His current involvement including cultivating the leaders of tomorrow as well as serving on the boards of area non-profits and two colleges. Today, he ponders "slowing down," but says his teaching career keeps him going.

Tell us about yourself.
I grew up in Detroit. I went to the public schools there. My father's parents were Canadian, but their parents were born in Scotland. My dad studied engineering at the University of Michigan for three years in World War I, then enlisted in the Air Force. After that he didn't go back to college; he went to work for a friend of his in the automobile business.

My mom never graduated from high school. She thought she'd become a nurse. But she went to nursing school and didn't like it, so she became a secretary for a law firm. She was a bright woman. She was bound and determined that her kids possible.

From the time I was a little kid, the first thing I'd do was my homework, then I could listen to the Lone Ranger on the radio. I did very well, and graduated valedictorian in my high school class. I was interested in science and math. It was during the Depression, and my sister had health problems. I managed to get a scholarship to the University of Michigan. I think it was $60 a semester, which was a lot in those days. I worked for six months to accumulate a little money, and started in the fall of 1942.

The war was underway, so I enlisted in the Air Force. I ended up getting trained in communications, which was basically electrical engineering, first at the University of Minnesota and then at Harvard University. Then the war ended. Because of all my training, I could finish my degree going summers in two and a half years. I had one course to take, which meant I had to go a whole more year for that one course. So I double registered and got a master's degree and bachelor's degree in electrical engineering the same day.

I had met Barbara (his wife) on a blind date through a visit to my sister. Barbara was going to go to Columbia for graduate school in library science, but I talked her into going to Michigan so she'd be closer. After I graduated, I interviewed with CEI (the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company). We got married and came to Ohio in 1948.

How did working at CEI shape your career?
It was the kind of work I really wanted to do. The only part of the company I didn't work was in engineering, but with my schooling, I understood what their business was. I worked in finance, marketing, communications, operations, human resources management. I had the very good fortune at the time it became an independent operating company.

The two top executives when I joined CEI were fabulous people. One is Ralph Besse, who was 96 last November. He's a sharp as he ever was. Besse had done a lot with CEI as a partner for Squire Sanders (a law firm). The other one was Elmer Lindseth. Elmer was with CEI his whole working career. He was in the operations/marketing side. They were very different personalities.

The two of them set up a program after World War II to hire young people and give them lots of experience in different activities. There were about eight of us who had a rotation of assignments where you'd work for a year in one job, then were transferred to another job that was completely different.

It's not typical for someone with a background in electrical engineering to become such a prominent civic leader.

Both Lindseth and Besse came from very poor families. Both worked their way through school They had a strong feeling about those people that aren't as fortunate as you are. Elmer felt very strongly about the importance of top management people knowing the total community.

He and Ralph supported a lot of activities. We had the first tuition reimbursement program in the country. If you became involved in a non-profit organization, the company would match your gift. All of these things applied whether you were a line man or a vice president.

Ralph suggested I join The City Club. I met people from the media, people from different walks of life. I got to know people through the Welfare Federation, and some of the people who worked at the settlement houses. I made some very good friends I would not have met otherwise.

How did their attitude toward aging affect you?
Elmer and Ralph believed when you're 65, get out. Find something else to do. It's worth it to lose five good people to retirement than to have one stay on too long. I think they were right. I've never regretted it.

Management, I've always felt, was a teaching job. As I was retiring, I was approached by both Tom O'Malley at John Carroll and Neal Malicky at Baldwin Wallace to teach. John Carroll was one and one half miles from my house, and I had been a trustee there, so I started teaching there.

What do you teach?
I teach strategic management to undergrads. I teach them it's not just adding up numbers, but considering everything. It's all future oriented, so you have to make sure you consider "what if I'm wrong, how much am I risking, etc." And early on I started teaching an ethics course to MBA students. Teaching is what keeps me going.

I don't believe in just giving the students a grade. I write them a letter at the end of the semester, telling them how I arrived at their grade, what areas they might improve on, what their strong points are. I tell them to contact me in the future if they need to.

I'm also involved in providing internship opportunities to students. One friend who knew John Carroll said, "We're going to raise some money, so we can keep you busy." So they raised money for what is now the Institute for Corporate Social Responsibility at John Carroll. It's to the point now where we can probably support 30 interns a year. I try to pick business school and communications majors for non-profit organizations. The students love it. They really work at the non-profits; they're not just standing at the photocopier the whole time.