterhouse and hewas a director named Dave Ziske.
And Dave leans back and opensup my four page resume and he
goes Steve, I see that yougraduated in May.
It's August now.
Like, what have you been doing?
I said, well, dave, I've beentaking tennis lessons.
(25:37):
And I said, oh, and my brotherand I, we have this loft
building business.
He goes loft building business.
What's this?
I said, oh, and my brother andI, we have this loft building
business.
He goes loft building business.
What's this?
I said, well, you know, thedorms are really small and so a
lot of those students would liketo raise their bed.
My brother, jim, is super handyand can build things.
I can't, but he can buildthings.
And so we basically createdthis loft building business.
(26:02):
We had flyers all over thecampus.
The flyer said get it up, builda loft.
And then my contribution to theflyer was don't be loft out,
call.
Now.
I knew one of the owners whoowned a retail store down on the
main strip of Syracuse which iscalled Marshall street, and
she's like Steve, we need amodel loft out here.
I'm like, okay, so we put amodel loft out there.
(26:23):
Lisa, my now wife, who you know, literally sat there at the
model loft and people would walkby with their son and their
daughter.
They'd be like, oh my God, maryor Johnny, you need one of
these.
They would write us a check for$110.
We would schedule them in forwhen we were going to do that.
We cut a deal with the lumbercompany.
We had all this wood dropped atour apartment that we're
(26:44):
renting.
My brother had a Geo Metro.
We could fit two of thesepre-cut lofts into there.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I see the entrepreneurial connection here,
you know, from early selling offruits and vegetables to a loft
business, which is prettyingenious.
You know back in college, youknow.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It was a nice way to.
It was a good way to make abuck, keith.
I mean, we made several, andthe funny thing is so I tell
this story to Dave Ziske.
All right, the next day, noteven 24 hours after this
interview, I get a call fromPricewaterhouse says we want to
offer you a job.
Finally somebody.
After all these rejections,somebody wants to offer me a job
.
And I always tell young peoplewhen I'm speaking on campuses or
(27:29):
anything if someone offers youa job within 24 hours, unless
it's my company, you should askfor more money.
Clearly they want you, right?
I mean, man, we definitely needyou.
I was so excited that somebodywanted to offer me a job.
I accepted on the spot.
And then the story ends thisway and again.
(27:51):
I love the ending of this storyand I think it's important for
your listeners and everyone justto think about.
So the story ends that I startat Pricewaterhouse on September
20th 1993.
That evening there's a reception.
So all the partners are there,all the staff are there, and
Dave Ziske says to one of thesenior partners.
He says oh, kevin, kevin, comeon over here.
(28:13):
I want to introduce you toSteve Hagerty.
And Kevin Bacon is his name.
He likes to say he was bornseven years before the Kevin
Bacon we all know.
Kevin Bacon comes over and saysand looks right at me and says
Steve Hagerty.
He says you're the loft man Iheard about.
It wasn't your good grades thatgot you this job or your
extracurricular activities oryour leadership.
(28:35):
It was your entrepreneurialspirit.
And you know something, keithNowhere on that four-page resume
was my loft business.
I never looked or thought ofmyself as entrepreneurial, even
though it clearly was.
You know, growing up on a farmand all of that.
Yet I never, ever, put thatonto my resume.
(28:57):
It only came up because DaveSiskey said well, it's August,
now what have you been doing,steve?
And so I always tell peoplelike it's really important to
take some time and think aboutthe essence of you, who are you
really, and make sure thatthat's conveyed in your cover
letter and in your resume and inyour communication when you're
interviewing for differentopportunities.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Now, are you seeing that?
Because I want to, I want toget a little bit further into
the emergency management because, again, you're in a business
that's serving You've been mayorthat's serving Are you seeing
that people are not really ableto get to the essence of who
they are?
Are you finding that it'sharder to find people who truly
(29:43):
know themselves, or is it easier?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
No, I mean you know what I actually think.
With the younger generation inparticular, there's a real
attunement, you know, to whothey are and what they want to
do.
But I do think, like you choosea job, you choose a career, and
so there can be something thatyou're really passionate about.
There can be plenty of peoplethat are really interested in
helping people on their worstday.
I mean I get the privilege andall the people that work for my
(30:08):
company of helping people whensomething really bad has
happened, and we're veryfortunate because the United
States government and ourelected officials over the years
have said we're going to helpour neighbors when there's a
tornado or an earthquake or aterrorist attack or all of that,
and there's lots of people thatwant to be a part of that.
The challenge is the eight yearsthat I spent at Pricewaterhouse
(30:30):
.
The first four years of when Istarted Hagerty Consulting, I
was on the road 90% of the timeand I wasn't coming home every
weekend.
And I wasn't coming home everyweekend.
I mean when you went on theroad to work a recovery after
the Northridge earthquake or9-11 or Hurricane Katrina.
You went out there and you wereworking 70, 75, 80 hours a week
(30:50):
.
You were in it and you wereworking weekends, and so you
would only get to come back oncea month for what we call the
rotation, and you'd rotate homefor four or five days they give
you a little extra than aweekend and then you went right
back out into that?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Was that your life at Pricewaterhouse, or was it your
that was my?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
life.
For the first 12 years of mycareer, keith, I was a nomad.
I lived all over the UnitedStates.
Uh, I had no sense of communityat home.
My, my career, from when I wasa young person certainly wasn't
unfolding the way I thought itwould, in that, from when I was
a young person certainly wasn'tunfolding the way I thought it
would, in that, probably, when Iwas younger, I thought well,
I'm going to be embedded in acommunity and really know a
(31:31):
community.
But I grew up in Attleboro,lived in Attleboro until I went
to college, so that was 18 years.
After that, I lived inWashington for four years,
baltimore for four years,evanston for four years and then
, ultimately, lisa and I madethe decision to settle down here
.
But for that 12-year period ofWashington and Baltimore and
(31:51):
Evanston for the first fouryears, yeah, I was on the road
constantly.
I didn't know anybody.
We moved to Evanston.
We didn't know a single person.
Lisa and I knew nobody.
We have no relatives here.
Are you serious?
No, and it's one of the thingsI'm super proud of personally.
Like, well, we moved to acommunity where we knew nobody
and, like, 16 years later, Ibecame the mayor of a great one
(32:13):
of the best urban ring cities inAmerica.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
That is a phenomenal story.
That makes me feel pretty goodNow so let's peel back the onion
a little bit.
So I love this.
So you, you know, over time, Iwould assume, helping.
I mean, you've seen some of theworst calamities in the United
States.
Did that change you?
How did that impact you?
And you know, because I want toget further into the connection
(32:39):
now to why you ran for mayor.
Sure, let's stay on this.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah.
So in terms of the disasters,right, I mean, I was in New York
soon after 9-11.
Terrible historic event.
I was in Northridge after theearthquake long ago.
I've seen terrible floods,fires, all of that stuff, the
thing that I just want to makesure your listeners were.
So when Hagerty goes into anevent, we're generally working
(33:06):
with, you know, the city manager, the mayor, the finance
director.
We're not out there necessarilyworking with the victims per se
, okay, and so we're a littleremoved from that.
So all we do at HagertyConsulting is we help
communities prepare for, respondto and recover from disasters
(33:26):
period.
We aren't an accounting firm,an engineering firm that has a
unit that quote does disasters.
We're not distracted like Ithink some of our main
competitors are, who are doingdebris monitoring, who are doing
housing inspections, puttingneedles in people's arms,
putting blue tarps on roofsafter hurricanes, all of which
are important but none of whichis management consulting.
(33:46):
So all we are doing is focusedon management consulting.
I think we have the broadestsort of in the deepest expertise
in that area.
I actually, I guess you could gointo a disaster and either feel
really, really sad and, likeyou know, be pretty depressed
about it OK, and that's anatural and understandable
(34:07):
feeling.
Or you could also go in and say, wow, this is a time when the
government, when the peoplereally need the help of the
government and I tend to takethat approach like we are very,
very mission focused during adisaster, because you don't have
power, you don't have housing,you don't have food All of this,
you know materials andresources need to get into the
(34:29):
community.
We need to stand this communityback up that have a strong
social fabric before a disasterare communities that respond
(34:51):
better and recover faster fromthose events, and so I just find
it actually I wish none ofthese events ever occurred, you
know.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
So let's stay there for a second because I want to
make sure I understand.
You said a strong social fabric, yeah, and when you say social,
you mean the city has programsto help people.
What do you mean exactly?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
What I mean by that is it's the community, like what
are all of the differentnetworks that exist in that
community?
Okay, I sometimes say to peopleand and uh, uh, I said this
when I was mayor and people said, oh, you can't say this, steve,
and I said, give me a break.
Uh, but what I said is I said,listen, if your plan is, after a
(35:33):
disaster, that the government'sgoing to save you, or that your
business is going to save you,or that your church is going to
save you, then you don't have aplan.
