Harper Talks Show 1 - Scott Lietzow

Harper Talks Show 1 — Scott Lietzow (.mp3)

Scott Lietzow is the Harper College 2020 Outstanding Recent Alumni Honoree. Having served in the U.S. Marine Corps, Scott Lietzow used the G.I. Bill to earn an education at Harper College. Hear as he and Assistant Professor of Communication Arts Brian Shelton discuss how his time at Harper College and in the Marines prepared Scott for his future. Scott became a member of former U.S. Rep. Bob Dold's congressional campaign and would come to work at Allstate as a military talent senior consultant.

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast  
Show 1: Scott Lietzow — Transcript

[00:00:02.430] - Brian Shelton
I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a co-production of Harper College Alumni Relations and WHCM. Like so many community college students, my guest today came to Harper College because he had trouble finding work and needed to bolster his education and build a skill set before Harper College. Scott Lietzow was a United States Marine and he would use that experience at Harper College and in his current career, after all, once a Marine, always a Marine.

[00:00:34.470] - Brian Shelton
Good morning, Scott. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing today? I am fantastic. It's good to see you. Thanks for agreeing to be on our inaugural show here for Harper Talks. I'm happy to have you. 

[00:00:46.110] - Scott Lietzow
Oh, thank you. It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. All right. 

[00:00:49.890] - Brian Shelton 
So in our introduction, I talked about how when you left high school, you joined the United States Marines. And I always ask every person that I meet who joins the Marines, what what brought you to  that? I mean, the Marines have the reputation for being the absolute toughest basic training. It's kind of the toughest life of all the military services. What brought you to the Marine Corps? 

[00:01:14.160] - Scott Lietzow 
Well, yeah, that's a good question. My family has a history of being in military service, so I can always knew I wanted to join the military. And when I was looking at all the branches, I was like, the Marine Corps seems to be the toughest and the hardest. And I always like to set challenging goals for myself. So I knew I wanted to separate myself from the other branches and join something that would be very challenging and hard to get into the Marine Corps.

[00:01:41.700] - Scott Lietzow 
One of the things I learned real quick is that a lot of other branches, like they have a lot of sign up bonuses and incentives to get in. But when I walked in the door of the recruiting office, they said, we don't do that in the Marines. You joined because you want to you want to join the best. So I was hooked that they said that. And I joined up and I left right after I graduated high school. 

[00:02:04.530] - Brian Shelton 
That's fantastic. So you just knew that's what you wanted to do. You wanted to be in the military after high school. And that was the plan. Yes. Yeah. The Marines certainly have a great recruiting tool. Right. You either want to be one of us because you want to be the best or go join someone else, right? 

[00:02:18.840] - Scott Lietzow 
Yes, pretty much so. 

[00:02:21.600] - Brian Shelton 
After the Marine Corps, you kind of weren't sure what to do next. And how did you get to Harper? What brought you there? 

[00:02:28.470] - Scott Lietzow 
So when I first got out of the Marine Corps, I was looking around for jobs. I couldn't find anything like that. 

[00:02:37.110] - Scott Lietzow 
I went into the Marine Corps as an infantry guy. So, you know, companies aren't looking for guys that know how to kick them doors and blow things up. So, you know, I realized real fast that no one is going to give you a job just because you were in the military. And so I looked at, you know, going into law enforcement and stuff like that when I realized that I had, you know, this post 9/11 GI Bill, which is probably the one of the greatest benefits of getting out of the military. 

[00:03:04.110] - Scott Lietzow 
So I go to any school I want to for four years for free. So I was like, I should consider going back to college. So I looked at going to college. I had not come before. So I looked at universities and such and I was applying. But then I was like, you know what? I think Harper College is the best fit for me because was really close to my school and it was known as a really great community college. 

[00:03:28.440] - Scott Lietzow 
So I was like, I think this is the perfect place to transition. So I picked Harper College, didn't really know what I was going to get myself into. I didn't know what I wanted to do in my professional life. I just knew I wanted to learn and just keep moving forward. So that's why Harper was the best pick for me and it really turned out to be a great thing. 

