A Finance Pioneer’s Take on Education, Inclusion and Opportunity - Mary Ellen Stanek, Founder and Chief Investment Officer Emeritus of Baird Asset Management

Building tomorrow’s workforce starts with more than just technical skills—it requires access, mentorship, and leaders willing to invest in students long before they enter the job market.

In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, Mary Ellen Stanek, Co-Founder and CIO Emeritus of Baird Asset Management, shares how one of the nation’s most respected investment firms thinks about talent, education, and inclusion. She reflects on being the first woman to chair a major civic leadership group, the creation of the award that now bears her name for advancing diversity in corporate governance, and how internships are shaping the next generation of professionals.

Mary Ellen also unpacks how AI is changing finance while elevating the need for human judgment, and why Baird invests millions into education initiatives that expand opportunity—programs like Cristo Rey’s work-study model, All-In Milwaukee’s 90% college graduation rate, Aug Prep’s innovative K-12 approach, and major scholarship funds at Marquette.

For educators, employers, and community leaders, this conversation is a roadmap for how business and education can work together to prepare students for meaningful careers and stronger communities anywhere.

Listen to learn:

• How Baird selects 300 interns out of 32,000 applicants each year
• What it meant to be the first woman to chair the Greater Milwaukee Committee
• The story behind the Mary Ellen Stanek Award for Diversity in Corporate Governance
• Why AI boosts productivity in finance but can’t replace human judgment
• How All-In Milwaukee achieves a 90% graduation rate with 84% of students debt-free

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. Internships are one of the most effective ways to build a talent pipeline. Baird received over 32,000 applications for internships this year and hired just 1%, bringing in 300 students across the firm. About 40% of those rising seniors secure full-time roles, proving the long-term workforce impact of investing in student opportunities.

2. Inclusion in leadership transforms organizations and opens doors for others. Mary Ellen began her career as one of the only women in the room, later becoming the first woman to chair the Greater Milwaukee Committee. Today, Baird counts nearly 100 female managing directors, and the Mary Ellen Stanek Award continues to honor leaders driving diversity in corporate governance.

3. Education investments create measurable results for students and communities. All-In Milwaukee reports a 90% six-year college graduation rate, with 84% of scholars leaving school debt-free and 91% employed or in graduate programs. Similar investments in Cristo Rey, Aug Prep, and Marquette scholarships demonstrate how targeted support leads to stronger career pathways and local economic growth.

Resources:

• Learn more about Mary Ellen Stanek
• Internships at Baird
• Cristo Rey Jesuit High School
• St. Augustine Preparatory Academy
• All-in Milwaukee
• Boys a

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Episode Transcript

Matt Kirchner (00:08):
Matt Kirkner, you know, where would stem education
be, science, technology,engineering and math without the
amazing champions of STEMcertainly, we need phenomenal
administrators. We need greatteachers. We need visionaries in
education, but oftentimes wehave amazing people doing all
those things outside ofeducation and having incredible

(00:29):
influences inside of the worldof education. That is certainly
the case for our guest today, itis a guest I'm so excited to
have on board with us. Her nameis Mary Ellen Stanek. That is a
name that is ubiquitous in myhometown in Milwaukee. Everybody
knows who Mary Ellen is. She'sthe founder and chief investment
officer emeritus of Baird assetmanagement. We're gonna have so

(00:49):
much fun talking about herincredible commitment to stem
and technical education, to hercommunity and to the United
States in general. Mary Ellen,it is so awesome to have you
here. Thank you so much forcoming on. Thank you. Delighted
to be here. We're gonna have somuch fun. I'm a huge fan of
Baird. I have to tell you, rightout of the blocks. I grew up in
a house that was built by RobertW Baird, believe it or not, and

(01:11):
he's the founder, of course, ofwhat's now called Baird and
Company. He built these threehouses in Wauwatosa, all three
of them right next to eachother. He lived in one now, get
this, his vice presidents livedin the other two. One of them
was a guy named Lee racy. And myparents bought Lee racy's House
in the early 80s, and they stilllive there, as matter of fact.
So I grew up in a house that wasbuilt by Robert W Baird, and our

(01:32):
next door neighbor when I was akid was Robert W Baird, Jr. So
isn't it small, small, crazy.

Mary Ellen Stanek (01:37):
You know exactly where those houses are,
do you really? Yeah, we lived inWauwatosa for many years.

Matt Kirchner (01:42):
Yeah, awesome. So wawatosa, for our listeners,
because not everybody, in fact,a lot of them come from all over
the country, is the suburbimmediately west of Milwaukee.
So small world, I thought wekicked that off, but certainly,
I mean, Robert W Baird built anincredible company. You built an
incredible career. And I wantyou to share a little bit with
our audience, what drew you intofinance initially, and you've
had just a really long, solidcareer, and what's kept you

(02:05):
excited about it all theseyears?

Mary Ellen Stanek (02:06):
So what drew me into finance? My father was a
community banker. I grew up inMcHenry, Illinois, northern part
of Illinois, kind of right overthe border. Yeah, part of
Illinois. And came up toMilwaukee to go to Marquette,
but worked in the community bankour summers and Christmas breaks
and so that introduced me reallyto banking and community

(02:30):
banking, and really all theavenues of how a community runs
financially, in a lot of ways,as I look back on it,

Matt Kirchner (02:38):
absolutely, you know, my dad actually worked In
a tiny community bank insouthwestern Minnesota, and he
used to say, look, the biggesteye opener for him was, he said
the people that I thought werelike the really, really rich
people that maybe had a nicecar, big hat or beautiful
clothes. He said, Yeah, theywere doing okay. But he said the
really, really wealthy people inthat community were the people
that never said anything aboutit, and you would never guess,
and they're just, you know,dirty fingernails and coveralls

(03:00):
and so it's amazing sometimes,where where wealth is hiding in
plain sight and and I alwayskind of took that lesson away
as, you know, I was an auditorof community banks for a number
of years, back in my publicaccounting days, and that's, you
know, several careers ago, butthe same observations, it was
just incredible. And you getthis opportunity to really
understand how wealth is built,how generational wealth is
built, how it's really thedecisions we make through an

(03:21):
entire lifetime that enable usto do that and then to do some
really, really cool things as wecontinue to move on in our
career, there's no doubt thatyou've done really, really
amazing things. It's so much sothat you have an award named
after you. That's my aspiration,right? I want, at some point to
live long enough to work, longenough to give long enough to
actually have somebody say, Wewant an award named after Matt

(03:41):
Kirkner. But this is reallycool. It's for over a decade
now, the Mary Ellen stanickaward for diversity and
corporate governance. It'shonoring leaders advancing
inclusion in a whole variety ofsectors. So talk a little bit
about that award and what itmeans to you personally, and
then thinking back kind of earlyon, what did the landscape look
like for you know, you graduatedfrom Marquette in 78 rangatahoy.

