Harper Talks Show 11 - Jim Gallo

Harper Talks Show 11 — Jim Gallo (.mp3)

On this month's episode of Harper Talks, Associate Professor of the Arts, Brian Shelton, is joined by Harper’s own distinguished alumni, Jim Gallo. Gallo reflects on his time at Harper, how he stayed detached from the experience and community as a student and how his own educational, professional and personal journey eventually led him back to Harper where he became highly involved in the community years later, acting as a board member and as a distinguished alumni. In this episode, Gallo shares his episodic journey, from suffering an accident his freshman year of college that led him to be paralyzed from the waist down causing him to transfer to Harper, to his professional trajectory and how his experience as an accountant pushed him to transition into journalism, all the way to his wheelchair basketball days at UIUC and how that lead him to forming one of the nation's largest youth wheelchair basketball programs. All of which share a common thread, how Gallo has taken the challenges he has faced and reshaped them into fruitful opportunities, much of which he credits to his time at the “hidden gem” that is Harper. Tune in this week and soak up the plethora of advice and guidance Gallo has to share not only about his own life and experience, but also the impact Harper has had on him and how that experience isn’t finite, there are tools and lessons offered that can be applied far beyond student's time on campus.

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast
Show 11: Jim Gallo — Transcript

[00:00:01.980] - Brian Shelton
I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a co-production of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio today on Harper Talks. I'm excited to speak with Jim Gallo. Jim was a student at Northern Illinois University when he was struck by a drunk driver in 1980. He spent a semester in hospital and could not return to school, returning home to Hoffman Estates. He enrolled in Harper College, a place Jim considers an essential stepping stone to his career. Jim joined me for Harper Talks over Zoom. Hey, Jim, how are you doing? Thanks for being here today.

[00:00:37.410] - Jim Gallo
Good morning. How are you?

[00:00:38.640] - Brian Shelton
I am just fantastic. It's a beautiful summer day and I'm excited to talk to you today.

[00:00:45.090] - Jim Gallo
Oh, great. I'm glad to be here.

[00:00:47.400] - Brian Shelton
So you grew up in Hoffman Estates area and then you went to Northern Illinois University, where you had what we would call a life altering event. What happened to you while you were there?

[00:00:59.730] - Jim Gallo
Actually, it wasn't it wasn't at Northern. On the Christmas break of my first year of college, I got out of my car on an expressway to help a guy. And as I was standing on the shoulder, drunk driver picked me off and didn't know it at the time we were on an overpass. And when she hit me, she knocked me over the side and I landed 40 feet below.

[00:01:23.370] - Brian Shelton
Oh, my goodness. So what was the result of that?

[00:01:27.480] - Jim Gallo
So a lot of broken bones. And the main thing, though, a spinal cord injury. So left me paralyzed from the waist down.

[00:01:35.250] - Brian Shelton
OK, so after that, you weren't able to return to Northern and that's when you decided to go to Harper. Yeah.

[00:01:42.540] - Jim Gallo
So I spent I essentially spent what would have been my second semester. I spent dead in the hospital. I was in the hospital for four months and Northern was not accessible. So I in the fall then, which would have been my third semester I was at Harper, so I was at Harpor for a year. I was at Harper for a year before I transferred down the champagne. I went to harbor every summer because I went to summer school and then after I graduated college, I went back to Harper for piano classes.

[00:02:14.670] - Brian Shelton
That's fantastic. So you said that Northern wasn't accessible, but you found Harper to be accessible when you.

[00:02:22.010] - Jim Gallo
Oh, incredibly, it was the buildings were newer, right? And I want to say it would be the Civil Rights Act of 78, the first one that are not actually the first one, because there was one in 64, but that was the one that made all government and public buildings accessible. And so Harper was and is today like unbelievably accessible school.

[00:02:47.810] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, that's something that I've had a conversation with about several folks about is the how great the campus is in that regard.