[00:03:50.910] - Brian Shelton 
That's great. 

[00:03:51.540] - Brian Shelton 
I know that you were really actively involved in student organizations and such while you were at Harper College. Can you can you talk to us about that? What were you doing? You were doing the business club, right? 

[00:03:59.310] - Scott Lietzow
Yes, I did a couple of clubs, actually. I was I first got engaged with Business Club because a friend of mine at the time, people concerned, was running the business club. He said, hey, you should come join this club. And I was like, you know, I would like to start meeting people because I feel like at Harper College, like there is that learning aspect. But there's so much more to Harper College than just going to class. 

[00:04:24.540] - Scott Lietzow 
And students that are not getting involved, I think are missing out on a whole different type of learning experience. 

[00:04:32.820] - Brian Shelton 
So I'd have to agree with that. If you're not involved in something while you're there, you're missing out on so much. Yeah, yes. 

[00:04:38.580] - Scott Lietzow 
And part of that is because Harper has it's a community. It's a commuter college. So people, you know, it's harder than regular schools to organize and such. But if you do take the time to get involved, you meet a lot of good friends. You'll learn a lot of new skills. For instance, when I got into this club, I got exposed to all the other clubs are Harper offer so there was student government. So I joined that was on for about two years during that time. 

[00:05:08.860] - Scott Lietzow 
I learned a lot about working together with as a team, with people. I also learned how to you learn a lot about settling differences, especially in student government, where you have a lot of, you know, good intentioned people with a lot of strong ideas. So coming together, trying to compromise all that stuff is something you've definitely learned to government and just getting involved. So after that I said, hey, I run for student trustee. So that was one of the funnest times. 

[00:05:39.130] - Scott Lietzow 
So we put together a campaign and we won student trustee. And that was great because I got to get on the board of our college and the sitting on the board for a year was one of the biggest learning experiences ever, because if I really recommend. You know, running for that, if if that's something you're into because you're going to sit on a board, you're going to learn from leaders in the community and how to run a whole organization, oversight of the college is a big thing. 

[00:06:09.210] - Scott Lietzow 
And you're going to sit there and learn from the best and you're going to learn how how you oversee funding, how we obviously hire and how how the president makes decisions on the school. So it was one of the greatest things that I did. It was really Eye-Opening to me. It really helps. You know, if you want to become a public servant or something like that, it really humbly, real fast to see what they do. And then also, one of my one of my favorite accomplishments was I started a group called Young Americans for Liberty at Harper College.

[00:06:40.650] - Scott Lietzow 
In our first year, I started from nothing. And it's a national organization. So there's colleges that, um, see you, Duke, on the big campuses. And they have a competition every year for national chapter of the year. So to win that, you have to put together like a lot of volunteer events in the community, a lot of awareness events on campus. So I was like, I don't know how much longer I have it, Harper.

[00:07:07.710] - Scott Lietzow 
So I'm going to try to get when that my first year. So we we set out recruited like twenty kids to being in the group. Those guys are great, put together tons of events, tons of community service. And we actually won national chapter the year, beating out all those big name schools, going back to Harper, being a commuter school. You know, I think it's a lot harder to do that at a commuter school because, you know, kids on college campuses, they just walk out of their dorm at six p.m. and go to a meeting.

[00:07:35.490] - Scott Lietzow 
You know, you can't do that at your school. You know, people have schedules and they usually are working after school. So just to do that and one year was probably one of the best accomplishments and the most memorable one at Harper College. And I really enjoyed that time. 

[00:07:50.290] - Brian Shelton 
Yeah, I have to say, as a student organization advisor myself, like any time that your organization is winning national awards or even competing in that level at a community college, it is unbelievably difficult. Right, for exactly the reasons that you're talking about. So that kudos to you. That's awesome. Thank you. I wanted to go back to the student trustee thing just for a second. I don't know, maybe I'm putting the wrong spin on this, but that seems like a pretty thankless job. 