(04:03):
I'm a Marquette grad as well.
And you know, what does theworld of finance and careers
look like for women then, versushow far we've come to this
point?

Mary Ellen Stanek (04:10):
So we've come a long way. But first, to answer
your question about the award, Ichaired the Greater Milwaukee
committee in 2011 2012 a twoyear period, I was the first
woman to chair the GreaterMilwaukee Committee, which is a
leadership group in Milwaukee.
And the typical sequence wasupon, you know, as the baton was

(04:31):
passing, they would find a giftthat was meaningful to the
outgoing chair. And theysurprised me by announcing they
were creating this award, andthey would provide the award and
celebrate the recipients on anannual basis, and it was meant
to really highlight the work andcelebrate the work of those who

(04:54):
were championing diversity incorporate governance, both at
the board level. Level and atthe executive level. So to say I
was speechless, which doesn'thappen very often, is an
understatement, but it reallytouched me a great deal, and is,
in a lot of ways, a livingaward. I have one recipient at
one point send me. I wasrelieved to find out, as I was

(05:16):
reading your bio, that you werestill alive? I said, Yes,
hopefully much alive. But toyour other question, I grew up
in the beginning, early days ofmy career as the only often went
by myself in rooms where I wasthe only woman or one of only

(05:38):
one or two. So now I lookaround, and we've got, I
believe, 94 female managingdirectors at Baird, out of how
many, out of it's several 100.
But we've made just hugeprogress, and we'll continue.
And you look at the pipeline oftalent, and the pipeline of
talent is very robust, noquestion, women and men, and we

(06:03):
continue to champion the conceptthat if you work hard, if you're
talented, there's lots ofpossible career avenues here for
women and come and really buildyour life here. So we find being
employee owned, privately held,that we attract a lot of talent
to grow, develop and reward it,and consequently have very low

(06:26):
turnover and a lot ofinteresting in coming to work
for

Matt Kirchner (06:30):
us, which really, really speaks to the the
incredible culture that's beenbuilt in an organization like
Baird. One of the things yousaid early on in that last
answer, Mary Ellen, thatactually surprised me quite a
bit. So the Greater Milwaukeecommittee, if I'm right, goes
back to what the 50s or so,1950s Yes. And it was, it took
until 2012 2011 2012 to have awoman that was the chair of that
organization.

Mary Ellen Stanek (06:49):
And so, as my husband would say, tell her that
it's a positions never been heldby a woman. And of course, no
matter how busy she is, she'llfigure out a way to do it and
say yes. But I got anopportunity, and I'm really
grateful people like Ed Zor, whois Northwestern Mutual, CEO Mike
Grebe, who is rally foundationCEO John Daniels, of course, who

(07:12):
ran quarrels and Brady TedKellner, I was sandwiched in
between those other fourleaders, and they were all great
champions, not just my abilityto take that position on as a
volunteer leader, but also thatit was more than time. And so
consequently, now there has beenanother female chair. Who is

(07:35):
that? Peggy Kelsey, one of thecorporate leaders at Weck
energy. And I no doubt therewill be more,

Matt Kirchner (07:41):
no question about it. Yeah, we've come so far. And
my, you know, my, I talk aboutthis a lot. My wife, Renee,
She's a graduate of MarquetteUniversity as well, did her
undergrad and her graduatedegree in Biomedical
Engineering, and talks aboutbeing one of four engineering
students in the engineeringschool. And this was in the late
1980s so it wasn't that long,right, exactly. And now, of
course, in we've had so manyadvancements in STEM, so many

(08:02):
opportunities for people of allbackgrounds. But certainly you
know women well, wellrepresented in STEM today, and
it was in large part due toTrailblazers like you that were
willing to be one of a couple ina boardroom and stand up and be
able to set that example and andI think, inspire, you know,
other young women toward really,really cool careers. No doubt
that's in part why you wererecognized with this award that
now bears your name, which isreally, really cool, and you're

(08:24):
doing such great advocacy. MaryEllen for careers in finance,
careers in investment banking,of course, Baird being a huge
investment services firm, aninternational one, by the way, I
think a lot of folks, if theycome from outside of the world
of investment banking, you'vegot this image. Well, it's, you
know, it's stock brokers andit's investment bankers, and
that's the job. We both knowthat there's all variety of

(08:45):
careers in an organization likeBaird. Familiarize our audience
a little bit with some of thosecareers might look like. And
maybe our students, and we havea lot of students that listen to
the podcast, may not recognizethat those are the opportunities
that they could pursue.

Mary Ellen Stanek (08:57):
There are so many avenues. So certainly, in
fact, the largest number ofassociates at the firm are
really on the private wealthmanagement side. So financial
advisors, their teams of people,whether it be customer support
advisors to all the way to thefull, fully licensed financial

(09:17):
advisors, analysts on theirteam, operations specialists,
and then you go to theinstitutional sides of the
business, like asset management,the area that I'm in, the mutual
fund side, certainly investmentbanking, equity and fixed income
research on the capital marketside, private equity. And then

(09:37):
there's all of the corporateresource roles. Think legal,
compliance, finance it. We havea huge it effort internally and
so on, marketing and so we haveso many roles, and typically
there are internships to earlycareer positions that allow you

(09:59):
lots of different. Revenuesfoundationally, that can either
allow you to continue toprogress with that same team or
potentially prepare you. Andwe're big believers in hiring
from within and offering thosegrowth opportunities to our own
employees. So a firm like Baird,we've got a 5050 500 employees

(10:20):
worldwide, and lots ofopportunities, big internship
classes, we're just finishing upthis summer round of interns. We
hosted over 300 internsthroughout the firm, yeah, and
there's a different vibrancy andenergy and attitude in the firm.
It's fun to have those internsaround, for sure, and they're

(10:41):
doing very meaningful work, andgetting a great look at the
firm, a great look at a careerin finance and, in our case,
investment management, and we'regetting a great look at young
talent to see if there's a fitthere. Super,

Matt Kirchner (10:55):
super important.
And we, in our smallercompanies, you know, orders of
magnitude smaller than the workthat you're doing. LOVE having
interns around. It's like theand we did summer internships
for for years. Continue to dothem. I think two summers ago,
we had four interns working inour office and and number one,
you're right, it just bringsthis level of energy and
excitement and wonder, I think,in some ways, to the office that
you wouldn't necessarily see.

(11:17):
And then I think about comemiddle of August, when they're
going back to wherever they camefrom, and it's so quiet. And,
you know, you just miss I'm likecrazy, but then we sit and want
you look at, you know, andwhether you never know what
degree of an influence you hadon career paths, but there's
always something there, and insome cases, more than others.
But young people going to BSG,we've had kids go to Deloitte,
we've had kids go to Ernst. Andyoung, when I say kids, college

(11:39):
kids, of course, and some ofthem have stayed in our
industry, and it's just super,super rewarding, if our
listeners are listening, ifyou're in industry, if you're in
manufacturing, if you're inbusiness, and you have an
opportunity to provide that kindof an opportunity for these
young people, you never lookback and regret it. It's just so
much fun.