[00:02:55.280] - Jim Gallo
So, yeah, there really is. It really is.

[00:02:59.270] - Brian Shelton
So what was Harper like in the 80s? I mean, I started working at Harper in 2014 and so I can only imagine what it might have been like in the 80s there. What was it like?

[00:03:09.160] - Jim Gallo
That's because you're a lot younger than me. Harper was new and it was good. And I loved some of my professors. I had two accounting professors that were awesome. I had a econ guy that I hated. But that's how it's supposed to work. Right? But it was, everything was good. It was I think back then there was more community in community college than there is now. Right. Not that that's good or bad, but I think Harper was covered like more and the football team and all those kind of things. And most of the athletes were from the area as opposed to coming from all over the place. So that's what I think probably might be the real difference is, you know, just the world that we live in, you know, that everybody's spread out now and and Harper is still close.

[00:04:10.220] - Jim Gallo
Yeah. Were you involved in while you were at Harper, any student organizations or anything?

[00:04:14.570] - Brian Shelton
Not a thing?

[00:04:15.650] - Jim Gallo
Not a thing. I did.  I took a lot of classes and not a thing I said. I guess. I think that's terrible.

[00:04:28.320] - Brian Shelton
That's so funny. I talked to so many alumni and they tell me about all these great programs they were involved with and student activities and stuff. And then you say nothing, you know.

[00:04:36.830] - Jim Gallo
You know what? I was really this is like six months after my injury. Right? And so I was really trying to navigate that world and and everything was, you know, everything was new. And, you know, I didn't know what I could do, couldn't do. I didn't want to be embarrassed, didn't want to put myself out there. So I kind of like sat in the back and, you know, live my life quietly, quietly.

[00:05:07.520] - Brian Shelton
OK, that's fine. Yeah. Quietly That's changed now though. So we'll get to that. And so you left Harper and you went to the University of Illinois Urbana. She'd come, would you study there?

[00:05:19.820] - Jim Gallo
Accounting.

[00:05:20.780] - Brian Shelton
Accounting? And and that became your career.

[00:05:24.050] - Jim Gallo
And I became a CPA. I worked for one of the at the time big eight, and now they're called Big Four accounting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and then got into management consulting to mid-market companies. And then I did mergers and acquisitions and then I got into bankruptcy work. And here I am.

[00:05:44.360] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, I think I read in your bio that you got a little tired of helping or bailing out troubled companies and decided to go major in journalism. Is that is that right?

[00:05:55.130] - Jim Gallo
Well, so when you do bankruptcy work, when you do travel company turnarounds, you also do a lot of liquidations. Right? You actually shed a lot of companies down. And there was a span of like six years and five of them. And I was in front of a whole plant of employees, usually Hispanic employees, telling them that between Christmas and Thanksgiving, you know, these meetings are that come January one, they won't have a job because I was shutting the company down. And there's only so many times you can look and, you know, you just you feel for them and you you know, the family struggles and you see the shoulders drop and their heads drop and they're staring down at the floor. And you know that you just ruined their Christmas because they're not going to have a job. Right. And and I just decided that it was and he got paid a lot of money to do that. And and I just decided I didn't want to do that anymore. I yeah. So I went back for my master's in journalism, but I love to write and I never really knew that until I took this creative writing class at Harper when I was there. And I had this great instructor and he was Dr. Hull and and I just loved it. And so. Then I loved writing and I enrolled at Northwestern as one of the top, if not the top journalism school in the country, and I went there as a one year masters and I totally loved it.

[00:07:33.420] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, you certainly could have picked an easier journalism program. I mean, the Medill School of Journalism is known as one of the best journalism programs in the country. So you certainly took the challenge.

[00:07:45.890] - Jim Gallo
You know what? It's funny. When I was an undergrad, I just wanted to get out of school. I wanted to be done. And in fact, if it wasn't for that, I would have switched majors out of accounting to something that was more creative. I loved advertising. I loved business psychology. I loved marketing. So I did. And but I wanted to get out, you know, I wanted to be I wanted to get out and on with my career.