[00:08:17.160] - Scott Lietzow 
Oh, yes, it definitely is. So especially when you when you're running for it, you have, you know, as a student and you're I mean, I was a little older than most around four thousand twenty two. So most of the eighteen nineteen you have. And I was in this mindset too. You have a student centered mindset. You go in there like this is one to do. Then you get there and you realize that is not the job. 

[00:08:42.590] - Scott Lietzow 
But you know, your job is that your job is to run a college. And it's not about putting your ideals or anything into that. It's just to make sure that all the stakeholders in the college are taking care of the students to the faculty and everything else. And you have to learn a lot quick and you have to ask a lot of questions. I was really thankful to have some good mentors on there, like Laurie Stone and Rita Canning. 

[00:09:10.590] - Scott Lietzow 
were great. They would take you out to lunch and explain everything because, you know, you could get a packet this thick every month. You have to try the retail thing and then you have to understand it and then make decisions off of it. So you rely on them to help me out through the process. And it was really it was really humbling. And it's also a really good experience for future. And I like thinking big picture and how things work. 

[00:09:38.250] - Scott Lietzow 
Yeah. 

[00:09:38.640] - Brian Shelton 
Yeah, absolutely. And so I know from that and from what I read in your bio that you took a philosophy class at Harper that got you really interested in politics. Can you talk me how you got from taking a philosophy class at Harper and being a student to being the executive director for a congressional campaign? I mean, that seems like a pretty big leap for me. 
[00:09:58.770] - Scott  Lietzow 
Yeah, so. 
[00:10:01.170] - Scott Lietzow 
I would say it's all because of Harper College, so I had basically, like I said, I went to Harper, didn't really know I was going to do that. I got involved and I went to this. I think it was a critical thinking class in the philosophy department. And we had a deal. It was an assignment like we had a report on the election or something. It was about the election. And so I picked the Republican primaries because it was like the only it was during the primary season.

[00:10:32.280] - Scott Lietzow 
So the Democratic Party already had their nominee because President Obama was already the president. So I was like, well, it's the only competitive one. So this might be interesting. I have a lot more material views. So I started doing that and I was like looking at this presidential candidate, Ron Paul, he just seemed like a lot different than all the Republicans like. So he was more like pro freedom, like know like not like super conservative, all that stuff. 

[00:10:57.540] - Scott Lietzow 
So I started looking at that and I was like, no, I think I should start like getting more involved in the community because, you know, I am more of a freedom loving person instead of trying to restrict people to do things, you know. 

[00:11:10.800] - Scott Lietzow 
So I started, you know, that's when I started Young Americans for Liberty around that time. And once I was building that out and people in the community started seeing what their organization was doing because we did a lot of community service, I was asked to come work on the Bob Dold for Congress campaign. So when I started doing that, at first I started off as just like the field organizer. So I would come I would recruit people to come into the organization and volunteer, go knock on phones, knock on doors, make phone calls, that kind of stuff. 

[00:11:49.260] - Scott Lietzow 
And I ended up running about three different regions. So I drive a couple hundred volunteers I was overseeing and we won that election and then after that started working in Congress for a little bit until thenext campaign. That was a really fun time. As well as working in the United States House of Representatives was a really great experience. And we did a lot to highlight military veterans issues such as veteran unemployment and issues at the VA. I'm pretty proud of the work we did there. 

[00:12:21.150] - Scott Lietzow 
And then the campaign started again. I was put in charge of all recruiting, so to put together a whole recruiting team. So I had about a staff size about eleven, and we had three hundred volunteers put together a great campaign. And then after that all state gave me a call because I had done some work inthe past through Congress with so I'll say create a new military program. And the person they hired on the for the director position was somebody that was working on a military program in our district. 

[00:12:51.660] - Scott Lietzow 
I combine insurance and it became the number one military program. I could buy insurance and he moved us. It was like I really liked working with you. I think you'd be good in this role. And I was like, private sector seems like something I can go into. Definitely pays a lot more than the public sector. And I love working with veterans. So that's where that all started. And going to Allstate was a great experience. I loved working with veterans, getting them employed, retired thousands of veterans in the last two. 

