leaving of a issue at that time, that was tough for me. It was, I guess in
my head I always thought I would retire from the issue. Um, and, but you
know, when one door shuts another one opens and it turned out to be a
wonderful opportunity for me um, in so many ways professionally, I mean, I
, I think it was eight years I had with victory tastic and I wouldn't
trade anything for them. I learned so much. Um, and I had a urologist,
scott Swanson I worked with as well who was our medical liaison for
development and they call this the three musketeers. I mean we just really
had an incredible, incredibly strong team and having the experience of the
larger Mayo clinic and spending a lot of time in Rochester was also a
experience I would never want to give up. So I was really fortunate. This
is that job came open and one of my best friends from college who I'm
still really good friends with is Pat Norris and Pat was a former alumni
chair too, but before me, but she was one of my closest friends in college
and um, she and I had lunch and I told her I was,
I'm gonna be looking for a job and she, a couple weeks later, her pledge
daughter had been, who I knew was the director of rehab at Mayo and she
saw this job and Senator Pat Pat sent it to me and everything just fell
into place. Um it was again meant meant to be Gary Tooker was a big
supporter of Mayo and he was one of my references and so when you know
that happened and then, um, it's just a number, a number of things. Don
buff meyer, I don't know if you know his name, but he was on the flint
foundation board who I got to know very well. He was very involved with
Mayo, He was a physician, they all called, you know Vic and said you need
to hire this woman. And so I went out and met with them and talk to them
and apparently Vic's the story is that as soon as I walked out, Vick said
, how fast can we hire her? So it was just, it was just supposed supposed
to be, it really was you mentioned earlier, three different medical
entities, major medical entities that you had primary responsibility for
fundraising. Let's start with Mayo clinic. Talk about Mayo clinic, what
you did there, what their goals were for their fund drives. So yeah, Mayo
clinic was a great experience. So I was responsible for fundraising for
Mayo clinic in Arizona, but I spent about probably close to a week, a
month in Rochester where mother Mayo is because really our fundraisers
raised money for all of Mayo wherever the research or wherever the program
was that, that the benefactor was interested in, if it was Jacksonville,
if it was Rochester, the first large gift that I raised. Um, there was a
$5 million gift and it went all the Rochester because the interest was
really in multiple sclerosis research and we had a researcher there doing
some incredible things. And so, um, that's where it needed to go. So we
really raised money everywhere. And so the goals were two fold, one was
really increase the fundraising for all of Mayo clinic, but also then to
build the fundraising program Arizona because it had been a pretty nascent
program, There hadn't been a lot of emphasis on it. So it was really um,
building a culture of philanthropy at Mayo Clinic. And I did it again
after my experiences at Arizona state, I knew that one of my keys in order
to be successful was to build relationships with physicians. And that
turned out to be true. I think a lot of our success and we were very
successful was due to the fact that we had a really incredibly strong
physician referral program. Our physicians got really good at um,
referring patients to us that they knew had both capacity and an
inclination. And um, and we had to prove to the positions that they could
trust us and that we were professional and that we would never jeopardize
anything about their relationship. And once they saw that they jumped
right in and that was really incredibly rewarding and we were able to do a
lot of really good things for patients. We really raised the money for a
new building on the phoenix campus that's for our surgeons. We raised all
the money for a beautiful simulation center in the hospital. Um, those are
a couple of physical things that we did, but we also again raised a lot of
money for research, the two areas that are always the, the biggest
research interests are cancer, and because unfortunately it touches
everyone and cardiovascular diseases because everyone's desperately afraid
of a heart attack. So, um, those generally tended to be um ones that we
raised more money for and that really were really rewarding. So I love
Mayo. Um, I loved it because it was really diverse. The patients were
passionate, I'd be talking to a cancer patient and their family one day
about what they wanted to do and the next day I'd be talking to someone
who, it was love in life because he just had his shoulder a place and
could play tennis again. So it really had some really nice balance to it.
What were the fundraising goals and when you were there of Mayo clinic
and and how much was raised you recall?
Pretty much so we were in, we were just starting a campaign, a quiet phase
of a campaign was the first campaign mail had ever done. So that was
really fun for me. Um there were very few people at Mayo who had had any
kind of campaign experience and I've been in the issue during a couple of
our campaigns and the last campaign, um, I was more involved with because
I was an alumni association, so I um it was the next official member of
the Foundation board, so I had some exposure and experience and so that
was really fun for me to help build that campaign, so um we uh I had a put
at the time seemed like a big goal of $300 million and we really blew past
it, so it was exciting 300 beyond 300 million, which today is nothing at
records, we just finished a billion dollar campaign december 31st and um
billion dollar campaigns are really what people are looking at now, so at
least at least a million, it's crazy how things have changed. Yeah, so
when, when Mayo decided to put a medical school here, I really wanted us
to try and get bring the issue and on that for a lot of reasons, number
one, because I really wanted the issue to get the benefit of an
affiliation. The one thing that always drove me crazy
as director of admissions and even subsequently was the fact that so many
of the really good premed almost all the really good pre med students in
the state felt they had to go to U. Of a because that's where the med
school was, and it made me nuts because it didn't, that didn't have a
Philippines difference, it was how you did in your, you know, of course
work and how you did on the cat. So the fact that we could really get
close affiliation with Mayo clinic, I just felt was really gonna be
helpful for us to get some of those really strong premed students to stay
here.