[00:08:13.190] - Jim Gallo
I wanted especially part of it being with the disability. You know, the expectations from so many people are. So what do you you can go to the grocery store by yourself, right? And I'm like, no, you know, I have a real job. I have a career, I'm a CPA, whatever, you know. And so I just wanted to move on. Right, but when I went back for my Masters. I loved it, I loved it, I loved covering stories. You go to Washington, D.C. for one quarter and you covered Capitol Hill as a journalist for a paper. So they assigned me to an Iowa newspaper and I covered everything that was important in Iowa. And in fact, I covered the Oklahoma the Oklahoma City bombing when I was there, which was just incredible. But, yeah, I, I loved it there. Yeah.

[00:09:09.080] - Brian Shelton
I covered the Oklahoma City bombing live on radio that back then. And that was an incredible story and probably the first really big news story that I covered working in radio. And that was that was a traumatic time. And that's a thing that happened in this country that kind of gets pushed to the wayside after 9/11. People kind of kind of ignore that. Not that it should be ignored, but. So you did that, but you've gone back to being a CPA and doing accounting and you have your own and you have your own business doing that. How did that experience in journalism, how does that inform the work that you're doing now, if in any way does it?

[00:09:50.720] - Jim Gallo
And actually it made me a better writer. Right. So so anything from just a memo to, you know, letters to vendors, to customers or. It made me better. It gave me better communication skills. The reason that I didn't stay in journalism is I was writing freelance articles after I got out. And a guy that I worked with, he's actually my mentor in middle market companies. He was buying a company and said, you know, can you help get this deal done? And I said, yes and worked on it. And then another guy on a team, he had a client in West Chicago and they were buying a company. And he called me and said, can you help get this deal done? And now, like, I'm buying companies and and that's just a game that you love to be in right? And and and I just loved it. And and it wasn't you know, it was you were on the other side, right. Instead of shutting down more than 100 companies and now I'm building them. Now I'm growing them and and buying companies. The game is great. The game is fun to be in.

[00:10:58.400] - Brian Shelton
Much better putting people to work than putting people out of work, right.

[00:11:01.520] - Jim Gallo
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:11:04.130] - Brian Shelton
So I was really interested in reading about this and I don't have all the words for it. So you help me out here. You started a wheelchair basketball program for youth in Chicago?

[00:11:14.150] - Jim Gallo
There was a wheelchair basketball team that I so I started playing at Illinois. They have a huge wheelchair sports program. At first, I never wanted to be in it. I never wanted to play wheelchair sports. You know, that coach saw me and he was like, why don't you come out? And they said, you know, I like I kept making excuses. I don't have time. I don't have this, I don't have that. But the real issue was just like that I was a five sport athlete. And I'm like, I was a real athlete. I'm not like those wheelchair guys. Right? And he sees me on campus and and again and I said, I didn't have time. And he goes, Do you watch any TV? And I said, yeah, a little bit. He goes and pardon the expression, he goes, Well, why don't you watch less TV? And why don't you come out and and get some exercise and get some weight off your fat ass. And he was just like, you know, it was just instant challenge and, you know, and I couldn't say no. Right. So he guilted me to do it.

[00:12:19.230] - Brian Shelton
Tough love, that's tough love right there.