[00:13:22.350] - Scott Lietzow 
It's almost been four years, but it was, we'll say three, three years and some change. And we in less than four years, we became the number one military friendly hiring company in the country. So there's a ranking system and we beat out all the other companies, all the fortune. One hundred companies. So we're pretty proud of that. And it all comes back to Harper College. It's a trend. 

[00:13:45.660] - Brian Shelton 
So all roads lead back to Harper College 

[00:13:50.580] - Scott Lietzow 
So some of the best advice I ever had to was when I was a student trustee and I got access to Dr. Hunter, who is the president at the time. So I was sitting there talking and having lunch and I was like, hey, I don't really know what I want to do in my life. Like I'm about to graduate. I have no idea what I'm about to do. I hadn't really, I would say, really fun and successful student career. 

[00:14:14.790] - Scott Lietzow 
But what what happens next? And you looked at me and you said, Scott, I'm the president of college. If I was here when I was your age, if you asked me what I was going to do and if I was to be the president of Harvard College, I would tell you that that was not a possibility. And I had no idea what I wanted to do either. 

[00:14:30.700] - Scott Lietzow 
So, like somebody like attain that level of being a president of a college, just knowing that at my age he didn't really know what to do either. Kind of like let me have a philosophy that I'm going to live my life to where I may not know what the destination is, but I'm going to keep moving forward. 

[00:14:50.970] - Scott Lietzow 
If opportunity jumps at me, an opportunity comes my way, I'm going to jump at it and take it. And, you know, just because you don't really know. What you're going to do in a year, five years, doesn't mean it's not going to work out if you just are open to opportunities and you just you just go with the flow, like if you see if you have to jump on it. Because you know what? That I'm just going to stay for a while. 

[00:15:16.040] - Scott Lietzow 
And if you miss out on that, you might have missed out on a whole life changing experience. So, as you mentioned before, it's kind of a big jump from being in grants of college, working on campaigns and then going to all set. But as long as you do what you do and you work hard at it and you get results, people are going to notice. So you might end up at a completely, completely different place than you were five years ago, but you'll be in a better place. 

[00:15:44.480] - Scott Lietzow 
So if you don't keep moving forward, you always end up in the same place as my philosophy. So. So just keep that's my that's what I do. 

[00:15:51.890] - Brian Shelton 
Yeah. I'm always telling students, you know, that your degree is important and what you do in school is important. But having actual experience and doing something is much more important to employers and to moving on into doing something with your life than just going to school. So it's not just about taking classes, it's not just about getting the degree. But you've got to actually do something in your field or what 
you think it is you're going to your field is going to be while you're here. 

[00:16:17.240] - Scott Lietzow 
It makes a big difference. So. Exactly. 

[00:16:20.300] - Brian Shelton 
So you are currently the vice president of all states, veteran engagement team, and you've talked about that quite a quite a bit already. But I'm just curious what. Hmm. I guess maybe why why does a large corporation, like all states, want to put so much effort and energy and money into recruiting veterans into their organization? 

[00:16:45.130] - Scott Lietzow 
Well, companies like Allstate want to hire veterans because. Let's start from the beginning. So back a couple of years ago, when I first got into got out of the military, there was no military hiring program. 

[00:16:57.110] - Scott Lietzow 
So it was when I got out, it was. You know, the the the wars were still going on and pretty hard core intense. No one really paid attention and veterans are coming back and veterans unemployment rates were sky high. So then companies started paying together like, you know what? It's the right thing to do is to try to get veterans into our companies. So when they started doing that, they were trying to get veterans in and they realized there was some issues like maybe it wasn't a good fit. 