Mary Ellen Stanek (11:55):
No, you get so much there's a return on
investment, certainly, to buildyour own talent pipeline
potentially, but it's also a wayto give back. And as you say,
there's an energy and anexcitement. Some of the interns
will come back. The localcollege kids will come back
during the school year andintern part time with us, which

(12:15):
is a way for us to get evendeeper, look and grow and
develop them in further so wereally are big proponents.
Little fun fact, we had over32,000 applications for
internships, 500 of them, and wehired over 303 25 so it was
about 1% Yeah. So literally,about 1% got hired. We end up of

(12:39):
the rising seniors, we averagesomewhere around 40% eventually
get a placement somewhere in thefirm. That's amazing. We don't
hire 100% of them full time, butthe thing we are very committed
to is giving young people andmeaningful experience and and
real work to do so. So much ofit is deciding and understanding

(13:01):
what you do want to try topursue as much as, no, this
isn't for me, I really andlearning those aspects and
answering those questions isreally important at that point
in their lives.

Matt Kirchner (13:14):
Absolutely, absolutely is. We had one intern
in one of our companies. Hisfirst name is Ben, and Ben
actually wanted to come back forhe had been here for, I think,
three summers anyway, and one,and one of them was in high
school, and he's like, I want tocome back another year. And I
was like, Ben, you have to gofind something. I know you like
it here, but you have to go trysomething else, and you can
always come back. We would loveto have you. We actually sent
him to another company owned byfriends of ours this summer to

(13:36):
get a little bit differentflavor. Because, to your point,
you're getting exposure to thoseopportunities. I like to say
that, you know, every companyhas a culture, every person has
a personality, and it doesn'tmatter. It doesn't mean that
they're good or bad or right orwrong, it's just that, where is
that fit. And so you know thefact that you've got up to 40%
of those young people that arethat are choosing to have a
career at Bearden, and then asyou talk about the number of

(13:57):
people who stay, and I can justtell you firsthand, I've got a
lot of friends that work in andaround your organization, and
once they're there, they stayforever, which really speaks to
the incredible culture thatBaird has and the commitment it
has to its team and theopportunities that you're
providing to them. So all reallycool. You know, the other thing
we've done with our interns,Mary Ellen, has had them focused
around data data science,artificial intelligence. More

(14:19):
and more of that the lastseveral years, can't go a day
without hearing or talking aboutAI and so I want to, I want to
work. And we love it here on theTechEd podcast. As a matter of
fact, as we record this, I'mfive days away from going to
China for a week just to study.
We're 26 companies doing reallycool stuff in the AI space. I'm
just absolutely fascinated byit. So let's talk about that a
little bit. You know, you talkabout these incredible careers
available to so many people. Andit's not just investment banking

(14:41):
and stock workers, not thatthose aren't awesome careers as
well, but there's this whole setof, you know, other support and
important leadership roles inand around finance. How is AI
transforming that? And then howdo we need to be thinking about
that in terms of careers for ouryoung people?

Mary Ellen Stanek (14:56):
You know, AI is certainly a super.
Significant force. It's a toolat its core, and what it is
versus how we're using is goingto be really important. One of
the things that we are stillcommitted to is being
fundamental analysts. And thetool, the AI, for example, you

(15:18):
get a potential securitization,and you get a 50 page document,
it can very quickly give you asummary of information, and then
the analyst, who's got thehistory and the judgment, can go
through and help pinpoint someareas you'd want to go deeper
and do your own work on. Butwhat it isn't is going to be a

(15:42):
black box, is going to give youall the answers. So one of the
things, particularly for leaderswith younger talent, or all
talent, is be careful to beoverly reliant on it. And one of
the things when we were growingup, I'm one of six kids, and my
father would always say,Katherine, these kids all brains

(16:03):
and no common sense. And I'dthink, what does he mean by
that? And I repeat that sooften, because in investing
there is a lot of common sense.
Do you have that judgment tosay? Does this make sense, and
the reasonability check and allthose things at the heart. We've
got to be problem solvers, andwe've got to understand how
things where, where's theimpact? What are the key

(16:26):
drivers? And so that's where AIis going to be a game changer in
terms of enhancing productivity.
But it isn't a substitute forthe judgment the human talent,
and I think that the bestanalysts will figure out that
balance the art and the scienceof it and leaders who've been

(16:50):
trained and through our longcareers with fundamental tools,
right? And we thoughtspreadsheets, right? But how do
we then encourage people who canuse these tools and will
gravitate and grow up with thesetools? Are they still at the

(17:12):
heart, doing the problemsolving, the creative thinking
themselves that allows them togo and use these tools in a more
robust way?

Matt Kirchner (17:20):
So that's a great reflection. One of the things we
did in one of our companies, andwe're actually really proud of
it. We had a couple of datascience students that built us a
model that projects, you know,EBITDA, which, of course, as you
know, is not cash flow for theorganization, but for our
audience, and it's nowprojecting it 14 months in
advance. And last year, itsaccuracy was within one and a
half percent, you know, on thebottom line of the business,

(17:41):
which was super, superimpressive, right? I mean, you
can take a lot more risk, youcan at least kind of understand
what's coming at you, and youcan look that far out into the
future and think about whereyour business is going to be
super, super valuable. But atthe same time, as cool as that
is, there's all the nuance thatgoes into whether it's
investment banking, whether it'srunning a distribution company

(18:01):
like we do, and it's all aboutrelationships and building trust
and looking somebody across thetable in the eye and having
decades of experience to know,does this feel right? Does this
not feel right? And an AIdoesn't have any ability to do
those kind of things,

Mary Ellen Stanek (18:14):
no. And the and the people piece, there
really isn't a business that hasa huge impact, or there could be
potentially a huge impact,positive and negative, on
building relationships and theright people, and pulling
together the teams and engagingthose teams. So the whole EQ,
when working throughrelationships is so important,

Matt Kirchner (18:37):
the importance of that. So I think you're right.
It's all about balancing data,artificial intelligence, the
tools that we'll have availableto us, we're going to be way
more productive in the age ofAI. There's things that we've
done historically. And to yourpoint, I remember sitting at
Marquette University Learninglotus, 123, which is like the
most rudimentary spreadsheet youcan imagine, and thinking it was
like the greatest thing in theworld. And now, you know, now

(18:59):
we're putting stuff into AzureData Factory and running it
through linear regression. AndMicrosoft Azure, and, you know,
the black box, doing things thatsometimes you understand,
sometimes you don't. So it's allabout nuance and it's all about
balance. But as for me, I lovetechnology super, super
exciting, but excited about whatthe future holds. We have to
hang on to that human element,and we have to hang on to the
importance of education, whichis something that I know. I

(19:21):
mean, you're super passionateabout it. Baird in general is
super, super passionate aboutit. So talk about just beards
philosophy in general, about allthe investments that you're
making in and around education,why you're doing it, and why
it's important.