[00:12:21.920] - Jim Gallo
And they and and so at the time it was wheelchair football. And he goes, listen, he goes just come out to the armory, watch it if you don't like it, just to meet the rest, you know, some of your schoolmates, classmates that are disabled and and if you don't like it, leave. And I said, OK, so I show up. And then they had this drill where this guy, this guy who was a quarterback and wheelchair football was just throwing passes to guys. So you lined up. So he goes, do you want to get in line? I said, sure. So I get in line and I go out like fifty yards and I look up and the ball's coming over my shoulder and I just reach up with one hand and I caught it and I turned around and I flipped the ball to a guy and I got back in line. And just like that, everything that I ever got from sports as a kid and I was playing sports since I was eight. I played basketball, basketball, baseball, football, wrestling, soccer. And it all came back right. Everything that I ever got came back. So then when I was done with college, there was a wheelchair team in Chicago and it was struggling. And, you know, nobody ever at the games except family members, stuff like that. And so I wrote a proposal, I had a contact at the Chicago Bulls and I wrote a proposal to the Bulls to adopt this as the Wheelchair Bulls, and that was in 1987. They did. And then in the early 90s, we started a junior program so disabled kids would come to our games.  Partially number one, we are part of the Bulls. Right. So we're on the Michael Jordan wave. And so there's this huge credibility. Now, we're not this other Chicago team, now we're part of the Bulls, right. So people are looking at us differently and little kids are going to see little kids in wheelchairs are looking just like we're Michael Jordan. And then with the help of somebody, you know, Laura Brown, we started a junior program. And inside of three years, we had the biggest junior program in the country. We had over I think we had 11 junior teams, you know, from Rockford all the way to the other side of the Indiana border here.

[00:14:38.700] - Brian Shelton
That's amazing. Are you still involved with the group?

[00:14:41.070] - Jim Gallo
No. I retired from basketball in 2007 after 26 years of playing my shoulders were just shot. So if you've ever seen, like, an NFL player who walks with a limp after you know, his NFL career, well, that's a wheelchair athlete. They're their shoulders, right? That's how it works. And so and then the other thing was, I was 20 years older than some of the guys coming in. Right. And, you know, and I'm worried about either my kids or some deal I have working and I just can't hang around twenty three year olds. It was tough. So anyway, so but the junior program by far, you know, other than just, you know, playing the game itself and training and all that, the junior program was the biggest for me.

[00:15:33.090] - Brian Shelton
That's fantastic. I love it. And it's a great story.

[00:15:35.250] - Jim Gallo
When I was when I was a kid in grade school and you're playing like Pop Warner football or whatever, and you couldn't wait to see the newspaper on Sunday or Monday to see, you know, a few names in the paper. Right. And then you go to you go to school. And I went to school in Hoffman Estates. And you're talking to your classmates about how you did that weekend. Right. And then you have these kids that are in wheelchairs and they don't have anything to talk about. Right? They're not they're not kicking a goal and they're not you know, there's no junior program. And then, you know, to be able to then give them a sport and and show that they can be world class athletes, you know, just made all the difference for me.

[00:16:21.330] - Brian Shelton
That's great. It's great that you helped get that program going and keeping it keeping it strong. Now, I got to ask you, based on something you said earlier, how does a guy who went to Harper College and wasn't involved with anything while he was there.

[00:16:34.620] - Jim Gallo
Yeah.

[00:16:35.100] - Brian Shelton
Wind up a board member at the institution.

[00:16:39.810] - Jim Gallo
Wow. Well number one one of the board members is Bill Kelley. And I've known Bill Kelley since I was in grade school. He was actually in my sister's wedding. He's like five years older than me or six years older than me. He was at my sister's wedding. One of his best friends is my sister's husband. So he's the one that really planted the seed. But I loved Harper. So I go to Northern first semester. I go to Harper for a year and then the summer school and I go to Champaign for two and a half years and I go to Northwestern for a year. Right. But if you ask me, like what professors made the biggest difference and who I can even remember their names, there's more from Harper than the other schools combined in. And I, I, I just think it's like a hidden gem in the northwest suburbs. I really do. I think it just has so much to offer. I think the quality of education is spectacular. I mean, especially when you're talking about general education classes. What as long as you have a professor that cares. Right. And almost all of my did, you know what can Harper not offer that, you know, a four year school can? Nothing. Right. And and so I just think it's a great avenue for so many folks, even like this year. My son just graduated high school and he's going to Harper and he's going to Harper for the only reason that he had so much going on that he just never took the time to look at schools and colleges and stuff like that. And he was just overwhelmed. So he said that I'm going to Harper for a year or two and then I'm going to transfer. And I said, great, that's awesome. And that we have that opportunity here, you know, is spectacular.