[00:17:25.290] - Scott Lietzow 
Like, you know, you can't just give a veteran a job just because they're veterans. Right. You have to find a good fit. So companies started putting together these programs because they wanted to find a good fit and ensure that veterans stay with the company. So I'll say created their military program with that in mind, because not only is hiring veterans the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do for business because veterans perform, they have higher retention rates at companies if they're in the right spot, and also they perform at three percent higher level than their non-veteran peers, according to certain studies. 

[00:18:02.810] - Scott Lietzow 
So it's the right thing to do for business, and especially Allstate, where its sales have been such that veterans are very good sales because we're mission oriented or goal oriented. We're not going to get we're not going to stop until we hit our goals to become a salesman. We're going to do whatever they can to hit it and not shop. Right. Not shy at all. 

[00:18:23.810] - Scott Lietzow 
So and so that's our military veteran hiring program. And then you mentioned the vice president of our engagement team. So our engagement team is like an employee resource group at Allstate. So that is probably one of the best things I'll say put together for like employee retention of veterans. So veterans get to get to come together, talk about their work, and it offers networking opportunities. When you have a 
company that's a Fortune 100 company, there's thousands of people that are working there. 

[00:18:56.240] - Scott Lietzow 
So not only they're giving veterans the chance to come in and say to give veterans and network, which gives you access to other opportunities of the company, and you wouldn't think that's great. 

[00:19:08.450] - Brian Shelton 
You recently organized a big event in Arlington Heights in your community called The Night Out. And you did that to help the restaurants and businesses in the area gain some business during this pandemic time that we're talking about. Can you tell me about that a little bit? How did you get involved with what was the the motivation there? 

[00:19:26.630] - Brian Shelton 
Yes. So I was sitting me and my wife was sitting here. We have a we have a newborn baby, so we just couldn't really go out anyway. And when the pandemic hit. 

[00:19:37.230] - Scott Lietzow 
But I was sitting there with a newborn. Yes. 

[00:19:41.180] - Scott Lietzow 
So. But when I was like Arlington Heights, I moved to Arlington Heights because it's such a great place to raise a family and a lot of the appeal of Arlington Heights is the downtown area where we have tons of vibrant restaurants. You know, it's not like your typical suburb where, you know, not knocking Chili's or anything like that, where you have Chili's to hover. It's like tons of restaurants. You go to the next restaurants, they have Asian restaurants, they have Italian restaurants, and they're all mom and pop stores. 

[00:20:14.930] - Scott Lietzow 
Right. So they're not these big brand, big corporate entities. So they need help. And part of the appeal of the downtown is those restaurants. So I was looking at I'm like, if nobody can go out to eat. How are these restaurants going to survive at these restaurants don't survive that will affect the community as a whole. So I would think we need to help these guys out. So I worked with my friend Harris on getting together with a couple of restaurants.

[00:20:43.570] - Scott Lietzow 
We try to reach out as many restaurants we possibly could just to let them know about it. We don't want them to have thousands of orders come in. They weren't ready for it because that would be bad, too. So we put together a Facebook group and an invitation and kind of got up to like seven hundred people in the community that would just say, hey, we're interested to do a national I mean, on a night out, we all order out food. 

[00:21:08.650] - Scott Lietzow 
And so it was a very successful event. Like the restaurants were slammed with business that night. And I was just really.

[00:21:19.540] - Scott Lietzow 
They loved it. 

[00:21:20.440] - Scott Lietzow 
A lot of the restaurant owners were like, thank you for doing that. We really appreciate it. And it's just something that, you know, we can do. I think, you know, when times get hard, like there's a lot of there's a lot of division in the country right now. But when times get hard and we have you know, we have an issue in the community and shows that, you know, people can come together and do things nice to benefit each other because, I mean, at the end of the day, we're all we're all in this together. 

[00:21:47.830] - Scott Lietzow 
And that's one of the the greatest things about that event is to see the community come together and, you know, support the restaurants to make sure that our community can stay afloat after covid-19 restrictions go. 