Mary Ellen Stanek (19:33):
So education has been a core priority for us
for a long time. We are aservices business, so we're only
as good as as our people, and soI've made your commitment to
both attracting the best talent,but also developing and
retaining and continuing to growthat talent and reward that

(19:54):
talent is really, reallyimportant. Our former chair and
CEO, the. Late Great PaulPurcell was very committed to
education. That was his passion.
He believed so passionately thatevery young person deserved a
shot, and the best way to levelthe playing field was through
education. And so he'd often sayto us when we were considering

(20:17):
different projects to supportfor our foundation or volunteer
time, he'd say, are kidswinning? I'm sorry I don't see
how clearly kids are winning ornot enough kids are winning. And
so we'd very quickly adopt thatmantra, and that was a very
precise lens that we couldquickly start looking at how we
were going to prioritize. And soupon his passing five years ago

(20:40):
now that long while, yeah, andwe created the Paul Purcell kids
win foundation and annually fundgrants. I think this year's
grants were about a million anda half going directly to
educational organizations orprograms, and it's a way for us
to continue to invest in Paul'spassion, if you will. But it's

(21:05):
also been a great way for us tothink really clearly about where
can we move the needle and howcan we move the needle. And
sometimes that's through afinancial grant, other times
it's us getting in ourselves asvolunteers, and I'm a big
believer in getting close to thework and close to the kids,

(21:26):
because if you are close to theyoung people, you see all the
obstacles more clearly. You seethat that is not a big obstacle
for you or me to solve, but itcan be a game changer for them,
and so we can get in there anduse our resources, use our
advocacy, use our talents to beable to build bridges, to help

(21:50):
them, and, in the end, improveoutcomes. And that's what Paul
did throughout his life. Hecertainly he was very involved
with Christa ray in Chicago,helped introduce the concept
here and Milwaukee, Cristo Reyis celebrating its 10th
Anniversary now, and of course,the work study program, where
the kids come and work one day aweek in an employment situation,

(22:13):
and then the employer is paying,effectively, a stipend, which
pays their tuition, and they'regetting Jesuit college prep
education, and we end up findingthat they get great mentors and
great life experiences. Ouroriginal crystal Ray intern, a
young woman, Victoria, startedwhen she was a freshman, 10

(22:35):
years ago, worked with us allfour years of high school, then
became a Marquette collegeintern with us for four years,
and is finishing her second yearprofessionally, and now has
worked for Baird bonds, Bairdadvisors for 10 years.

Matt Kirchner (22:54):
Incredible. Yeah, in 10 years and she's 24 years
old. I mean, what an incredibleexperience. I think is it
possible I saw a video on her atsome point. Yeah, I remember
that story, but

Mary Ellen Stanek (23:03):
her story was the original one, but there's
been so many more that we'vebeen able to continue to help.
Not just here in Milwaukee,Crystal Ray has got a national
franchise now, and so they're inmany different cities and
markets, but it's a great model.
And the founder, Christa Ray,said, as great as the education
is, and of course, the Jesuitsare known for being great
educators, yep, but he said whatthey underestimated was the

(23:27):
impact of the work study programand the mentors and all that,
the dedication, the rigor, youknow, the discipline to get up
and Get to work on time and be aproductive employee, all of
those skills they're learning inhigh school, that's

Matt Kirchner (23:46):
amazing. I often said, and I was, I was actually
a Milwaukee County lifeguardthrough high school, and had
another number of other jobsthat I did. That was always one
of the things that, you know, myparents, you weren't allowed to
you weren't allowed to sitaround, right? I mean, you had
to be busy, you know, even, evenbefore we were old enough to
work. You had to be at a camp.
You had to be at swim teampractice. Yeah. I mean,
whatever. You weren't allowed tosit that's probably the bane of
my existence today, because Ican't sit still anymore. So I

(24:07):
have them to thank for that. ButI was often say the things that
I learned in you know, whetherit was lifeguarding, whether I
did some really cool projects incollege for Milwaukee County
through an internship that wasas meaningful for me, and no
discredit to any of theeducators that I worked around
as meaningful in terms ofshaping my career and the way I
thought about work as theacademic side of it, all

Mary Ellen Stanek (24:30):
the life lessons, right in terms of how
to deal with people, how to helpmanage situations, how to show
up yourself, exactly right, yep,and your own self awareness
about what's My responsibilityin all of this, and how can I
improve,

Matt Kirchner (24:44):
and to have that as a freshman in high school,
that's a really, reallymeaningful opportunity and
reaching students, I'm assuming,in fact, I think I know that
might not otherwise have thosetypes of opportunities. So
absolutely, yeah, really, reallycool. So the grant program that
you talked about that's namedafter Paul Purcell, how does
that funding work? Who? Gets tomake the decision. I know we'll
have educators saying, How can Ilearn more about that?

Mary Ellen Stanek (25:03):
So on our website, they open up, I believe
it's late in the year. Decisionsare usually announced in the
spring, and there's an internalgroup committee who reviews the
applications, and we support allof many markets, really,
throughout the firm,

Matt Kirchner (25:21):
amazing. Yeah, that's, I mean, what a cool
opportunity for educators to beable to take advantage of that
incredible benevolence on thepart of Baird. And it's all
important, right? Funding grantprograms is important. Work
study opportunities areimportant, but you're also
making significant investmentsof your own treasure. You and
your husband committed over anddon't want this number to be
lost on people. Over $2 millionto our joint alma mater,

(25:44):
Marquette, universityscholarships, academic programs.
Talk about that investment andwhat you're hoping to accomplish
there, that's, I mean, that's asignificant amount of treasure
and credit to you and yourhusband for making

Mary Ellen Stanek (25:56):
that investment. Well, we feel so
blessed. And we met at Marquettebetween both families, there's
over 20 Marquette degrees. Solots and lots of at once, Scott
will say we are Marquette. Weare literally Marquette. But we
were asked to co chair the mostrecent campaign the time to rise
campaign, it was a seven, $50million goal, and over many

(26:20):
years, and we said, Okay, we'llstep up and we'll try to help
here and again, getting closerto the work we thought we knew
Marquette well, and we did insome aspects. But when you get
even closer, and some of thethings like how the scholarships
were rolling out, there was ascholarship fund called Bridge

(26:40):
to the future, which had beenstarted in the last economic
crisis. Oh, wait, and what theyfound was what to us would be
fairly small grants, but where,if someone lost a part time job,
or someone whose car broke downor suddenly had food insecurity