Like it's incumbent upon all ofus, okay, to have a plan.
And so communities that havestrong social networks to me
that means service organizations, faith-based organizations, you
(35:54):
know, business organizations,nonprofit government, all of
that it can't just be oh yeah,we have a really strong social
fabric from our government.
The government alone is notgoing to do this.
And so when we had COVID andyou saw everything that happened
in this country we were very,very involved in COVID and I
happened to have been the mayorat the time here in Evanston
(36:16):
during that.
Evanston did a phenomenal job,in my opinion, on that, and it
was because it was a whole ofcommunity response and recovery
effort and that you know, wevery much preach that out of the
gate, that we all have to worktogether, and so those
communities that already havethat before something bad has
(36:38):
happened, not surprisingly, aregoing to do better responding to
it and then recovering from it.
But those communities that aresort of more divisive or torn
apart or don't have those kindof solid networks.
And so I think there's anopportunity when we talk about
resilience in this country.
There's an opportunity forevery single person to be
(37:00):
involved in thinking how can Ihelp make my community stronger?
It could be as simple as I'mgoing to join the Rotary Club,
you know, or I'm going to, youknow, I'm going to go to that
church picnic, or I'm going tostart to go to some of these
city council meetings andactually see what happens, or
I'm going to join a city boardor commission.
There are opportunities therefor all of us, um, but we have
(37:24):
to take that, that step forwardand and put ourselves out there
and not be afraid that ofrejection.
You know this whole story likeI got a lot of rejection and and
the reality is, you know, ifyou are pushing yourself, you
have failed more on a absolutebasis than you have succeeded,
(37:46):
but on a real basis you'vesucceeded more than you failed.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I see, I see, and I would assume, given your, your
experience, you decided to runfor mayor.
What was the thinking behindthat?
Was it to serve?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
My thinking was I've spent 20 years helping people on
their worst day.
I want to help my communityevery day and that was a line
that I used during the campaign.
And you know, again, I'vealways had an interest in
working for government.
I applied for all those jobs.
Government didn't want to hireme.
So I said, well, I'll putmyself out there to the people
and we'll see if the people wantto hire me.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I lived there when COVID happened and I know your
background and so I would haveyou know COVID was.
So my background, my undergraddegree, is bacteriology and when
they said it was a novel virusI got it was the first time I
was really, really terrified.
And I mean terrified because Iknow I've been around viruses
and bacteria for a long time inmy lifetime and so but, given
(38:47):
that you had emergencymanagement experience,
entrepreneurial experience, wereyou what was going through your
mind the early days of that?
So just just you know, causenot often do I get to talk to
someone that started thesuccessful business and been a
former mayor, so I want to knowwhat was going through.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
So um, so if we take everybody back right to early
2020, um, uh, there's terriblestuff going on with COVID over
in Italy.
We're all seeing it on TV.
Then we start to have a coupleof cases out West, in Washington
state and California, here inthe United States.
Now we're in the February,early March time frame.
(39:27):
What I'm thinking is we need tohave a whole community response
.
I don't want anybody out therethinking like, oh, the mayor is
somehow single-handedly going tohandle this, or is going to, is
going to handle this, or thefire department's got it, or
whatever the health department,like we're all going to have to
pitch in.
(39:47):
And so I had two young kidsactually in this community and
their mother, who I know, whohad called me and said my kids
are really worried about whatthey're seeing on TV.
Would you mind talking to them?
And this was in late April.
This was in late February.
I invited them to the office.
We met in the mayor's office.
Their mom was there as well.
I invited our health departmentdirector and the deputy
(40:10):
director and we talked to themand we tried to alleviate, you
know, some of their, some oftheir concerns about what we
would be doing to make sure thatwe are prepared if this comes
here.
And after that meeting I sent acommunication out to the entire
city and at the time I think wehad 45,000 people that followed
the mayor.
In my newsletter it went up toover 80,000 people in a year, so
(40:35):
lots of people.
That was our main method ofcommunicating with people and I
basically had a photo of the twoyoung boys, me, the health
director and everything, and Isaid they're worried and I use
that as sort of a launching padfor us as a community.
But the next thing that happenedis the president this President
(40:57):
Trump at the time declares anational state of emergency.
Keith, I've been in thisbusiness my whole career.
Never have we had a nationalstate of emergency.
Right, a national state ofemergency would be a pandemic,
it would be a war if we wereattacked.
Right, as a country, they mightdeclare that, and so that was
big news.
(41:18):
And that happened on FridayMarch 13th.
That was the same day that Iwas supposed to do the State of
the City Address, which I wasexcited about doing because it's
the one time a year I get tosort of put everything together
about what we're doing, whywe're doing it and where we're
going and am I going to have 300people in a ballroom when this
is going on, even though wedon't have one case in Evanston
yet?
(41:38):
I cancel it right, becauseagain I'm trying to send a
message president comes out, wecancel the state of the city.
And that weekend and I was thefirst to declare, and I had the
authority as the mayor ofEvanston to do this to declare a
local state of emergency.
We were the first city inIllinois to do that I was a
(41:58):
little nervous because I thought, well, you know, some people
are going to ride me and say, oh, hagerty's overreacting.
We don't even have one case ofCOVID here.
The reality was it's coming andI'm trying to like send up a
flare to everybody in Evanstonand say, folks, this is coming
our way and we all need to dosomething.
(42:19):
Okay, we all have a part toplay.
And so that was why I declaredthe local state of emergency.
I then followed up again withanother bit of communication.
Then the third thing that I didin that same week that I think
was critical to our recovery andit's something that I preach to
our clients when I'm out theretalking is that it has to be a
(42:39):
whole of community response andrecovery from these events.
If you're trying to do that, itmeans you need to put together
and gather the community leadersin all the different sectors.
And so, for us, what were thosesectors?
I literally sat in the mayor'soffice and I'm like OK, I got
the business sector, thenonprofit sector, the faith
community, the senior livingcommunity because this is going
(43:02):
to affect them the healthcarecommunity.
And then I thought, okay, whodo I think are the strongest
leaders in each of those sectorsthat I'm going to call on and
ask them to be part of themayor's COVID-19 task force?
And I have a request of them.
When I call the president ofthe hospital and say, listen,
(43:23):
I'm putting this task forcetogether, um, we are going to
meet twice a week initially, andthen, as time went on, it
became once a week.
Um, there were ultimately about50 or 60 people that were on
this.
Uh, this task force and this,these calls, I am going to ask
each of you, as the leader ofyour sector and oftentimes I had
(43:44):
two leaders, so I had sort oflike co-leads you guys are to go
organize your entire sector.
I don't have time to goorganize.
You're going to go organize thewhole education sector here in
Evanston.
You're going to go organize thenonprofit sector and you are
going to have working groupsthat are feeding information up
to you.
And that's what I created thatfirst week of the pandemic,
(44:07):
right after I declared the localstate of emergency.
And the other thing that we didand we were the first to do it
is we activated the EmergencyOperations Center here in
Evanston.
And, just an interesting fact,we have a joint Emergency
Operations Center withNorthwestern University.
It's actually at their publicsafety facility up on Ridge
Avenue but because of the natureof this disaster, we had to
(44:29):
abandon that facility because wewere all too close to one
another.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
And again, none of us .
It was novel, as you said.
None of us knew exactly okay,what is this virus?
Speaker 2 (44:36):
And what if one of us has this virus?
And now we transfer it on allof us who are like the leaders
of the city, from fire andpolice and parks and rec and all
this.
All of us get sick, like thisis going to be bad.
And so we moved it over to abrand new community center State
of the art is one nationalaward the Robert Crown Community
Center.
We moved the operation overthere and that hadn't even been
(45:08):
open to the public.
So the first thing that RobertCrown Community Center was ever
used for was as the emergencyoperations center for COVID-19.
And it was that facility.
It was used in that capacityfor the first six months of its
existence.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And how much of your time during that, because this
is the last question on that Iassume you were an example for
other cities across the country.
Were you in communication withother mayors and they were
modeling?
Yeah, the US Conference of.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Mayors did a great job of creating a forum for
mayors to communicate and talkto each other.
I was on lots of calls with DrFauci, with other mayors and
stuff like that.
I also got to say I meanGovernor Pritzker, jb Pritzker
did an outstanding job, and DrEzekiel who was his secretary of
health and human services forthe state of Illinois.
(45:50):
I mean, just like I had createdthis task force here in
Evanston, they were bringingtogether all these mayors and
then they were feedinginformation down, bringing
together all these mayors andthen they were feeding
information down.
So I would have a once orinitially it was twice a week
call with the governor and DrZike and 400 other people that
were on this call.
But they did an outstanding jobof that.
(46:11):
We then did the same thing.
There was a cadence to thesecalls and a lot of thought put
into how that agenda was goingto work.