[00:18:31.890] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. I don't just say it because I work there and teach there the education that you can get at Harper is by far equal to or superior to what you can get it in the other educational institutions. So no.

[00:18:43.840] - Jim Gallo
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.

[00:18:45.450] - Brian Shelton
It always blows my mind when I hear people tell me that their kid is going to X, Y, Z institution. And I'm like, but do you understand? You know, right down the street you have this.

[00:18:53.850] - Jim Gallo
So. Yeah. And do you understand that that school is like, you know, going to cost you one hundred thousand dollars? So I did when I was on the board, I did this analysis of if you went to Harper for your first two years instead of U of I or Northern, I did those two schools. And if you take the savings and just put it in the stock market so that the market earns on average seven percent a year. Right. So when you if you just if you just took that money and put it into account and let it grow at sixty five years old, you'd have a million and a half dollars more than if, than going to Champaign. Right. And you'd have a million dollars more if you as opposed to going to Northern. Right. It's real money. I mean it's it's and you know, money accumulates. So it's real money that should be on a billboard.

[00:19:49.680] - Jim Gallo
Well actually that actually is is one of the things that I wish that that, you know, that I wish I saw ads or a mom and dad are standing behind the student, you know, and it says, you know. You know, our family saved $30,000 dollars by going back to college, right?

[00:20:10.060] - Brian Shelton
Hey, speaking of that, I don't know if you saw this announcement yesterday, but Harper, you know, Harper just recently received a sizable donation from the Mackenzie Scott Foundation, which I'm sure you're aware of. But this new scholarship program that's going to provide free tuition, books and fees to a thousand students. Did you see that story?

[00:20:29.410] - Jim Gallo
I did not see that.

[00:20:31.480] - Brian Shelton
I mean, what a fantastic opportunity to be able to stay in this region and go to school 100 percent free. I mean, it just doesn't get any better than that as well. What's that?

[00:20:42.250] - Jim Gallo
And the Promise program as well.

[00:20:43.870] - Brian Shelton
And the Promise program as well. That's right. I mean, what an opportunity for the people, for people who live in this community. I live in the community and my daughter is going to go to Harper. And, you know, so as a faculty member, we get tuition for our children anyway. But to to pass on that opportunity seems absurd to me for anyone.

[00:21:03.210] - Jim Gallo
And what a lot of people don't know is Harper actually has tons of scholarship money that they give away. They have the Women's Single Women's Program or the single moms program that is funded by the Cannings. The Cannings who are Rita Canning was on the board when I was on the board and she sat next to me. We had a great time. But, you know, they're so generous. But and that's just one of the, there's there's a lot of scholarships, you know, a lot of them that go unapplied for. But there's a lot that Harper offers.

[00:21:38.950] - Brian Shelton
I'm always pushing students to apply for those scholarships because a lot of them don't don't get taken. So that's just money left on the table. So.

[00:21:45.670] - Jim Gallo
Right.

[00:21:46.450] - Brian Shelton
So you were a board member during a pretty busy period at Harper. Was there anything during that time that really stood out to you as it's a big accomplishment from the school that you're particularly proud of?

[00:21:58.810] - Jim Gallo
Yeah, I mean, President Ender, you know, Ken Ender was the president and I mean, he walked into, you know, a buzzsaw when he came in with the previous administration. So so we got a lot of stuff done. There was a lot of a lot of building stuff like approving the M Building, although I voted that I was the lone vote vote in that building down, you know, the the rehab of that building. I voted that down.