(27:02):
needs that they could come andget a smaller grant might be
1000 to 2500 to $2,500 kind ofgrant. And by developing a pot
that could be used by advisorsto support kids, they could help
stabilize the situation, andmost of the time keep kids in

(27:23):
school and continuing to go andwhat they found is often, if
they didn't meet that need, kidswould drop out, thinking they'll
come back and they don't. It'shard, it's hard to get back on
the ladder. So we got motivatedto start doing some scholarship
work with bridge the future, andthen started both a static

(27:44):
Family Fund, and my maiden nameis Bulger, and to honor both
sets of parents who had madesacrifices to send us and then
traditional scholarships.
There's one now that we'resupporting that honors Mike
Lovell, the of course, PresidentMarquette, who passed away a
year plus ago and cared deeplyabout the health and well being

(28:08):
of students,

Matt Kirchner (28:10):
former guest on the podcast, by the way, too.
No, he joined us, amazing, yeah,and he was actually my neighbor,
so he lived right up the blockfrom us, and a huge, huge loss
for the community,

Mary Ellen Stanek (28:19):
it really was, but it's a way to honor him
and celebrate that work andhighlight and so there's so many
wonderful things that have comeabout, but at the core of it all
is being Jesuit educated, and Idid not appreciate I'll be the
first to admit, and I think myhusband would say the same thing
when we were there undergrad,the Jesuits have a belief that

(28:40):
you've been educated, not justfor what you can do yourself
with your education, but whatyou're going to do with it to
improve the world and in serviceto others. So we look back both
of us and that was just a greatphilosophy for living, or how we
were going to try to live ourlives. So in a lot of ways,

(29:01):
whether it's the contributionsto Marquette for largely
scholarship and program relatedor other things we've done, it's
really our way to give backbecause we've been so blessed,
and to continue to serve others,both in volunteer work, but also
of financial resources when weCan

Matt Kirchner (29:19):
unbelievable. You mentioned the emergency Well,
you know, I kind of reading intoit the emergency fund. I serve
on the foundation board atGateway Technical College, and I
it was a huge eye opener for me.
Mary Ellen, the number ofstudents like, literally one,
one mishap away from having todrop out of school. And whether
it is, to your point, you know,a food insecurity issue, or it's
a card, car trouble, daycare,family related issues, all that,

(29:43):
and doing the same thing atGateway, where there's a fund
available for those students.
And maybe you shouldn't admitthis, but the first time I got
on the board, and I was like,really like that, you know,
there's a student that needs tocome and get a $50 gas card,
yes, and it was an eye openerfor me that goes back probably.
Probably 10 years, somethinglike that, of the numbers of
students that really havechallenges like that. So credit

(30:05):
to you and your husband. In thiswhat they're working on, $750
million

Mary Ellen Stanek (30:09):
right to Yeah, and they raise, we've
raised over 800 million. Thatwas That's incredible. Mike
level had a lot

Matt Kirchner (30:14):
to do. Of course he did. Yep, absolutely, yeah.
Just an incredible leader. Misshim like crazy. And Amy, his
wife's such a wonderful humanbeing as well. So wish their
family well, and obviouslyMarquette well in the future, as
it moves in, moves forward underunder new leadership, I have
tremendous amounts of trust thatthey're going to do really,
really well. I know the otherthing that you don't take
lightly is the support that youhave for for teachers and

(30:35):
education through your work withall in Milwaukee, I was at a
charity event maybe six monthsago, learned about it for the
first time. You were in thevideo. That's what actually
sparked our interest in havingyou join us here. Mary Ellen,
talk about all in Milwaukee.
It's really, really coolorganization. I think it's a

Mary Ellen Stanek (30:50):
story that needs to be told. So there's a
tie to our Marquette days,Darren and Terry Jackson. Darren
Jackson is the retired CEO ofAdvanced Auto Parts. Was CFO of
Best Buy Nordstrom. So neverheard of any of those pedigree
career and he was on theMarquette board with me.
Actually, I chaired the board,and he followed me as board

(31:11):
chair. So we worked very closelytogether and our friends and he
came to me about, it's littlemore than five now, about six
years ago, and said, Terry and Ihave an interest. We were big
supporters of Cristo Rey. And hesaid, you know, as great as all
that work, we've got to be ableto improve the ultimate
outcomes. And so I've beenlooking at programs. And there

(31:35):
was a program in the TwinCities, wall and partners. It
was over 30 years old, and it'sa combination of scholarship
support, but advising, and thenpotentially career and
internships and all tiedtogether. And he said, we really
want to get this started inMilwaukee and improve the
outcomes here. Will you help?
And of course, when he said,someone with a track record and

(31:59):
somebody who's a good friend andwe respect a ton. And then he
said, and Terry and I are goingto contribute a million dollars
to get it started. Needless tosay, it was all right, we're all
in. So I called popper Sal atthe time. He also knew Darren
from the crystal Ray nationalnetwork board. And I said, this
is the concept. We want to getit started. Decent. Well, it

(32:21):
sounds like we're all in, I'min, you're in, Bearden, so
literally, I went on the board.
The initially still said on theboard. Paul got involved on the
advisory board side, and weliterally started supporting it
from day one and again, gotclose to the work, got close to

(32:43):
the kids. Scott and I personallysupport a scholar in each of the
classes, and have gotten to knowfirsthand both the wonder and
the challenges those kids face.
And the firm got behind it tooin a big way. And just last
week, we had nine all in internsin the summer at Baird, and I
was able to sit down with sevenof the nine before they left to

(33:06):
talk about their summers andtheir experience and just
awesome,

Matt Kirchner (33:11):
so cool. So what does it feel like from the
students perspective? I mean,what is the process for them?
Tell us

Mary Ellen Stanek (33:16):
more. So they are nominated by a partner, so
maybe their high schools, itmight be Boys and Girls Clubs.
It's the youth serving agenciesand schools who UCC might
nominate. And so they'll come inand apply, and then they're
accepted. Depending on thenumber of spots we have, we've

(33:37):
been expanding the number ofspots. Now, currently there's
600 kids students in theprogram, and what we're able to
do then is basically supportthem. They get assigned a
counselor and last dollarscholarship support. We also
work with the schools. You haveto go to school in Wisconsin

(33:59):
because you've got to be able tohave that firsthand, meaningful
support, advising support, wefind that's really important,
and so we assign a counselor,and then they go to work with
them. And the schools provide alot of support in terms of
academic advising, but they alsoprovide the best opportunities

(34:23):
and packages for these kids,

Matt Kirchner (34:25):
sure. So this is post secondary, right? So,
right. So the goal

Mary Ellen Stanek (34:29):
is to not just get kids into college,
which was a lot of the programshave done a great job of that,
but this is what Darren reallywanted to try to engineer, was
get them through college withlow or no debt, and then add on
the opportunity to begin andexplore careers and stay in this
market. So today, 90% of theupperclassmen are on track to