In the beginning of that agendaI was basically pushing
information down to this groupof leaders within the city and
then I would have a spotlight.
I would take somebody, let'ssay Congresswoman Schakowsky.
(46:33):
I would have her onperiodically and say, hey, jan,
give us an update on what'sgoing on in Washington and some
of the aid packages that you'reall discussing and maybe coming
down to the local level.
Then we would turn to all ofthe different working groups
that we had and I would havereport outs from OK, senior
living, community report out youknow, nonprofit report out.
(46:54):
It was incredibly effective and, in fact, a year later, when we
had a vaccine and all of that,people didn't want this task
force to end.
They said well, mayor, we'vegot to pivot this to something
else.
But, as you know, I opted notto run for a second term, and so
I was like well, this will beup to the new mayor and the new
(47:15):
council.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Well, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I would assume
that some of it continues in thework that Hagerty Consulting
does, because you can now takethat model and suggest that
other cities follow a similarkind of plan before we run out
of time.
And that is you know, um, I cansee the trend.
You know from an early.
You know, when you were on thefarm helping people selling uh
(47:50):
fruits and vegetables to the,the, you were the.
What do you call it?
The loft guy?
Yeah, helping people, um, toprice hot water house.
Uh, what's next?
For Steve Hagerty and HagertyConsulting to continue to grow?
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Now you're asking the tough questions.
I mean, look, the reality isthat climate change is real.
We're living it, right, we'reexperiencing it all the time.
I mean the size of HagertyConsulting.
It's funny.
Now, I think a lot of us getdistorted in the world that we
live in now because you knowbillions are thrown around all
(48:27):
the time, or you know eventrillions.
Now you've got five companiesthat have all exceeded a
trillion dollars worth of value,and so some of your, some of
your listeners, to pride context, some of your listeners might
say, oh, this company is notthat big Four hundred and fifty
employees and all that, 450employees and all that.
But the reality is, keith, weare, as a company, just in this
(48:47):
space and we just have thisniche, as I described earlier,
in management consulting.
But in emergency management, weare larger than most emergency
management departments acrossthe entire country, right, I
mean big states, right, and sothey depend on us, and so we
have lots of standing contractswith counties and cities and
(49:09):
states and even the federalgovernment to help.
So we always have to be ready.
We're going into hurricaneseason, you know, there's going
to be more intense storms, allof that.
We're out there, we're meetingwith our clients.
We are working.
We have a cadre of anotherthousand plus people right who,
if something happens, we alreadyhave existing agreements with
(49:29):
folks we can move really quickly.
If there's an earthquake inCalifornia tomorrow and they
need 50 people out there withcertain specialties, we have the
ability to move quickly to dothat.
We're laser focused on justhelping people on their worst
day when something goes thathappens.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Do you see a threat or an emergency around AI?
Speaker 2 (49:58):
I mean, I think there's going to be amazing
positive things that come out ofAI.
There are going to be negativethings, yeah, of course.
Look what I can tell you now interms of the threat in
emergency management.
It's really around moremisinformation and
disinformation, but AI is beingused for that, right.
There was just something thatcame out recently in the New
York Times that says it'sadvanced so far that now people
(50:22):
really can't tell the differencebetween images, right, that are
AI generated and real images.
And now, all of a sudden,you're going to fake people out
and think, okay, did this reallyhappen?
Because I'm looking at it withmy own two eyes, and yet it
could be manufactured.
We are seeing myths anddisinformation by our
adversaries, and we saw thatwith the train derailment in
(50:45):
Palestine, Ohio, right, yes,when Russian they think it was
Russians got involved and theystarted putting all this stuff
out on social media that wasuntrue about the chemicals and
the government, where a bunch ofmisinformation came out about
that.
(51:07):
This is a new weapon that theUnited States was experimenting
on, where we can create thesefires and burn down communities.
Right, and again, to the extentthat people believe some of
this stuff, you know we havereal challenges as a country and
as communities and again Iwould I would think that where
(51:30):
do people trust the most?
They trust at the local level.
They trust people that theyknow.
And so when I talked about thesocial fabric earlier, it also
applies to the relationshipsthat we have and having those
kind of relationships right.
So somebody, if a disasterhappened here in Evanston, they
(51:50):
might be spewing things,adversaries might online for
some kind of advantage orwhatever they're trying to do.
But if we have trustedrelationships here and people
trust the fire chief and thepolice chief and the mayor or
business leaders in town andpeople say no, no, no, that's
not what's happening, that's thebest way to combat this stuff.
But that's hard.
(52:11):
It's almost hand-to-hand combatbecause there is a lot of
distrust of government out there, right, now?
Speaker 1 (52:17):
And, steve, my final question is this what advice
would you give young people oranyone who is looking to pursue
a career in emergency managementor public service in the
context of what we were talkingabout knowing yourself, so that
you can live a happy life?
Speaker 2 (52:36):
We need you.
I think the government and allthese nonprofits and so many of
the nonprofits now are doingaspects of what the government
used to do 40 or 50 years agoand it's sort of been offshored,
so to speak, to nonprofits.
The homelessness epidemic inthis country, all of that I
think, look, if you want to makea difference, a real big
(53:00):
difference in your community orin your state or with the
federal government difference inyour community or in your state
or with the federal governmentthere are so many exciting jobs
because of all the challengesthat we face as a country and in
a community to get involved.
So figure it out.
You could have a particulardiscipline.
I'm interested intransportation, or I'm
interested in the environment,or I'm interested in, you know,
(53:22):
recreation and parks.
I mean, there are opportunitiesin all of those areas within
the government and it's anamazing group of people.
I have yet to work with folksthat work for the government and
think, oh, these people don'tcare or they're just here for
the paycheck.
That never has crossed my mind.
I mean, I am so impressed withpeople that have dedicated their
(53:46):
careers to public service and Ihope, you know, young people
will look at the challenges thatwe have out there and think,
well, how can I make adifference with my life?
And one way is certainlyspending your time, because you
spend more time working thananything else.
Spending your time working onsome of these challenges that we
(54:07):
have.
It's the only way we're goingto move through them.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Well, steve, thank you so much for joining me here
on the Next Big Thing.
I just want to thank you forjoining me.
It's a delightful conversation.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank youfor listening to the Next Big
Thing with Keith Terry.
Our guest today is Mr SteveHagerty, and I just want to
invite you to do a couple ofthings, as my listeners One
(54:32):
follow me.
We are now being distributed onApple Podcast, iheartradio and
Spotify for the podcast version.
I also have a YouTube channel.
My YouTube channel is Keith DTerry.
Please like, subscribe andfollow me, because we have a
number of different episodesthat I'd love for you to listen
(54:53):
to Other folks who are aspassionate as Steve, in
different avenues across theUnited States, across globally,
and I just want to thank youguys for listening.
Steve, it was delightful.
You have a phenomenal day.
Thanks for listening to theNext Big Thing.
I'm your host, keith D Terry.
If you've enjoyed this episodeand you'd like to support this
(55:14):
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating and areview.
To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on my
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This has been produced by yourhost and Jade Productions.
Welcome to the podcast.
The Next Big Thing I'm yourhost, keith D Terry, a
consultant, a coach and a serialentrepreneur.
The mission here is to teach,inspire and to motivate.
I am truly excited about ourguest today.
Mr Steve Hagerty is the founderand CEO of Hagerty Consultant
(00:21):
and the 21st mayor of Evanston.
Now the topic that we're goingto talk about today is truly
knowing yourself to be the bestguy to having a successful life
and career.
This man has done a lot.
He started a very successfulcompany and he's been publicly
(00:42):
elected as the mayor of a prettymajor city here in Illinois.
But before I formally introducehim to you, like I always do on
my podcast, I like to give alittle bit of a historical
perspective and background onthe topic, so you understand
kind of where I'm coming from.
Now.
You know the history of careersatisfaction in the US and
(01:05):
globally has evolvedsignificantly over the years and
I just wanted to take a momentand give a little bit of
historical perspective.
In the early 20th century thereare two things that happened the
Industrial Revolution.
During this period, careersatisfaction was really not the
primary concern.
It was job security and thefinancial stability.
(01:26):
As you can imagine, factoryjobs, manual labor dominated and
personal fulfillment was rarelyconsidered.
There was a second phenomenonduring the early 20th century
and that was what they callscientific management, where
they emphasize, from a companyperspective, efficiency and
productivity over the expense ofworker satisfaction.
(01:46):
However, as we shifted into themid-20th century, a couple of
things popped up Human relationmovement in the 30s and 40s.
Studies like the Hawthornestudy highlighted the impact of
social relationships and workersatisfaction on productivity.
Then it was the introduction ofMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
Now, if you haven't heard aboutMaslow's hierarchy of needs, it
(02:12):
came up in the 40s and the 50sby Abraham Maslow.
He introduced the concept ofself-actualization Pretty
significant People use thattoday.