[00:22:03.160] - Brian Shelton 
Yeah, I think I worked in restaurants all through college and that sort of thing with culinary school for a little while and all that. I don't think that people realize how much of the local economy is tied to restaurants. You have so many people working there from all the way from the dishwashers to the people who deliver the produce. Right. And in the meat and that sort of thing. I mean, it's a very interconnected system and our economy really depends on it in a way that most people don't quite understand. 

[00:22:31.300] - Brian Shelton 
So it's really cool. That's really awesome that you organize. I think that's fantastic. 

[00:22:35.740] - Scott Lietzow 
Thank you. 

[00:22:37.270] - Brian Shelton 
You are working on your MBA now. Yeah. Yes. And so I was just kind of curious two things. One, what's the end goal there? And the other is now I went to graduate school, so I know what it's like. So but could you tell our students, you know, how does going to graduate school compare with going to Harper College? 

[00:22:57.350] - Scott Lietzow 
So, I mean, Harper College will prepare you for a lot of your future endeavors, that's for sure. So graduate school. So I'm going to University, Illinois Urbana Champaign MBA program, which is online now. So that's like if you're working full time, go to school. That is crucial because I don't know, it's hard. You work all day. You don't want to have to travel to school and come back. So all is online now. 

[00:23:28.420] - Scott Lietzow 
And they moved their whole MBA program online. So it worked out for me to go there because for two reasons. One, our military veteran and I already used up on the GI Bill and Harper and then my you know, and I got my four year bachelor's degree. But I don't know if you're a veteran of veterans. Check this out. You can go to any state school in Illinois. If you are originally from Illinois. When you signed up and you come back after military, you got any state school for free through the only veterans grant. 

[00:24:02.710] - Scott Lietzow 
So I was like, hey, I want to get my MBA. And I applied to all the other schools too. But I was like, hey, free is free in Illinois. It's a really good school. Right? 

[00:24:12.610] - Brian Shelton 
So, yes, free is free! 

[00:24:17.050] - Scott Lietzow 
So I was I'm going to get my MBA. Illinois is a great school to get from. I'm going to go here and it's online. I was like, I need an online program in Illinois. It provided for me. I love it. I love it's very challenging. A lot of the stuff you learn as long as you like, kind of learn the basic study habits and you kind of wonder in high school, I mean, in Harper, if you use the basic study, applications you learned 
there and what you used to be successful in classes there, you should be fine. 

[00:24:46.090] - Scott Lietzow 
But it's a lot more work intensive, especially when you're you're going to, you know, work during the day and then come back tired after work at night. But I recommend, I think, one of the biggest benefits to me about going to the graduate program. And I think a lot of people don't really consider this when they think of going to a graduate program is having work experience before you go, because working in a company, you take a lot of the experience you had from that and you can use it to your graduate program. 

[00:25:17.950] - Scott Lietzow 
And that coming from a recruiting standpoint, since I was in military recruiting, that helps out a lot, too. I mean, if you have. If you have experience working in that business degree, it goes a lot farther than just going straight into your your program and coming out with no work experience at all. 

[00:25:38.210] - Brian Shelton 
Yeah, absolutely. I'm speaking of school and work experience and all that sort of thing. You know, there might be some Harper students, current Harper students who are listening to this. What advice would you give them while they're in school? What should they be doing? And then about starting their early career? 

[00:25:55.190] - Scott Lietzow 
I think some of the most important things are is, first off, get involved in Harper. I know that some students may not even know about some of the student activities. To have a go and look for those, there is going to be groups that will give you your experience and the things that will help you out. I mean, it's not going to be direct work experience, but there's life skills that you'll learn from being in those groups that will help 
you and help you get into jobs. 

[00:26:21.650] - Scott Lietzow 
Also, if you do have an interest in a certain career, this is something that I wish I had known as the Harper College. You start researching those careers, finding out it's a lot harder to do during covid-19 because there's no physical meet ups anymore. But when the restrictions do pass bigger, I figure out who's in those careers, who you want to learn from, like reach out to. Hey, I'm going into this career. You tell me what you like about it, what you don't like about it. 