(34:54):
graduate within six years. 84%of the students have no debt
and. 91% of the graduates, 91 ofthe percent of the kids who have
already graduated have securedjobs or are pursuing graduate
school in Wisconsin. So youthink about it, it's a win, win,
win. And this compares to 18 anda half percent graduation rates

(35:17):
to two or four year programs byMPs students that are not
involved are not involved in theprogram. Now you might say,
Well, are you just picking topstudents? And you know, it's
easy to work with those kids.
100% of the kids come fromlimited income. 98% are students
of color, and 84% are firstgeneration,

Matt Kirchner (35:41):
amazing, first

Mary Ellen Stanek (35:41):
generation college students, so really
starting to move the needle andhave greater impact. But one of
the things we're excited aboutis particularly this retention
here. It's not a program wherethey're going somewhere else and
don't come back, but they seetheir future here with us and

(36:02):
with the various employers. Soyou see many of the largest
employers are literally all inand sitting on the board and
getting very involved. So we'reexcited. You know, these results
we projected they would be good,these are even extra sure

Matt Kirchner (36:19):
when you look at those, yeah, when you have
numbers that start with nines, Imean, that's

Mary Ellen Stanek (36:23):
and then now we'll start getting and tracking
the kids from a longitudinalvantage point. What kind of
success will they have longerterm, we at Baird have six full
time employees who came throughas online scholars. Really, five
of the six have been with us formore than a year and were

(36:44):
eligible to buy Baird stock. Sothey're now Baird shareholders
and part of the ownership of the

Matt Kirchner (36:49):
firm, amazing.
Well, and think about that, thatfull circle idea right here you
have students that are growingup in and around the area that
to your point, it's one thing toget into college, which is
awesome, and when you thinkabout some of the challenges
facing students in various areasaround our city, that's a
Herculean effort and anaccomplishment, just that,
right? But then it's like, okay,now I get there and I got in the
door, and now what? Right? Sowe're providing these young

(37:10):
people all the kind of supportand wrapping our arms around
them with not just economic andfinancial support, really,
really important, but also withwith mentoring and coaching and
getting them the support thatthey need as they're working
their way through 94% I thinkwas the number graduating in six
years, and then staying in andaround the city of Milwaukee,
working for employers, and theninvesting their own treasure and

(37:31):
the benefits of their work backinto our organizations. And
that's how we lift an entirecommunity. So I think that's
just a really cool example,

Mary Ellen Stanek (37:40):
and a whole ecosystem works together. You
look at the donor side, peoplewho have been generous doing big
scholarship programs themselves,are saying, I don't know what my
outcomes are. These outcomeslook even more impressive the
universities these kids wereexactly the kinds of students

(38:03):
that they were trying to reach,and they were not doing it as
successfully as they would haveliked. Absolutely help them do
that. And from the communityvantage point, we can't do it
alone. Bear can't do it alone.
We're working with NorthwesternMutual jobs, controls, Deloitte,
you know, freighter and on andon, children and US Bank The
list goes on and on and growingwith each passing day. And so

(38:25):
you're creating this communitythat gets behind its young
people and then gives themopportunity, not just career
wise, but hey, come in and helpwith all the projects.
Absolutely. And we encourage theyoung, the all in graduates now,
to come back and mentor thestudents who are coming through

(38:46):
as interns. And what's reallyfun to see is how they're the
elder states from now, they're alot closer in age and experience
level, and can give great advicethe

Matt Kirchner (38:58):
credibility that you have, and as somebody that
you know, I'll mentor anybody,right? I tell people, I just
absolutely refuse to say no to ayoung person that says, Can I
come in and meet you for 30minutes? I had so many great
people, names you wouldrecognize here in Milwaukee from
3040, years ago, when I wasgetting my career started. And
I've just always said what youknow, you can't help every one
of them, but anything that I cando to help make a connection

(39:19):
point you in the rightdirection, more than happy to do
that. On the other hand, youonly have, as in my case, a 50
some odd year old guy fromWauwatosa, only so much
influence or credibility withsomeone that may come from a
different community, differentbackground. Here you have
students that have been throughthe program know exactly what
this younger person is goingthrough, what they have ahead of
them, so that incredibleopportunity for them to be a

(39:41):
mentor, and then so the otherside of it is just the I've
never had a boss one time thatsaid I never hurt myself by
helping other people, right? Sothere's that, that benefit that
you get as someone who's puttingthe time in to help somebody
else change their life for thebetter. It's certainly
rewarding, just personally, butit makes you a better person as
well. I've got to believe yousay it the same

Mary Ellen Stanek (39:59):
way. Yeah.
Very much so. And anothercomment I would make in all the
fields, but particularly theSTEM fields, can be very tough
and very intimidating. And sohaving the universities work
with us, the dean ofengineering, the dean of nursing
that you know, how do we getthese programs and what courses
and what sequencing should therebe some summer, a pre summer

(40:22):
program that helps as an onramp, and just that ability to
get people who can break thisall down into bite sized pieces
and and then you start seeingthe graduates, and you show if
you can see it. You can be itright? Exactly, yep, and that's
exactly what this program isstarting to do, and we're

(40:45):
starting to see it in greaternumbers and very strong results.
So it's an exciting you know,certainly give Darren and Terry
Jackson a ton of credit fortheir idea and their initial
financial support, but thecommunity has really gotten
behind this, and I think we'restarting to see it, much like a
lot of the economic developmentefforts over the last call it

(41:09):
1015, years have been in acoordinated way, not private
sector versus public sector, notMilwaukee County versus Waukesha
County versus Racine andKenosha, but we're all working
as m7 together. This is thetalent part of our cohesive
strategy for the region, andit's it's paying dividends.