[00:22:30.800] - Brian Shelton
Why why did you make that decision? I'm just curious.

[00:22:33.910] - Jim Gallo
I thought it was too big, too much, unfair real cost versus benefit. I guess the Building was really used for classes and that and they kind of turned it into a lifetime fitness. Right. The premise being that kids will stay on campus more if if they're if that building is open. Right. And I just didn't buy into that, I, I still don't buy into that. You know?

[00:23:08.740] - Brian Shelton
Even today now that it's open and you've seen the facility, you're still?

[00:23:12.070] - Jim Gallo
Know what the facility is gorgeous. I love it. But I but I just don't think that kids are going to stay on campus in the community college setting. Right. Maybe at a four year school. You know, all the colleges I mean, the buildings that they're putting up for kids to work out and, you know, intermural P.E. and and clubs and all that kind of stuff, all these amenities that that they're offering, someone's got to pay for them. Right. And I just I just didn't buy into that premise. I just I think a lot of a lot of kids who are working out, I think they're already going to like the pavilion in Elk Grove or Recplex in Mt Prospect and that. And I just didn't see them switching that because they're going to Harper, you know, in the mornings and, you know, three days a week or something. And I just didn't so and so I just thought it was too much money to spend on that. The good part about it, the part that I voted for was the Northwest Community Hospital having, you know, that location in that building, I, I wish half of the building was Northwest Community Hospital. I think the nursing program needed more opportunities for clinical hours. You know, it was tough for us as a board member. It was tough for us to look at Harper that would have like a two percent reduction in one semester of the student body. And yet they had a waiting list and nursing because of the nursing program's awesome. Right. And so those are really incongruent. You like. Well, wait a second. This doesn't make any sense. And they say, well, you know, that they need clinical hours and. You know, there's only so many places we get them, and so that Northwest community opens that up and it's another place for clinical hours. So I love that. And that actually I voted for that part of it. So I voted down the building, but I voted for the agreement with Northwest Community Hospital and Northwest Community Hospital's awesome all by itself. That's where my kids were born. That's where they took me after my accident. So, yes, it's a great place. So I just love everything about it. Everything about you.

[00:25:34.740] - Brian Shelton
I think that's a really interesting perspective. That's something that that we as a community and myself as a faculty, we don't necessarily hear these deliberations that the board might make about that sort of thing. And so I think that's a really interesting perspective to share. I will say that not agreeing or disagreeing, but if I go to the to the fitness center on campus in the morning, I am guaranteed to be there by myself. But if I go there in the afternoon, you can't get a single piece of equipment in your hand. So the students certainly are there in the afternoons before the morning. You can sleep if you could. It's pretty crazy. I'm kind of curious to see how that changes now that the gym is reopened post pandemic. I'm kind of curious to see what the students students do. And I think that's something that as a campus we have to look at, like everyone's used to working in a different way now. And I'm kind of curious how students are going to schedule themselves to be in classes.

[00:26:28.900] - Brian Shelton
Are they going to go back to the way things used to be, where they take a series of classes on a Monday, Wednesday.

[00:26:33.810] - Jim Gallo
Not in the first semester because the first semester is a hybrid. So,

[00:26:37.170] - Brian Shelton
yeah, yeah.

[00:26:37.800] - Jim Gallo
It's very interesting in a lot of classes being done from home.

[00:26:40.350] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. It's interesting to see what students are choosing and what they're not choosing. So it's. Yeah.

[00:26:45.270] - Jim Gallo
Right. I agree.

[00:26:46.470] - Brian Shelton
So you were nominated and became a Harper College Distinguished Alumni. How did that how did that happen?