[00:26:52.340] - Scott Lietzow 
You'll find out a lot of good things. Networking is crucial. So you find out if you like the job and find out if you don't like the job. Also build connections and people people want to help young people and they want to feel like they're making a difference. So don't be afraid to ask somebody who's already in a career field, you know, for advice or just sit down and talk. They will talk to you. The worst they could say is no. 

[00:27:19.370] - Scott Lietzow 
So many things that somebody else tells me no 

[00:27:22.430] - Brian Shelton 
I tell students that all the time, the worst somebody can say is no and then you move on. 

[00:27:25.330] - Scott Lietzow 
yeah. So just reach out to those people. And some people actually might end up being your mentor and, you know, and use that to your advantage. 

[00:27:34.800] - Brian Shelton 
I think now actually, you know, you see the physical meet up is a problem. I think now it might be even easier to get people to chat with you because you can contact someone and say, hey, I'm a student at college. I'm thinking about exploring this field. Can we do a quick zoom chat, you know, at lunchtime today? And I think people are more willing to do that. And yeah, I think it's a lot easier to to contact people 
who you wouldn't normally, you know, geographically be able to meet up with to because everyone has become so accustomed to doing all this web conferencing stuff. 

[00:28:01.670] - Scott Lietzow 
Right. 

[00:28:01.880] - Brian Shelton 
It's it's so different. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So you were recently named the outstanding recent alumni at Harper College. What does that mean to you? That had to that had to be cool, right? When they told you that that had to be. 

[00:28:16.280] - Scott Lietzow 
Yeah, that that was really cool. I love Harper College. I it's one of the. It had a profound impact on my life, so when they told me I got the award, I was pretty excited about it because I mean, like I said, I attribute a lot of the things I've done in my career goes back to Harper. So and I found out about it. I was pretty excited. And I'm always willing to give back to Harper College. 

[00:28:45.890] - Scott Lietzow 
And I'm always willing, hopefully, to be an example for students. And you know that Harper College is a great place. Harper has you know, I know that Harper has a stigma sometimes that comes on like, oh, it's not for your school and all that stuff, but it really is a place I'll set you up for success. 

[00:29:04.010] - Scott Lietzow 
And if you just 

[00:29:05.510] - Brian Shelton 
So many students really have to get over that, right? 

[00:29:07.580] - Scott Lietzow 
Yeah. I mean, it's it provides opportunities to so many people, like, for example, especially during covid19 years. Right. If you can't even go to a four year school on campus right now, why would you spend all that money? You go to Harper College and get a very good education, you know, and and you will the quality of the quality of learning is great. 

[00:29:33.230] - Scott Lietzow 
And if you get involved, the community is even better. 

[00:29:37.220] - Scott Lietzow 
I have some really good friends that I met at Harper and, you know, they changed my life. And some of them are still friends to this day. So get get get involved. And, you know, that's why I love this this award so much, because it just reminds me of all the happy times. I was it was fun. 

[00:29:57.500] - Brian Shelton 
That's great. 

[00:29:58.220] - Brian Shelton 
Scott, thanks so much for talking with us today and look forward to chatting with you some more at another date. OK, good luck on your MBA. 

[00:30:06.950] - Scott Lietzow 
Thank you. 

[00:30:07.580] - Brian Shelton 
Yeah, that's going to be rough, right? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:30:11.270] - Scott Lietzow 
One year left. So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully it's easy. 

[00:30:15.890] - Brian Shelton 
One one year, one year to go. All right. Take care, Scott. 

[00:30:18.980] - Scott Lietzow 
All right. You have a great day.

[00:30:20.930] - Brian Shelton 
Scott Litzow is pursuing his MBA at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and was named a 2020 Harper College outstanding recent alumni. You can learn more about this honor at the Harper College Web page Search for Alumni. 

[00:30:36.530] - Brian Shelton 
Harper Talks is a co-production of Harper College Alumni Relations and WHCM. Our show is produced by Shannon Hynes with technical help from Eric Bonilla Sanchez. Our theme music was created by Aidan Cashman. I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.