Then you move into the late 20thcentury.
A couple things happened.
Job enrichment and designhappened in the 60s and the 70s,
where they were focused onmeaningful work and
(02:34):
opportunities for growth, forworker satisfaction.
Then it was the rise, we allknow, of personal development.
In the 80s and 90s Saw agrowing interest in this area.
You know books came out likeColor your Parachute by Richard
Boyles, who encouragedindividuals to align their
careers to their personalstrengths and interests.
That was pretty successful.
(02:55):
Then we enter into the 21stcentury.
A couple of things Work-lifebalance predominated in the
2000s, brought increasedattention to work-life balance
and the importance of aligningyour career for personal values.
Employee engagement came in.
Organizations started to focuson employees' engagement as a
(03:16):
key driver of employeesatisfaction and productivity.
Millennials how can we get awayfrom them?
They're the new drivers to theworkforce now and the
purpose-driven work.
As millennials entered theworkforce, there was a
significant shift towardspurpose-driven work and, you
know, during this time we saw ameaningful alignment of personal
(03:39):
values.
Traditional markets such assalary and job titles took a
lesser meaning.
Traditional markets such assalary and job titles took a
lesser meaning.
Now, what does all this do haveto do with the impact of
self-awareness on careersatisfaction?
Three things that I wanted tojust mention.
One positive psychologymovement happened in the 2000s,
where, you know, psychologistMartin Slugman emphasized the
(04:02):
importance of self-awareness,strengths and well-being in job
satisfaction.
Then we also saw careerassessment tools and coaching
like Myers-Briggs, likeStrengthsFinders.
Career coaching became verypopular during this time.
Then the third one ismindfulness and self-reflection.
(04:23):
This is all the rage.
People are talking about it,but there are a couple of things
that I have yet to say Now.
When you consider what'shappening in the United States
versus what's happening globally.
There are some things that comeup that are different in this
country than out.
Cultural differencespredominate outside the United
States.
What I like to call careersatisfaction and the emphasis on
(04:47):
self-awareness vary acrosscultures, as you can imagine,
individualistic cultures likethe US, where personal
fulfillment andself-actualization often
dominate, but in those othercountries they don't.
Last point, as you can imagine,in developing countries we
revert back to the economicnecessity.
It's less about personalsatisfaction versus stability.
(05:13):
Now, the last thing I'm going tosay before I introduce our
guest is we've just went throughsomething pretty significant,
which was the impact on COVID,and I just want to take a minute
and talk about this.
The pandemic accelerated atrend towards remote work and
flexible arrangements, where weall saw that, you know, many
(05:35):
individuals have reassessedtheir careers, leading to what
some would call the greatresignation, and then the
emphasis on mental health.
There's a growing recognitionof a link between self-awareness
, mental health and jobsatisfaction.
Now I did some more researchjust to look at a couple of
things pre-COVID, post-covid.
(05:56):
I looked at overall jobsatisfaction and, based on my
research, 55 pre-COVID if youask someone were they totally
satisfied with their job About55 percent of the respondents
said they did Post-COVID, itdropped 50 percent and this was
across.
(06:17):
Were you not somewhat satisfied?
There's about a 5 to 7 percentdrop in every category, about a
5% to 7% drop in every category.
Then, when you look at it froman age perspective the 18 to 29,
the 30 to 49, the 50 to 64, 65plus again every category
dropped by 5% to 6%.
(06:37):
I then went on to look at Isthere an industry difference?
As you can imagine, whenlooking at healthcare,
technology, education, retail,manufacturing, finance again
there was a reduction, thehighest being in healthcare.
As you can imagine, they werereally taxed.
(06:57):
Now the conclusion that I cometo here is we're seeing a trend
towards people being aware ofwho they are, which leads me and
gets me excited about thisconversation, because the person
that I'm about to introduce youto has started a pretty
successful, well, verysuccessful company, and it's not
easy to get elected publicly inthe city of Evanston.
(07:20):
He did that having run a majorcampaign.
So who are we talking about?
Let me introduce Mr SteveHagerty.
Steve Hagerty is the founderand president of Hagerty
Consulting, one of the nation'sleading emergency management
consulting firms.
Steve also has served as the21st mayor of Evanston and is a
(07:40):
fellow of the National Academyof Public Administration, napa.
Hagerty Consulting now employsmore than 450 professionals in
emergency management nationwide,helping clients to prepare for,
respond to and recover fromdisasters, including federal,
state and local governmentsacross the United States, as
(08:02):
well as global and I didn't aswell as large and private
corporations.
Steve, welcome to the show.
How are you, my friend?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I'm good, thanks for having me, keith.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I'm looking forward to this discussion, all right.
Well, steve, I just want tostart by saying I've known you
for many years and you are adelightful person and I love
that and I'm just lookingforward to this conversation.
So I know you, but my listenersdon't.
So who is Steve Hagerty?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Steve Hagerty, you know, is just like anybody else.
Really, I'm no different thananyone else, you know.
For me, you know, I grew up ona small farm in Massachusetts.
My parents were school teachers.
They had read these JamesHarriet books all things, you
know, great and beautiful, andhe had a whole line of books and
they, you know, became consumedwith the idea that they should
(08:54):
build a farm, build a barn andfill it with animals.
And they did that.
Back in like 1975, 1976 period.
My dad and a friend built itover the summer and you know, a
farm creates a lot ofopportunities for kids and in
their case there are three.
In my family.
I'm the oldest, I have twoyounger brothers.
(09:15):
We're all two and a half yearsapart and at a really young age
we just started working the farmliterally, you know collecting
the eggs, milking the cow,planting the garden, harvesting
the garden.
We all had a section of thegarden that we were responsible
for.
All the scrap lumber that mydad didn't use for the barn
(09:38):
turned into this magnificentthree and a half story fort that
we've built.
Some people that have been to myLinkedIn page or my my Facebook
page have seen this for it, andit literally elicits so many
comments.
You look at this for you likehow in the world is Steve
Hagerty still alive?
How did he and his brothers notlike you know crash?
And my father did inspect thefort.
(10:00):
Uh, it would never have passedany kind of city permit process.
Luckily we didn't do that.
But it was a great way to growup, because on a farm there's a
lot of work that needs to bedone, but there's also a lot of
opportunities to becomeentrepreneurial.
At a really young age and mybrothers and I were that way.
(10:21):
Literally, we'd harvest thevegetables and we'd have so many
zucchini and summer squash andtomatoes and everything.
Literally my dad would be likewell, get the wheelbarrow and
start going down the street andknocking on doors and seeing if
any of these neighbors want tobuy it.
Yeah, ok, yeah.
I mean, we were organic beforeorganic was a big thing and you
(10:42):
know who knew I could have put apremium on.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, you know, who knew I could have put a prime
premium on?
Well, you know, it'sinteresting, you know, does your
?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
family still have the farm.
You know my father.
My parents divorced when I wasin my separating the divorce
when I was in my 20s.
Uh, my dad still uh lives nextdoor to where I grew up, um, and
has a little farm.
He has a horse, he has a goat,he has, uh, some chickens a
couple of them get to run freearound around the yard.
He had about 10 acres.
He gave eight of those acres tothe Audubon Society a few years
(11:10):
back.
But yeah, I was just there lastweek and it's great.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It's.
You know, steve, I was going tosay you know my, my, my family
hails from the south and my mom,my mother's side, still has the
family farm.
It's about maybe it's a hugeone in mississippi, and I, I
think back to you know, when mymom they're 11 of them get
around the table and they'retalking about what they did the
(11:35):
entrepreneurial spirit.
If you want something to eat,go out in the field and get you
some blackberries, autumnyelling and, and eat it and do
what you need to do.
So that's great.
So you know you, you, you, youleft there and did you ever
become a big city guy?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
or you went from there to no, I mean I would do
like the class trip, like a lotof us did in high school, to say
New York city, and oh, I didn'tlike it.
It was way too big, there weretoo many people, all all of that
.
It was only later in life thatI came to love urban areas in
this country and have spent alot of time in urban areas.
But no, growing up I meanAttleboro, where I grew up, was
(12:14):
a manufacturing town.
It used to be the jewelrycapital of the world.
Balfour's and Jostens Jewelerswas there.
Everyone worked, had someconnection to that industry and
then with globalization it leftand it's pretty much sort of a
commuter town now, affordablecommuter town to Boston or to
Providence, but it was a greatplace to grow up.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
So, as we meander this conversation, what you know
reading your bio and using yourbackground, did you see?
Is there a connection betweenwhere you are now, both as a
public servant and as a CEO?
Is there a journey that you canshare?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Sure, Of course.
I mean.
I think everybody has a lifejourney.
The problem is none of us knowexactly we're on the journey
each of us individually.
We don't know where that journeyis going to end or where that
journey is going to take us.
But in hindsight we can look atour journey and say, yeah, it
made sense until I was really inmy 20s.