[00:26:54.060] - Jim Gallo
Well, Bill Kelley and one of my great friends that I've known since, you know, kindergarten, actually, you know, we say we've known each other since we were born because we both grew up and Hoffman. So my family was one of like the thirty ninth family of Hoffman Estates. Right. And and this guy, Tim Tyrrell, we both grew up in Parcele is behind the Jewel and Roselle Road. OK, so that's the subdivision with no sidewalks and stuff. And and Tim and I are like brothers. And so Bill and Tim both recommended me for it and the committee selected me. That was a lot of fun. That was, that was fun and and a huge honor. When you look at it, some of the people that came through, you know, in Distinguished Alum, you know, you get the feeling of like just even though you're starting in the community college, how big you get. Right. Like there was another family in the Hoffman Estates at the start. And one of the previous album, his name is Tom Mullen. Dr. Tom Mullen. So he he was, I think, a brilliant high school student. Right. But didn't know what he wanted to do in college. So he went to Harper for two years and then he went to college and then he went to med school. And then he is that he was the head of E.R. at Rush, which is a monster hospital. Right. And that's, you know, and that's in the city.

[00:28:30.810] - Jim Gallo
So, you know, you get a lot of traffic there. And and he's since moved to he went to the hospital, Downers Grove. And I think now he's recently retired. But I mean, you know, how much bigger do you get than the head of the E.R. and to be a doc and you come out of Harper College with that? Right and Tim the guy that I was just talking about. So Tim is, I think, the only player from Hoffman Estates that ever went to the NFL.

[00:29:00.660] - Jim Gallo
So he got hurt his senior year in high school with me at Conant and blew out his knee and then went to Harper for two years. And then a bunch of colleges recruited him out of Harper. And then he was the Mid-American Conference player of the year and then seven years in the NFL. So all out of tiny little Harper College, not that tiny, but you can say that, right?

[00:29:26.250] - Brian Shelton
You are in good company. I've had the pleasure to interview several of our Distinguished Alumni. And so you are you're in a a rarified group.

[00:29:34.460] - Jim Gallo
Yeah, it's impressive.

[00:29:36.000] - Brian Shelton
It's very impressive.

[00:29:36.900] - Jim Gallo
Yeah. They put me to shame. Let me tell you that, they put me to shame.

[00:29:41.490] - Brian Shelton
So humble. So humble. Yeah. So I always ask our alumni and you kind of alluded to this a little bit before, but I always ask kind of the last question, what advice do you have for either a current Harper student or someone who's thinking about coming to Harper?

[00:29:58.620] - Jim Gallo
OK, so my first one would be try to separate the thought of going. To X College versus going to another college and then going to a community college and then transferring to a four year.  Try to win the war, I guess, is it. So so you can you can fight all day that you want to go to Princeton or you want to go to U of I mean, U of I is an expensive school if you want to go to North or Northwestern, a great school and super expensive or you know, do you want to go to Harper for two years, you know, get more mature, you know, save a ton of money and then still end up with a degree at Illinois or Northwestern.

[00:30:44.020] - Jim Gallo
Right. And when potential employers are looking at your resume, they're still looking at your bachelor's from that four year school. Right. So that it doesn't matter that you went to Harper for the first two years. So saying that I also realized that some kids have to get out. Right. They got to go to a four year school. They got to get away from their parents. You know, I know you know, there's a lot of parents that want their high school kids to get to that four year school and they don't care how much it costs.

[00:31:17.650] - Brian Shelton
That's certainly something I haven't thought about. But you're absolutely right. Got to get the kid out of there, right?

[00:31:22.330] - Jim Gallo
Yeah. Well, if you don't have kids in high school yet, you'll get it, it'll come.  The second thing is, is, you know, I, I, you know, colleges isn't for everybody. And if you want to be in the trades, you can learn all the trades at Harper and I flat out believe that plumbers and HVAC guys are going to rule the world. I, I do. Pretty soon, you know, there's there's there's not nearly as many plumbers as like when we were kids. Right. Most you know, so many of our dads, my dad was a carpenter and there's not going to be enough plumbers and there's not going to be enough HVAC guys. And one in January in Chicago when your heating goes out at two o'clock in the morning and the whole house is freezing cold when they say it's going to be two thousand dollars to come out. You're going to go, OK, come on out, because you have no options, right? You're freezing. Your whole family's freezing and they're going to rule the world because they can.