Matt Kirchner (41:32):
It is, you know, m7 of course, being the seven
county economic developmentengine here in southeast
Wisconsin. For folks that maynot be familiar with that had
both Dale koyenga, who's thepresident of the Metropolitan
Milwaukee Association ofCommerce, former guest on the
TechEd podcast before him, TimSheehy, another Milwaukee legend
who, by the way, his line whenhe was on the podcast was kind
of the exactly the same point,but the words in a different

(41:55):
order, when he was talking aboutyoung people, who said, If I
can't see it, I can't be it. Andthat's exactly right. We have to
let people see, young people andpeople of all ages really see
the opportunities in front ofthem. And I do sense. And maybe
it's just maturing as aMilwaukee in and somebody in
Southeast Wisconsin that thereis a lot more cohesive
coordination. You know, I thinkback to I worked for Special
Assistant to Milwaukee CountyExecutive Dave Schultz,

(42:16):
actually, for a little bit rightafter, kind of during and after
college, lots of great effortsgoing on at that time, but
still, maybe a little bit morefinger pointing than we see now.
And I think we have arealization, for whatever
reason, that we're kind of allin this together, and we can
disagree around the edges, butthe truth of the matter is that
stronger education, strongeryoung people, a stronger future,

(42:37):
those kinds of experiences, thatmakes us a better community. And
that's a lesson not just for thefolks here in Milwaukee, but I
think for anybody in any urbanarea. And

Mary Ellen Stanek (42:45):
I think established leadership here is
very open and willing to supportyoung talent coming in and
working side by side. And I knowI was a huge beneficiary of a
lot of people before me, likeyou were mentioning who cared to
take the time, who cared tosupport me, who cared to say,

(43:05):
All right, let's go do thistogether and treat me like a
peer, even though I wasn't. AndI see that over and over again
now in so many ways, and it'sthis welcoming sense of, come on
in, jump in the swimming poolwith us. Pick

Matt Kirchner (43:21):
your lane. Super and it's super, super important.
And we say this a lot on thepodcast. If you're a young
person and you're like, Well,you know, Mary Ellen stanick
would never return my phonecall. Or, you know, so and so
would never Yes. I mean, if youhave a connection to that person
somewhere, they will and they'llhelp you. They want to help.
Don't be afraid to reach out.
There's so much support therefor you. And super, super
important, lots of support forall kinds of initiatives, one of

(43:41):
which I know you and I are bothfascinated by, huge supporters
of, and that we're really closeto. In fact, we've had the CEO
of the institution on ourpodcast. It's OG prep more,
formerly known as St AugustinePreparatory Academy, really,
really cool K 12 program that'sgotten started here in the last
10 years in Milwaukee, buildinga brand new, beautiful campus,
transforming the former Cardinalstretch campus. And Abby

(44:05):
andridge has been on, of course,the CEO, her brother, Austin
Ramirez, who is CEO of a majorWisconsin employer. Their
father, Gus, who's just beenincredibly supportive of the
entire program, incrediblevision, who recognized on a huge
scale, the same kinds ofproblems that you and I had been
talking about in his heart,wanted to make a difference for,
you, know, for the people thatneeded it most. So talk about

(44:27):
your support of our prep. I knowwe share that. We're huge
supporters of it as well. Yeah,

Mary Ellen Stanek (44:33):
very much. So and Paul Purcell and Gus were
friends and worked on a lot ofeducation was their shared
passion. And Paul would say tome, you know, both of them also
shared an intolerance for nottrying to do better. And so he'd
say, Paul would say to me,periodically, better order more

(44:53):
China. Gus is breaking someplates. And to Gus credit, Gus
and Becky. Founding generation,certainly of the Ramirez family
as Gus decided that he justwasn't going to get the progress
working through the system, thathe would create it himself. And
so the original the South Sideschool has been amazing. They

(45:14):
added a second building and haveserved very successfully kids
there. And the whole concept hasbeen about this holistic
education, and it has been very,very successful. And so grateful
to the Ramirez family for justhuge, enormous support. And of
course, Abby is Gus and Becky'sdaughter, it's that project was

(45:38):
catalytic for that neighborhood.
And I remember going on a tourwith Gus and looking before the
building was done, and lookingaround and saying to him, this
is going to change theneighborhood. This is going to
invite other investment in. Andyou can see that's absolutely
happened. So roll had the clock,and Gus and Becky were invited

(45:59):
to a graduation ceremony forgrad plus and all in Milwaukee
that was going to be held at thecardinal church campus. And Gus
said he was sitting therelooking around, thinking all of
this for, you know, theannounced cost of what it would
take. And so he quickly wentabout trying to acquire it, and

(46:23):
did pretty quickly. And then, ofcourse, has been investing
heavily ever since to get thenorth side. And the whole vision
is to continue to have a meltingpot of kids from all
backgrounds, but yet, use thesame formula they've used with
the South Side school. And sowe're excited. We're investors

(46:45):
with them. And again, Gus issomebody that doesn't just talk
about a problem, and mostly hedoes something about it on a
scale that very few could evenimagine doing it's mind
boggling. But then they tied theRamirez family scholarship funds
are now part of all inMilwaukee, and it's a way so

(47:09):
again, this virtuous cycle thatyou're seeing our prep grads
getting all in scholarships andnow migrating successfully
through college, and it's thatkind of momentum that we're
getting and excited to see whatwe're able to do on the north
side, it's going

Matt Kirchner (47:32):
to be huge. And I prep is a full court press,
right? So it's, it's certainlyacademic, it's formal, right?
Students are wearing uniforms.
They're very, you know, it hasthe feel of of a really formal
Preparatory Academy, I think, ina really, really good way. So
tons of discipline, mentalhealth, support, not just for
the student, support for thefamily. I mean, it is just a
complete, absolute, incredibleorganization, and to see the

(47:54):
scale in which they think. Imean, if you can't, if you
haven't seen it, you know, thinkabout, you know, building a high
school, building a K 12district, a small one from
scratch. And you know, 100,500,000 students are going to be
on the maybe more are going tobe on the campus on the north
side of Milwaukee, and thenreaching into the entire
community, but certainly to thenorth side and to some of the,

(48:17):
some of the folks on that sideof the city that need it the
most, and these are all and notours, right? There's some great
things happening in MPs, greatthings happening in other
private charter schools and soon. And for me, it's just all
about we need them all. Yes,what's right for the student,
what's right for the family,what's right for the future, and
we have to support them all aswell. So certainly don't want to
sing the praises of Og prep atthe expense of any other great

(48:39):
organization that's doing greatthings, but it's just another
example of how, if we put ourheads together, we put our
treasure together. Someone hassome vision. It shows how an
entire community can rise up.
And so

Mary Ellen Stanek (48:51):
two quick stories on that. They're highly
collaborative. So Rodney link,who runs Howard fuller
Collegiate Academy, told me thatAbby and rich and the team there
is incredibly supportive,awesome. Isn't that great? We'll
invite him in to see the back ofthe office operation, you know,
back of the house operation, allthe supporting services. What

(49:11):
else can we do to help you?
Yesterday, when Jeff Snell, CEOof Boys and Girls Clubs, was in
our office, one of their largestafter school sites is OG prep on
the south side. Over 100 kids aday are doing and it's a
combination, including the afterschool, the homework help, the
reading, all of it, and he said,and support with English,

(49:32):
because often English is asecond language, and so it's
just so cool. And one of thethings Jeff is such a champion
of, and Abby certainly lives in,is they're great partners. They
think partnership. They don'tthink, Hey, I'm competing
against you. And that's whatthey're really thinking with

(49:55):
this new North Side school. Somany people on the south side.
I'd said, how many of theseschools do we need? We need them
all. And they're all thrivingExactly. They're all doing well.
Kids are doing well, and thefamilies are doing well, and
we're hoping that they're ableto take that experience and
really leverage it to thebenefit of the north side.