Later in my 20s, mid-20s, youknow, all those things that I
(13:27):
was doing as a kid absolutelyplayed a part in being willing
to go out on my own and startsomething.
I mean, we were big time into4-H, and so 4-H is a youth
development organization focusedon kids that you know tend to
grow up on farms.
4-h is a youth developmentorganization focused on kids
that you know tend to grow up onfarms, and lots of people in
Mississippi or Kansas where Lisa, my wife, is from, you know are
(13:49):
members of either 4-H or FutureFarmers of America.
Those are sort of the two youthdevelopment organizations.
And so we were really big into4-H, and so 4-H provided all
sorts of leadershipopportunities for me and my
brothers and other members.
My parents were both the leadersof the club.
It was the Red Wing 4-H Club.
(14:11):
It was focused on poultry andgardening and I ultimately sort
of rose up through 4-H at thecounty level, at the state level
, at the national level to winsort of a national leadership
award when I was quite younglevel to win sort of a national
leadership award when I wasquite young.
And so you know a big part ofbeing an entrepreneur and
starting a company thatultimately, you know, has, you
(14:33):
know, 450 employees and hundredsof other independent
consultants that work with us,you know a big part of that is
creating a sense of purpose andinspiring people to join you on
this mission that you're on.
And I think a lot of thatstarted just with the kind of
childhood that I had and all thedifferent you know 4-H clubs
(14:54):
that I was involved in and wassort of a leader of at a young
age, or the sports clubs atAttleboro High School that I was
a member of and ultimatelybecame the you know what I find
interesting when you start, whenI do my podcast and I've done
40 of these sessions now it'sinteresting how people where
they end up from a careerperspective.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Is there a connection ?
What led you into emergencymanagement?
I you know, in the context ofknowing yourself.
I mean, I get it from thecontext of being a smart
businessman seeing anopportunity.
But did you know you would beas successful or happy you know,
looking at the happy happinessmeter as you are?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Keith, I had no idea what emergency management was.
So let's be honest here, Inever thought when I was young,
or even like in my 20s, like, oh, I'm going to have a career in
emergency management.
What I knew is that, you know,I had an interest in public
service, in government.
I mean.
Both my parents, again, wereschool teachers my mom just for
a couple of years, and then sheraised my two brothers and I, my
(15:58):
dad for his entire career.
Um, you know, I was a goodstudent and athlete and all that
stuff.
Uh, grow growing up, Um, but Iwasn't good enough to like play
in college or anything like that.
So then, when it came time toapply to college, um, like lots
of young people, uh, I said,okay, have I done everything
(16:19):
that I that I can in terms ofbeing involved in things and
have studied hard and all that,and I probably had a B plus
average in high school, thething that I did really poorly
at, and I still do to this day.
If you gave me, if you gave me,a standardized test to take, I
will guarantee you I will finishprobably in the bottom 10 or 15
percentile and, true to form, Idid back then when I was in
(16:42):
high school and you know thatcreated some real challenges for
me, because we have relativesin Ithaca and I really wanted to
go to Cornell University.
I've been up there a few times.
Okay, Beautiful, but I hadterrible SAT scores.
I took Stanley Kaplan, which isthe prep class, four times.
(17:02):
They guarantee that they'regoing to get your, your, your,
your score up so many points andif you don't get it up, then
you can take it again.
I had to take it four times andmy score went up like 30 points
and it was literally.
I don't even want to share itwith your, with your, with your
listeners here, because it's so,it's so amazing.
Other than I set the bar so lowthat my children will be able
(17:23):
to exceed this.
Okay, Like that, that, thatthat should be a.
The bar has been set pretty low.
Um, but I applied to a lot ofcolleges and this is at a time
right when you and I appliedwhere there weren't these
standardized forms, that theuniform, right, and so I ended
up applying to 16 colleges.
(17:43):
Wow, that is a lot.
That's a lot at a time when youhave to do separate
applications for all of them andeverything.
I had gone on a tour of thecountry to visit these colleges
and literally my parents wereworking, they couldn't come with
me.
I drove the family station wagonaround the East Coast by myself
and stopped at all theseuniversities and the last one
(18:05):
that I go to is Syracuseuniversity.
And I go and I meet with one ofthe admissions counselors and
she spent about an hour with meand at the end, and we have a
nice conversation and at the endshe says you know, Steve, it
might be best that you not applyto Syracuse, Like your SAT
scores are just too low, thatlow.
And so I applied to the 16colleges and my mom says Steve,
(18:30):
would you do an application forSyracuse?
I was like mom, didn't you hearwhat I told you?
Like the lady told me don'teven bother applying You're.
you're that dumb.
And she's like, just do it forme.
And you know how moms can beright which is a wonderful
quality of moms, okay, and stuff.
And so I'm like, fine, I'll doit just for you, mom.
But I wasn't happy about it andso I submit the application.
(18:53):
Well, I get the you know the,the feedback you know, three
months later, from all theseuniversities, of the 17 total
colleges I've applied, I'vegotten rejected from nine,
including my own state college,which was UMass, which people
still give me a hard time aboutthat.
I couldn't even get into my ownstate university and um, and
(19:13):
again, you know, I had goodgrades, I had leadership,
extracurricular activities, Ihad all of that.
And um, I get this letter fromCornell and the Cornell letter
is a rejection letter, but it'sthe nicest rejection letter
you'll ever get.
It was like dear Steve, thankyou so much for applying to
Cornell.
We wish we had a position herefor you, but we don't.
(19:36):
But we want you to go toanother university.
We want you to take theseclasses and they specifically
laid out the classes they wantedme to take and then we want you
to reapply to Cornell.
And so I then, of those eightacceptances, I get into Syracuse
University.
Despite what that admissionscounselor said, they accepted.
(19:57):
And we do have a family and Imay have been the beneficiary of
legacies, right, because myuncle went there, my cousin went
there.
It was very close to that partof the family.
I ended up going there.
My younger brother, my middlebrother, jim, ended up going to
Syracuse.
So I go to Syracuse and I misshome for the first year, like a
(20:21):
lot of kids, especially thatfirst semester, you know, and I
thought I was doing well.
And then I got my grades and Igot like a 2.7 GPA.
And then the second semester Isort of turned it around, I got
a 3.4 GPA.
It's all together it's like a3.0.
I'm like, okay, well, I'm goingto apply to Cornell again.
So because Cornell, told me totake classes.
I applied to Cornell and I gotrejected again, so I'm a twice
(20:45):
rejectee from Cornell.
That will come back later inour discussion.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
So now you know what I'm going to ask.
So from there you go toPricewaterhouseCoopers and then
you start Hagerty Consulting.
So very quickly is there, youknow.
Since we're talking aboutknowing yourself, clearly, I can
see that you knew yourself incollege.
You knew you need to hustle,you needed to do all those
(21:10):
things.
What's the connection?
What gave you the inspirationto first go into consulting?
And then the second one is howyou, you know, start Hagerty
Consulting.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, it's the same thing with emergency management,
keith.
I knew nothing about consulting.
I couldn't tell you whatmanagement consulting was.
All right, I mean, the realityis, you know, I have four great
years at Syracuse.
I have to, of course, listen tothese Cornell students.
When we'd be playing basketballwith them at the Carrier Dome,
(21:42):
syracuse would be beating themby like 30 points and they would
start to chant that's all right, that's okay, you'll be working
for us someday.
It was like a dagger in my, inmy heart, you know.
And so, um, uh, you know, I Ithought I wanted to go to law
school.
Uh, I did as poorly on the LSATas I did on the SAT.
I um was in tears when I gotthe feedback about what my
(22:08):
scores were.
I went to an advisor of mine,dr Margaret Charters, who's
deceased but was a wonderful,wonderful advisor, and she was
like well, why do you want to goto law school, steve?
And I'm like well, I don'treally want to be a lawyer, but
I want to have the skills of alawyer.
And she said well, you know,we've got one of the best public
administration programs ingovernment schools in the entire
(22:28):
country right here, the MaxwellSchool of Citizenship and
Public Affairs, and why don't Iset up a meeting with you over
there?
And so I went over there andthey were kind enough to accept
my LSAT score not make me takethe GRA and I put my application
in and.
I ended up going straight fromundergrad to grad school, so I
spent six years at Syracuse, andnow it's time to graduate.
(22:51):
Now it's time to get a job, andall I know is that I want to
work for the government, keith,and so I apply for 50 to 75
government jobs.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Now why the government.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
You know what?
Again, I think it was I'vealways had an interest in
serving other people.
Again, I think part of it's thefact that my parents were
school teachers and all of that.
And so you know, that's why Iwanted to study government and
everything, and so it sort ofmade it made sense to me and I
thought, like I should get oneof these jobs.
I mean, I was qualified, in myopinion at least, for a handful
(23:28):
of these jobs, but I wasrejected from all of them.