Well, you never steered away from challenges. I mean, to be in development
in different aspects,
it's not a very comfortable field, I wouldn't think with all the
expectations. No, it is. I mean, it is, I mean, honestly, if you, if
you're passionate about, you know, your mission, um, and again, uh, I tell
everyone, you can't create philanthropic intent on anyone. And I had a
fundraiser who worked with me at Mayo Clinic who said to me one day, you
know, I've just learned that there are givers and takers in this world and
our job is to find the givers. So if you really just look at that and you
don't, you don't take things personally, either. People aren't
philanthropic or they have other interests already. Um, they support their
church, they support environmental issues, they have 17 grandchildren that
they've committed to put through college, whatever it is. So it's just
find those people who are passionate about your mission and giving them an
opportunity to do something that's going to make them feel good about it.
And so when I look at our goals are really based on, on reality, you know
, there's, there's an art, but also a science of fundraising. And so if
people say, oh, I'm really intimidated by our goals and whatever, then
they haven't really looked at the science part. Um, you know,
interestingly, even though I'm, all of my degrees were more in the social
science area, I'm really a data person. Um, when I've done kind of, these
work style things, I always come out on the analytical side is one of my
stronger, generally the strongest. And so
when we're, when we're looking at that, when we're setting goals for him,
when we're setting metrics, it's really all based on real information. So
, you know, people who say they're intimidated by that even either haven't
done their homework or I don't really like raising money.
Well, let's move on to the fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. So yeah
, it's interesting. I was recruited up there. Um, the reason I won a
couple of different things, um, I was very, very close with the Ceo, at
Mayo Clinic in Arizona victor drastic who's a cardiothoracic surgeon by
training and he announced he was stepping down and they were gonna bring
someone new in. Uh and everyone knew that we had a really in a great
relationship and
I got a call from a recruiter a couple of weeks later saying, I know you
never listen to these jobs yourself, but this is one you really should
look at and say, well I said, well send me the stuff? So he did. So I went
home to tom and I said, would you ever consider moving to Seattle? And to
my shock, he said yes, so I went up there to look at it and I was just
extremely impressed with the place. It's really the gold standard of
cancer research, It's just an incredible place with brilliant scientists.
Um And I thought well you know, let me do something wild and crazy and let
me give the new Ceo an opportunity to hire his own person. As it turned
out, I worked with the new Ceo for a couple of months and he was terrific
. I think we would have worked really well together. But um I went to fred
hutch and really enjoyed Seattle, It's a beautiful place. Uh fred hutch is
doing amazing things, but it wasn't diverse enough for me, it was all
cancer all the time. And mhm. It was tough. I mean I'm a, you know this
I'm a very classes, half full person, I jump out of bed every morning to
get to work and I wasn't really feeling that. And so tom said to me one
night, do you see yourself there for five or seven more years and I went,
no, I I really don't. So I decided maybe I should be open to look
um I got a call about this job, it records um and the uh and over the
years I've gotten a lot of recruiters not because I've been looking for
jobs particularly, but because they always called, I want to know who do
you know? And because I have pretty much a lot of national contacts, I
always get called. And so he called and said, okay, I have the perfect job
for you, this one's for you. And so it was a stab at records because it
actually got me back in higher ed, which I am thrilled to be back in
higher ed. I love that environment and it kept me in medical fundraising,
which is truly my niche. I mean it truly is, it's the it's the most
rewarding thing I've ever done. Um and it was a building a program which
I've had to do before and love, I love doing that. So uh it just seemed
like, okay, let's do it. I was ready for one more big challenge. Um and
trust me, this is a challenge. It's a it's a huge huge job, lots of
responsibility. But I know I look back in five years and say, wow, you
know, look what we're able to do. And that's kind of the my eye on the
prize is being able to look back and see what we build. How many different
units do you work with. So this is the area that I work in is called
Rutgers biomedical health sciences. It was a result of the largest
integration of entire read that ever occurred on july 1 2013 when um a
former University of Medicine and dentistry of New Jersey was dissolved
and the units moved into Rutgers. So there are 14 units um, to medical
schools, uh, which again is unique. Um The only en ci designated
Comprehensive cancer center in the state of New Jersey, the state's only
schools of pharmacy, dental medicine, I've got again, I could go on. It's
huge, so I'm really building the entire program, um, from scratch pretty
much.