[00:32:26.650] - Brian Shelton
You know, a lot of times I'm glad that you mentioned the trades at Harper because I hear this all the time and I'll see things on social media and things like that about how I don't go to college, learn a trade. Well, going to college is part of learning a trade. I mean, we offer the trade programs at the college. And so there's this you know, there is a little bit of an anti college movement going on in the country right now, which I find kind of amusing. But you can go to Harper and learn to be, in fact, technician and make great money and have a great career. So why would you tell someone not to go to college? It seems strange to me.

[00:32:59.770] - Jim Gallo
So a good friend of ours is a plumber and he has his own plumbing company and he is paying guys fifty dollars an hour to work for him.

[00:33:09.610] - Brian Shelton
Right.

[00:33:09.610] - Jim Gallo
That's 100000 dollars a year, right? A six figure salary to be a plumber, it's like who you know, who would have thought that was going to happen?

[00:33:19.370] - Brian Shelton
It's a great gig, right?

[00:33:22.340] - Jim Gallo
So, you know, I don't I don't think the world is anti-college as much as it is anti tuition. I mean, I tell you, it's it's tough for me where if you're if you're reading a bunch of articles and they'll have like. Colleges that have their rack rate, their top rate is like 50000 dollars a year, and then after all the grants and everything they give you, you're down to sixteen thousand dollars a year, right, and other schools. Right. So my daughter is at DePaul now. And and, you know, we were going through this process with her and other schools where, well, it's thirty thousand dollars a year and after grants and that it's twenty nine thousand six hundred say, wow, that's awesome. You give me 400 bucks off.

[00:34:20.240] - Brian Shelton
What a deal. I was just reading a story this morning about it. I won't say what school, but a school that has an eight point two billion with a B, dollar endowment and the tuition for one of their programs is seventy five thousand dollars a year. I'm just thinking, what are you doing with that endowment that the tuition is still seventy five thousand dollars a year?

[00:34:39.170] - Jim Gallo
How about it? Actually, actually, I don't even care when you're in the school. What is Harvard's endowment.

[00:34:45.140] - Brian Shelton
It's enormous. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:34:47.690] - Jim Gallo
It's a billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. Right. And it's like they could cover everybody's tuition on the earnings of that. And never charge a dollar again, and they would be fine.

[00:35:02.990] - Brian Shelton
That's right, just on just on the earnings. When you have money, it makes money and people need to realize that.

[00:35:09.770] - Jim Gallo
They do, know that it does so well.

[00:35:12.120] - Brian Shelton
I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, Jim. And I'm look forward to looking forward to sharing this with all the folks who listen to Harper Talks. It was great talking to you.

[00:35:22.700] - Jim Gallo
Thanks. I totally love Harper. There is there's I just I just love Harper College. I have for a long time. And like I said, when I was in when I was down at Champaign and I came back every summer, I went to summer school. Yeah. And that's why I went on the board. I just love this school. And I think, you know, families in the northwest suburbs, you know, when they take a look and take a deep dove in the Harper, they're going to love it as well.

[00:35:51.350] - Brian Shelton
Thanks, Jim. We appreciate all your time and service at Harper as well. Thank you.

[00:35:55.360] - Jim Gallo
Great, thanks.

[00:35:56.410] - Brian Shelton
Jim Gallo is managing partner of Gallo Associates and a 2017 recipient of the Harper College Distinguished Alumni Award. If you're enjoying Harper Talks, please subscribe. And while you're at it rate and reviews so that others might find us. Harper Talks is a co-production of Harvard College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Our show was produced by Shannon Hynes. Our technical producers are Eric Bonilla Sanchez and Mary Renner. Our theme music was created by Aidan Cashman. I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.