Again, you know, rejected fromCornell, rejected from all of
these jobs.
And so you know, here I am.
We finished school on, let's say, may of 93.
I don't have a job.
I see this thing in August of93 in the SU Career Center
(23:51):
newsletter.
It wasn't even coming out ofthe Maxwell School and it
basically says hey, we'relooking to hire a management
consultant at Price Waterhousein the Office of Government
Services.
I have no idea what managementconsulting is.
I have no idea what PriceWaterhouse is, but it has the
word government in it and I wantto work for government.
So I'm going to apply for thisjob.
I apply for this job.
(24:11):
I should also say, aftergetting rejected 75 times from
all these government jobs.
I retooled my resume because Ithought this must be the problem
it's my resume, and so Icreated a four-page resume.
Wow, early's my resume.
And so I created a four pageresume.
I'm not communicating enough tothese folks why they should
hire me, and but it was really aone page resume.
(24:33):
But it was on paper, where youcould fold the paper in half,
where it would become eight anda half by 11.
So on the front it had my name,it said Steven Hagerty, and by
each letter of my name I had anadjective to help them
understand who Steve Hagerty was.
And I differentiated yourself.
Exactly so.
My favorite one was why, and mywhy adjective was youthful,
(24:55):
because isn't that what you needas an employer?
Doing?
You would think, like man, Ineed a youthful employee here.
And so you know.
You open it up and it's got allthe my quote, my quote, my
experience.
And then on the back page, it'sgot my thing.
So I, I, I sent out my retooledresume.
Price water house calls andsays hey, we want to fly you
down here and interview.
(25:16):
So I fly down and I and Iinterview with them.
And the last guy that Iinterviewed was the most senior
guy at price waterhouse and hewas a director named Dave Ziske.
And Dave leans back and opensup my four page resume and he
goes Steve, I see that yougraduated in May.
It's August now.
Like, what have you been doing?
I said, well, dave, I've beentaking tennis lessons.
(25:37):
And I said, oh, and my brotherand I, we have this loft
building business.
He goes loft building business.
What's this?
I said, oh, and my brother andI, we have this loft building
business.
He goes loft building business.
What's this?
I said, well, you know, thedorms are really small and so a
lot of those students would liketo raise their bed.
My brother, jim, is super handyand can build things.
I can't, but he can buildthings.
And so we basically createdthis loft building business.
(26:02):
We had flyers all over thecampus.
The flyer said get it up, builda loft.
And then my contribution to theflyer was don't be loft out,
call.
Now.
I knew one of the owners whoowned a retail store down on the
main strip of Syracuse which iscalled Marshall street, and
she's like Steve, we need amodel loft out here.
I'm like, okay, so we put amodel loft out there.
(26:23):
Lisa, my now wife, who you know, literally sat there at the
model loft and people would walkby with their son and their
daughter.
They'd be like, oh my God, maryor Johnny, you need one of
these.
They would write us a check for$110.
We would schedule them in forwhen we were going to do that.
We cut a deal with the lumbercompany.
We had all this wood dropped atour apartment that we're
(26:44):
renting.
My brother had a Geo Metro.
We could fit two of thesepre-cut lofts into there.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I see the entrepreneurial connection here,
you know, from early selling offruits and vegetables to a loft
business, which is prettyingenious.
You know back in college, youknow.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It was a nice way to.
It was a good way to make abuck, keith.
I mean, we made several, andthe funny thing is so I tell
this story to Dave Ziske.
All right, the next day, noteven 24 hours after this
interview, I get a call fromPricewaterhouse says we want to
offer you a job.
Finally somebody.
After all these rejections,somebody wants to offer me a job
.
And I always tell young peoplewhen I'm speaking on campuses or
(27:29):
anything if someone offers youa job within 24 hours, unless
it's my company, you should askfor more money.
Clearly they want you, right?
I mean, man, we definitely needyou.
I was so excited that somebodywanted to offer me a job.
I accepted on the spot.
And then the story ends thisway and again.
(27:51):
I love the ending of this storyand I think it's important for
your listeners and everyone justto think about.
So the story ends that I startat Pricewaterhouse on September
20th 1993.
That evening there's a reception.
So all the partners are there,all the staff are there, and
Dave Ziske says to one of thesenior partners.
He says oh, kevin, kevin, comeon over here.
(28:13):
I want to introduce you toSteve Hagerty.
And Kevin Bacon is his name.
He likes to say he was bornseven years before the Kevin
Bacon we all know.
Kevin Bacon comes over and saysand looks right at me and says
Steve Hagerty.
He says you're the loft man Iheard about.
It wasn't your good grades thatgot you this job or your
extracurricular activities oryour leadership.
(28:35):
It was your entrepreneurialspirit.
And you know something, keithNowhere on that four-page resume
was my loft business.
I never looked or thought ofmyself as entrepreneurial, even
though it clearly was.
You know, growing up on a farmand all of that.
Yet I never, ever, put thatonto my resume.
(28:57):
It only came up because DaveSiskey said well, it's August,
now what have you been doing,steve?
And so I always tell peoplelike it's really important to
take some time and think aboutthe essence of you, who are you
really, and make sure thatthat's conveyed in your cover
letter and in your resume and inyour communication when you're
interviewing for differentopportunities.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Now, are you seeing that?
Because I want to, I want toget a little bit further into
the emergency management because, again, you're in a business
that's serving You've been mayorthat's serving Are you seeing
that people are not really ableto get to the essence of who
they are?
Are you finding that it'sharder to find people who truly
(29:43):
know themselves, or is it easier?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
No, I mean you know what I actually think.
With the younger generation inparticular, there's a real
attunement, you know, to whothey are and what they want to
do.
But I do think, like you choosea job, you choose a career, and
so there can be something thatyou're really passionate about.
There can be plenty of peoplethat are really interested in
helping people on their worstday.
I mean I get the privilege andall the people that work for my
(30:08):
company of helping people whensomething really bad has
happened, and we're veryfortunate because the United
States government and ourelected officials over the years
have said we're going to helpour neighbors when there's a
tornado or an earthquake or aterrorist attack or all of that,
and there's lots of people thatwant to be a part of that.
The challenge is the eight yearsthat I spent at Pricewaterhouse
(30:30):
.
The first four years of when Istarted Hagerty Consulting, I
was on the road 90% of the timeand I wasn't coming home every
weekend.
And I wasn't coming home everyweekend.
I mean when you went on theroad to work a recovery after
the Northridge earthquake or9-11 or Hurricane Katrina.
You went out there and you wereworking 70, 75, 80 hours a week
(30:50):
.
You were in it and you wereworking weekends, and so you
would only get to come back oncea month for what we call the
rotation, and you'd rotate homefor four or five days they give
you a little extra than aweekend and then you went right
back out into that?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Was that your life at Pricewaterhouse, or was it your
that was my?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
life.
For the first 12 years of mycareer, keith, I was a nomad.
I lived all over the UnitedStates.
Uh, I had no sense of communityat home.
My, my career, from when I wasa young person certainly wasn't
unfolding the way I thought itwould, in that, from when I was
a young person certainly wasn'tunfolding the way I thought it
would, in that, probably, when Iwas younger, I thought well,
I'm going to be embedded in acommunity and really know a
(31:31):
community.
But I grew up in Attleboro,lived in Attleboro until I went
to college, so that was 18 years.
After that, I lived inWashington for four years,
baltimore for four years,evanston for four years and then
, ultimately, lisa and I madethe decision to settle down here
.
But for that 12-year period ofWashington and Baltimore and
(31:51):
Evanston for the first fouryears, yeah, I was on the road
constantly.
I didn't know anybody.
We moved to Evanston.
We didn't know a single person.
Lisa and I knew nobody.
We have no relatives here.
Are you serious?
No, and it's one of the thingsI'm super proud of personally.
Like, well, we moved to acommunity where we knew nobody
and, like, 16 years later, Ibecame the mayor of a great one
(32:13):
of the best urban ring cities inAmerica.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
That is a phenomenal story.
That makes me feel pretty goodNow so let's peel back the onion
a little bit.
So I love this.
So you, you know, over time, Iwould assume, helping.
I mean, you've seen some of theworst calamities in the United
States.
Did that change you?
How did that impact you?
And you know, because I want toget further into the connection
(32:39):
now to why you ran for mayor.
Sure, let's stay on this.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah.
So in terms of the disasters,right, I mean, I was in New York
soon after 9-11.
Terrible historic event.
I was in Northridge after theearthquake long ago.
I've seen terrible floods,fires, all of that stuff, the
thing that I just want to makesure your listeners were.
So when Hagerty goes into anevent, we're generally working
(33:06):
with, you know, the city manager, the mayor, the finance
director.
We're not out there necessarilyworking with the victims per se
, okay, and so we're a littleremoved from that.