Matt Kirchner (50:18):
And no question that they will. You know, it's
interesting. I spend my fairamount of time on LinkedIn when
Howard fuller course formersuperintendent schools in
Milwaukee, and just anotherMilwaukee, right? And just
incredibly gave it, you know,gave his entire career to
bettering the City of Milwaukeeand children of the City of
Milwaukee. Buck bucked sometrends and took some challenging
positions a lot of times, in areally, really good way. He was

(50:39):
just somebody that thatabsolutely believed in what he
was doing, believes in what he'sdoing. In what he's doing. I
remember seeing a LinkedIn postwhere they made an announcement
about his academy, and Abby waslike, one of the first ones to
comment and say, and I think,repost it and say, you know,
welcome to the community. Andwe're so excited to have you
something. I'm paraphrasing but,but to your point, I mean it.
They're all ands not ors, we'reall in it together. And it's

(51:00):
amazing when we put our headstogether and and pull in the
same direction the results thatwe can create.

Mary Ellen Stanek (51:05):
You see how catalytic Howard fuller
Collegiate Academy has beenright literally across the
street from thrive on King,which is where the new great
Milwaukee Foundationheadquarters is so awesome.
Yeah, it is. And you're seeing,you're literally seeing a lot of
investment and vibrancy going onin the neighborhoods. It's

Matt Kirchner (51:24):
just incredible.
You walk in the door and itfeels like a little bit like a
walk through time, right wherethey've got the old storefront
and the big windows and the tilefloor and the in the big wooden
doorway is absolutely beautiful.
And then you walk in and there'sall kinds of great things going
on there. I think first city hasa facility. It's really, really
cool.

Mary Ellen Stanek (51:41):
I was that's where they are training the
phlebotomist. Now, is it reallyYes, and they want to have, and
part of the issue too, is theywant to be seen culturally as
acceptable, because just beingable to take the blood draws and
get diverse donors, you've gotto find and meet them where they

(52:02):
are, basically, and then they'realso wanting to provide careers.
So they have the, I think it'san eight week training program,
and then they have the in theirscrubs identified as diversity
employees in the neighborhood.
And it's just so great. MedicalCollege of Wisconsin has a
couple of floors there. Awesome.

(52:23):
Yeah. So there's just, you'reseeing this community just
springing up with a lot ofdynamic activity,

Matt Kirchner (52:31):
lots of work yet to be done, but great, great
things going on. And you know,on the subject of kind of the
future and more and more work tobe done, you've mentioned Mary
Ellen so many different greatthings that Baird's doing,
things that you and your husbandare doing, things that others
are doing, and we'll do ourbest. There's been so many to
link them all up in the shownotes and give our producer,
Melissa a little bit of work todo there. But with the help of
AI, I think we'll be able to dothat just fine. So if people

(52:53):
heard things that they'reinterested in, we'll make sure
that they're linked up. So twolast questions for you. We've
had such a great conversationhere that are questions we love
asking every one of our guestshere on the TechEd podcast,
first one has to do witheducation. We've covered a whole
bunch of education topics here.
We all have our views oneducation. You know, unique
aspects to it. Is theresomething you think about
education or believe abouteducation? Mary Ellen that would

(53:14):
surprise our audience, I

Mary Ellen Stanek (53:17):
would say, having grown up with in faith
based Catholic schools,certainly some kind of formation
that is grounded in moral,ethical faith doesn't have to be
obviously Catholic, but I thinkthat helps, think believe that

(53:38):
helps, and so I very much have abias that way,

Matt Kirchner (53:41):
absolutely, that's a great answer. And as
someone who's spiritual myself,don't necessarily advertise it
to the world, but really, reallyimportant part of of who I am,
and being able to use that tohelp make decisions. And almost
like the core values in abusiness, you have your own core
values you can kind of measureagainst and use as really a
standard for how you make a gooddecision, really, really

(54:01):
important, and have thoseguiding principles. One final
question, you're growing up inMcHenry, Illinois. It's Mary
Ellen Bolger, did I get thatright? Yeah. Okay, so, so let's
go back in time to thatsophomore year of high school,
maybe 15 years old. You've gotthis incredible life ahead of
you. Of course, at that time,you knew for sure that you were
going to be a history major andthen go on to have this

(54:23):
incredible experience and careerin finance, of course, maybe
not, if you could go back andyou had the career, but maybe
didn't realize it when you were15 years old. If you could go
back in time and give that younglady one piece of advice, what
would that be?

Mary Ellen Stanek (54:38):
I would say, and I will tap my mom's advice
when I called home and said, Youknow, I was going to change
majors, and, you know, Oh,honey, God's got a plan. Yes,
just trust it. And in so manyways, you know, I look at my
career, I was given anopportunity at 27 years old to
take the top job. And. You know,I second guessed. Was I ready?

(55:02):
Was I and often opportunitiescome when you don't expect them,
but to embrace it. Absolutely,go ahead and just commit to it,
and don't underestimate what youcan do. You know, you're plenty
capable, you'll work hard,you're smart, and go for it and
enjoy the ride.

Matt Kirchner (55:21):
Absolutely enjoy the ride. Go for it. You've
certainly done that. God has aplan. Trust it. Certainly a
small part of that plan washaving you come in, Mary Ellen,
and join us on the TechEdpodcast. And when I say a small
part, we get tremendous leverageout of telling stories, hearing
people's amazing backgrounds,your career, the great things
that Baird is doing, theincredible commitment that

(55:42):
you've had throughout yourcareer to education, to the next
generation of not just youngpeople and people of all ages
here in Milwaukee, but but allover the country, you've had a
huge, huge impact to the extentthat you even have an award
named after you really, reallyimpressive. I can't thank you
enough for taking some time forus. Thanks so much, man. I
enjoyed being here. This wasabsolutely wonderful to have.
You had so much fun with MaryEllen Stanek, talking about, as

(56:06):
we suggested, all of herbackground, the incredible
investment that she has madethroughout her career in the
future of America, the future ofWisconsin, the future of my
hometown of Milwaukee. Reallyenjoyed spending that time. We
had so many resources, we maybehave set a record on this
episode of The TechEd podcastfor the number of different
resources that came up, as wementioned before. We will link
those up in the show notes. Wewill put those at TechEd

(56:28):
podcast.com/stanic that isTechEd podcast.com/s, T, A, N,
E, K, of course, also check usout on social media, as I
mentioned a little while ago, Ilove LinkedIn, but we are all
over. Not just LinkedIn, we areon Facebook, we are on Tiktok,
we are on YouTube, we areeverywhere. When you find us on
social media, reach out, sayhello. We would love to hear

(56:49):
from you. Until next week. I'mMatt Kirkner on the TechEd
podcast. Thanks for being withus. You.