So all we do at HagertyConsulting is we help
communities prepare for, respondto and recover from disasters
(33:26):
period.
We aren't an accounting firm,an engineering firm that has a
unit that quote does disasters.
We're not distracted like Ithink some of our main
competitors are, who are doingdebris monitoring, who are doing
housing inspections, puttingneedles in people's arms,
putting blue tarps on roofsafter hurricanes, all of which
are important but none of whichis management consulting.
(33:46):
So all we are doing is focusedon management consulting.
I think we have the broadestsort of in the deepest expertise
in that area.
I actually, I guess you could gointo a disaster and either feel
really, really sad and, likeyou know, be pretty depressed
about it OK, and that's anatural and understandable
(34:07):
feeling.
Or you could also go in and say, wow, this is a time when the
government, when the peoplereally need the help of the
government and I tend to takethat approach like we are very,
very mission focused during adisaster, because you don't have
power, you don't have housing,you don't have food All of this,
you know materials andresources need to get into the
(34:29):
community.
We need to stand this communityback up that have a strong
social fabric before a disasterare communities that respond
(34:51):
better and recover faster fromthose events, and so I just find
it actually I wish none ofthese events ever occurred, you
know.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
So let's stay there for a second because I want to
make sure I understand.
You said a strong social fabric, yeah, and when you say social,
you mean the city has programsto help people.
What do you mean exactly?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
What I mean by that is it's the community, like what
are all of the differentnetworks that exist in that
community?
Okay, I sometimes say to peopleand and uh, uh, I said this
when I was mayor and people said, oh, you can't say this, steve,
and I said, give me a break.
Uh, but what I said is I said,listen, if your plan is, after a
(35:33):
disaster, that the government'sgoing to save you, or that your
business is going to save you,or that your church is going to
save you, then you don't have aplan.
Like it's incumbent upon all ofus, okay, to have a plan.
And so communities that havestrong social networks to me
that means service organizations, faith-based organizations, you
(35:54):
know, business organizations,nonprofit government, all of
that it can't just be oh yeah,we have a really strong social
fabric from our government.
The government alone is notgoing to do this.
And so when we had COVID andyou saw everything that happened
in this country we were very,very involved in COVID and I
happened to have been the mayorat the time here in Evanston
(36:16):
during that.
Evanston did a phenomenal job,in my opinion, on that, and it
was because it was a whole ofcommunity response and recovery
effort and that you know, wevery much preach that out of the
gate, that we all have to worktogether, and so those
communities that already havethat before something bad has
(36:38):
happened, not surprisingly, aregoing to do better responding to
it and then recovering from it.
But those communities that aresort of more divisive or torn
apart or don't have those kindof solid networks.
And so I think there's anopportunity when we talk about
resilience in this country.
There's an opportunity forevery single person to be
(37:00):
involved in thinking how can Ihelp make my community stronger?
It could be as simple as I'mgoing to join the Rotary Club,
you know, or I'm going to, youknow, I'm going to go to that
church picnic, or I'm going tostart to go to some of these
city council meetings andactually see what happens, or
I'm going to join a city boardor commission.
There are opportunities therefor all of us, um, but we have
(37:24):
to take that, that step forwardand and put ourselves out there
and not be afraid that ofrejection.
You know this whole story likeI got a lot of rejection and and
the reality is, you know, ifyou are pushing yourself, you
have failed more on a absolutebasis than you have succeeded,
(37:46):
but on a real basis you'vesucceeded more than you failed.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I see, I see, and I would assume, given your, your
experience, you decided to runfor mayor.
What was the thinking behindthat?
Was it to serve?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
My thinking was I've spent 20 years helping people on
their worst day.
I want to help my communityevery day and that was a line
that I used during the campaign.
And you know, again, I'vealways had an interest in
working for government.
I applied for all those jobs.
Government didn't want to hireme.
So I said, well, I'll putmyself out there to the people
and we'll see if the people wantto hire me.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I lived there when COVID happened and I know your
background and so I would haveyou know COVID was.
So my background, my undergraddegree, is bacteriology and when
they said it was a novel virusI got it was the first time I
was really, really terrified.
And I mean terrified because Iknow I've been around viruses
and bacteria for a long time inmy lifetime and so but, given
(38:47):
that you had emergencymanagement experience,
entrepreneurial experience, wereyou what was going through your
mind the early days of that?
So just just you know, causenot often do I get to talk to
someone that started thesuccessful business and been a
former mayor, so I want to knowwhat was going through.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
So um, so if we take everybody back right to early
2020, um, uh, there's terriblestuff going on with COVID over
in Italy.
We're all seeing it on TV.
Then we start to have a coupleof cases out West, in Washington
state and California, here inthe United States.
Now we're in the February,early March time frame.
(39:27):
What I'm thinking is we need tohave a whole community response
.
I don't want anybody out therethinking like, oh, the mayor is
somehow single-handedly going tohandle this, or is going to, is
going to handle this, or thefire department's got it, or
whatever the health department,like we're all going to have to
pitch in.
(39:47):
And so I had two young kidsactually in this community and
their mother, who I know, whohad called me and said my kids
are really worried about whatthey're seeing on TV.
Would you mind talking to them?
And this was in late April.
This was in late February.
I invited them to the office.
We met in the mayor's office.
Their mom was there as well.
I invited our health departmentdirector and the deputy
(40:10):
director and we talked to themand we tried to alleviate, you
know, some of their, some oftheir concerns about what we
would be doing to make sure thatwe are prepared if this comes
here.
And after that meeting I sent acommunication out to the entire
city and at the time I think wehad 45,000 people that followed
the mayor.
In my newsletter it went up toover 80,000 people in a year, so
(40:35):
lots of people.
That was our main method ofcommunicating with people and I
basically had a photo of the twoyoung boys, me, the health
director and everything, and Isaid they're worried and I use
that as sort of a launching padfor us as a community.
But the next thing that happenedis the president this President
(40:57):
Trump at the time declares anational state of emergency.
Keith, I've been in thisbusiness my whole career.
Never have we had a nationalstate of emergency.
Right, a national state ofemergency would be a pandemic,
it would be a war if we wereattacked.
Right, as a country, they mightdeclare that, and so that was
big news.
(41:18):
And that happened on FridayMarch 13th.
That was the same day that Iwas supposed to do the State of
the City Address, which I wasexcited about doing because it's
the one time a year I get tosort of put everything together
about what we're doing, whywe're doing it and where we're
going and am I going to have 300people in a ballroom when this
is going on, even though wedon't have one case in Evanston
yet?
(41:38):
I cancel it right, becauseagain I'm trying to send a
message president comes out, wecancel the state of the city.
And that weekend and I was thefirst to declare, and I had the
authority as the mayor ofEvanston to do this to declare a
local state of emergency.
We were the first city inIllinois to do that I was a
(41:58):
little nervous because I thought, well, you know, some people
are going to ride me and say, oh, hagerty's overreacting.
We don't even have one case ofCOVID here.
The reality was it's coming andI'm trying to like send up a
flare to everybody in Evanstonand say, folks, this is coming
our way and we all need to dosomething.
(42:19):
Okay, we all have a part toplay.
And so that was why I declaredthe local state of emergency.
I then followed up again withanother bit of communication.
Then the third thing that I didin that same week that I think
was critical to our recovery andit's something that I preach to
our clients when I'm out theretalking is that it has to be a
(42:39):
whole of community response andrecovery from these events.
If you're trying to do that, itmeans you need to put together
and gather the community leadersin all the different sectors.
And so, for us, what were thosesectors?
I literally sat in the mayor'soffice and I'm like OK, I got
the business sector, thenonprofit sector, the faith
community, the senior livingcommunity because this is going
(43:02):
to affect them the healthcarecommunity.
And then I thought, okay, whodo I think are the strongest
leaders in each of those sectorsthat I'm going to call on and
ask them to be part of themayor's COVID-19 task force?
And I have a request of them.
When I call the president ofthe hospital and say, listen,
(43:23):
I'm putting this task forcetogether, um, we are going to
meet twice a week initially, andthen, as time went on, it
became once a week.
Um, there were ultimately about50 or 60 people that were on
this.
Uh, this task force and this,these calls, I am going to ask
each of you, as the leader ofyour sector and oftentimes I had
(43:44):
two leaders, so I had sort oflike co-leads you guys are to go
organize your entire sector.
I don't have time to goorganize.
You're going to go organize thewhole education sector here in
Evanston.
You're going to go organize thenonprofit sector and you are
going to have working groupsthat are feeding information up
to you.
And that's what I created thatfirst week of the pandemic,
(44:07):
right after I declared the localstate of emergency.
And the other thing that we didand we were the first to do it
is we activated the EmergencyOperations Center here in
Evanston.
And, just an interesting fact,we have a joint Emergency
Operations Center withNorthwestern University.
It's actually at their publicsafety facility up on Ridge
Avenue but because of the natureof this disaster, we had to
(44:29):
abandon that facility because wewere all too close to one
another.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
And again, none of us .
It was novel, as you said.
None of us knew exactly okay,what is this virus?
Speaker 2 (44:36):
And what if one of us has this virus?
And now we transfer it on allof us who are like the leaders
of the city, from fire andpolice and parks and rec and all
this.
All of us get sick, like thisis going to be bad.
And so we moved it over to abrand new community center State
of the art is one nationalaward the Robert Crown Community
Center.
We moved the operation overthere and that hadn't even been
(45:08):
open to the public.
So the first thing that RobertCrown Community Center was ever
used for was as the emergencyoperations center for COVID-19.
And it was that facility.
It was used in that capacityfor the first six months of its
existence.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And how much of your time during that, because this
is the last question on that Iassume you were an example for
other cities across the country.
Were you in communication withother mayors and they were
modeling?
Yeah, the US Conference of.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Mayors did a great job of creating a forum for
mayors to communicate and talkto each other.
I was on lots of calls with DrFauci, with other mayors and
stuff like that.
I also got to say I meanGovernor Pritzker, jb Pritzker
did an outstanding job, and DrEzekiel who was his secretary of
health and human services forthe state of Illinois.
(45:50):
I mean, just like I had createdthis task force here in
Evanston, they were bringingtogether all these mayors and
then they were feedinginformation down, bringing
together all these mayors andthen they were feeding
information down.
So I would have a once orinitially it was twice a week
call with the governor and DrZike and 400 other people that
were on this call.
But they did an outstanding jobof that.
(46:11):
We then did the same thing.
There was a cadence to thesecalls and a lot of thought put
into how that agenda was goingto work.
In the beginning of that agendaI was basically pushing
information down to this groupof leaders within the city and
then I would have a spotlight.
I would take somebody, let'ssay Congresswoman Schakowsky.
(46:33):
I would have her onperiodically and say, hey, jan,
give us an update on what'sgoing on in Washington and some
of the aid packages that you'reall discussing and maybe coming
down to the local level.
Then we would turn to all ofthe different working groups
that we had and I would havereport outs from OK, senior
living, community report out youknow, nonprofit report out.
(46:54):
It was incredibly effective and, in fact, a year later, when we
had a vaccine and all of that,people didn't want this task
force to end.
They said well, mayor, we'vegot to pivot this to something
else.
But, as you know, I opted notto run for a second term, and so
I was like well, this will beup to the new mayor and the new
(47:15):
council.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Well, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I would assume
that some of it continues in thework that Hagerty Consulting
does, because you can now takethat model and suggest that
other cities follow a similarkind of plan before we run out
of time.
And that is you know, um, I cansee the trend.
You know from an early.
You know, when you were on thefarm helping people selling uh
(47:50):
fruits and vegetables to the,the, you were the.
What do you call it?
The loft guy?
Yeah, helping people, um, toprice hot water house.
Uh, what's next?
For Steve Hagerty and HagertyConsulting to continue to grow?
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Now you're asking the tough questions.
I mean, look, the reality isthat climate change is real.
We're living it, right, we'reexperiencing it all the time.
I mean the size of HagertyConsulting.
It's funny.
Now, I think a lot of us getdistorted in the world that we
live in now because you knowbillions are thrown around all
(48:27):
the time, or you know eventrillions.
Now you've got five companiesthat have all exceeded a
trillion dollars worth of value,and so some of your, some of
your listeners, to pride context, some of your listeners might
say, oh, this company is notthat big Four hundred and fifty
employees and all that, 450employees and all that.
But the reality is, keith, weare, as a company, just in this
(48:47):
space and we just have thisniche, as I described earlier,
in management consulting.
But in emergency management, weare larger than most emergency
management departments acrossthe entire country, right, I
mean big states, right, and sothey depend on us, and so we
have lots of standing contractswith counties and cities and
(49:09):
states and even the federalgovernment to help.
So we always have to be ready.
We're going into hurricaneseason, you know, there's going
to be more intense storms, allof that.
We're out there, we're meetingwith our clients.
We are working.
We have a cadre of anotherthousand plus people right who,
if something happens, we alreadyhave existing agreements with
(49:29):
folks we can move really quickly.
If there's an earthquake inCalifornia tomorrow and they
need 50 people out there withcertain specialties, we have the
ability to move quickly to dothat.
We're laser focused on justhelping people on their worst
day when something goes thathappens.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Do you see a threat or an emergency around AI?
Speaker 2 (49:58):
I mean, I think there's going to be amazing
positive things that come out ofAI.
There are going to be negativethings, yeah, of course.
Look what I can tell you now interms of the threat in
emergency management.
It's really around moremisinformation and
disinformation, but AI is beingused for that, right.
There was just something thatcame out recently in the New
York Times that says it'sadvanced so far that now people
(50:22):
really can't tell the differencebetween images, right, that are
AI generated and real images.
And now, all of a sudden,you're going to fake people out
and think, okay, did this reallyhappen?
Because I'm looking at it withmy own two eyes, and yet it
could be manufactured.
We are seeing myths anddisinformation by our
adversaries, and we saw thatwith the train derailment in
(50:45):
Palestine, Ohio, right, yes,when Russian they think it was
Russians got involved and theystarted putting all this stuff
out on social media that wasuntrue about the chemicals and
the government, where a bunch ofmisinformation came out about
that.
(51:07):
This is a new weapon that theUnited States was experimenting
on, where we can create thesefires and burn down communities.
Right, and again, to the extentthat people believe some of
this stuff, you know we havereal challenges as a country and
as communities and again Iwould I would think that where
(51:30):
do people trust the most?
They trust at the local level.
They trust people that theyknow.
And so when I talked about thesocial fabric earlier, it also
applies to the relationshipsthat we have and having those
kind of relationships right.
So somebody, if a disasterhappened here in Evanston, they
(51:50):
might be spewing things,adversaries might online for
some kind of advantage orwhatever they're trying to do.
But if we have trustedrelationships here and people
trust the fire chief and thepolice chief and the mayor or
business leaders in town andpeople say no, no, no, that's
not what's happening, that's thebest way to combat this stuff.
But that's hard.
(52:11):
It's almost hand-to-hand combatbecause there is a lot of
distrust of government out there, right, now?
Speaker 1 (52:17):
And, steve, my final question is this what advice
would you give young people oranyone who is looking to pursue
a career in emergency managementor public service in the
context of what we were talkingabout knowing yourself, so that
you can live a happy life?
Speaker 2 (52:36):
We need you.
I think the government and allthese nonprofits and so many of
the nonprofits now are doingaspects of what the government
used to do 40 or 50 years agoand it's sort of been offshored,
so to speak, to nonprofits.
The homelessness epidemic inthis country, all of that I
think, look, if you want to makea difference, a real big
(53:00):
difference in your community orin your state or with the
federal government difference inyour community or in your state
or with the federal governmentthere are so many exciting jobs
because of all the challengesthat we face as a country and in
a community to get involved.
So figure it out.
You could have a particulardiscipline.
I'm interested intransportation, or I'm
interested in the environment,or I'm interested in, you know,
(53:22):
recreation and parks.
I mean, there are opportunitiesin all of those areas within
the government and it's anamazing group of people.
I have yet to work with folksthat work for the government and
think, oh, these people don'tcare or they're just here for
the paycheck.
That never has crossed my mind.
I mean, I am so impressed withpeople that have dedicated their
(53:46):
careers to public service and Ihope, you know, young people
will look at the challenges thatwe have out there and think,
well, how can I make adifference with my life?
And one way is certainlyspending your time, because you
spend more time working thananything else.
Spending your time working onsome of these challenges that we
(54:07):
have.
It's the only way we're goingto move through them.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Well, steve, thank you so much for joining me here
on the Next Big Thing.
I just want to thank you forjoining me.
It's a delightful conversation.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank youfor listening to the Next Big
Thing with Keith Terry.
Our guest today is Mr SteveHagerty, and I just want to
invite you to do a couple ofthings, as my listeners One
(54:32):
follow me.
We are now being distributed onApple Podcast, iheartradio and
Spotify for the podcast version.
I also have a YouTube channel.
My YouTube channel is Keith DTerry.
Please like, subscribe andfollow me, because we have a
number of different episodesthat I'd love for you to listen
(54:53):
to Other folks who are aspassionate as Steve, in
different avenues across theUnited States, across globally,
and I just want to thank youguys for listening.
Steve, it was delightful.
You have a phenomenal day.
Thanks for listening to theNext Big Thing.
I'm your host, keith D Terry.
If you've enjoyed this episodeand you'd like to support this
(55:14):
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating and areview.
To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on my
YouTube channel at Keith D Terry.
If you want to recommend aguest, please email me at info
at terryperformancegroupcom.
This has been produced by yourhost and Jade Productions.
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