Interview with Dr. Jack Ellis, Vice President for Development Emeritus, President of OHIO Foundation

I was born May 14th, 1934 in Frankfort, Kentucky. My parents were both raised in in the Kentucky area in Frankfort which happens to be the capital. And uh my father had moved to Ohio. He was a skilled laborer. He was in the shoe industry business. And they had a shoe factory in Chillicothe, Ohio that was going out of business because they had no one to that could produce women's shoes. They were all made by hand in those days. And uh uh so he was here about a year prior to my mother and I moving. I was maybe 4 months old when we moved to Chillicothe and that's where I grew up. Uh graduated from Mount Logan Elementary and Middle School. And then Chillicothe High School 1952. Um started my university career at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for 2 and 1/2 years. And uh was a pretty good student to begin with, but then I joined a fraternity and my social life improved, but my grades didn't. So my family after uh 2 and 1/2 years said, "Son, uh we don't believe we're getting a proper return on our investment. So if you want to go on to school, you're going to have to figure out how to do it yourself." So I um went to work for a period of time and then uh earned some money, went to uh Ohio University Chillicothe Regional Campus at that time which was the first regional campus in the state of Ohio. And uh then changed my major, got my grades back up again, and rather than transferring back to uh Miami, I transferred to Ohio University in Athens graduating with a Bachelor of Science they called it in Commerce in those days, but it that was changed to Business Administration 1957. Shortly after that, I moved to Southern California uh seeking my career in in the Los Angeles area at that point and I started working in California. At that time in the late 1950s, it was a very dynamic uh environment in Los Angeles, Southern California. High technology was just taking hold and along the the coastline Santa Monica down along the coast. And my first job was with Richfield Oil. And uh I worked at that job for a couple of years. It's now called Arco, the company called Arco. Then I went to work with Sperry Rand in their what they call their systems division. I became a systems representative and I worked in that high-tech arena for several years and ultimately became uh district manager for them in Pomona, California. And uh my future wife, who was also from Sylacauga, they came out to visit her sister who happened to be living in Riverside and was was married to an Ohio University graduate by the name of Jerry Parker. And he Jerry and I grew up in the same block together in Sylacauga. So I would go out to visit them occasionally and heard about Sue Mathis coming to uh California, so I showed up when she was there and we got uh our romance that we'd had several years earlier going again and ultimately led to uh a marriage and we were married in in Riverside, California in 1960. We've been married now for 65 years as of last January. Um the uh I I remained with uh The Sperry Rand Corporation And until I had an opportunity to go with the company in Los Angeles back in Los Angeles. Called Pacific Business Interiors and and I got into doing executive offices for Hollywood's studios and uh and other businesses and started designing furniture myself to to market. And during that period of time uh uh I got involved with the alumni association for Ohio University of Southern California. It was the largest alumni club in the country at that point. Ran from Fresno, California down through Los Angeles clear down to San Diego. And uh through that association became involved pretty much as a volunteer uh active and ultimately became president of the alumni chapter. And I was in my second term as president when uh a fellow by the name of Richard O. Link uh who was the who had graduated from Ohio University in in 1941 and who had been in the entertainment industry on the East Coast with Capitol and Columbia Records and learned of a high school teacher down in North Carolina who was entertaining on the weekends and had cut a couple of records. So, he went down to meet him and this fellow's name was Andy Griffith. And he bought Andy Griffith's contract for $10,000. Signed him, became his manager and agent for something like 40 years. But brought him up to New York, got him involved with some Broadway shows. Get some experience, continued to cut some records. All humorous records. And they both both families moved to Los Angeles in 1960. I moved to Los Angeles in 1957. So, I've been out there for a few years. And uh Dick had always believed that being a student at Ohio University, even though he grew up in Summit, New Jersey, was one of the best experiences of of his life. And so, he always stayed involved with the university with through their alumni chapter. So, after they relocated to Los Angeles, he heard about the chapter uh Southern California chapter, became involved, and and he and I met. And uh I was a young man kind of on the hustle trying to make my way in into a a career. He was already established, well established as as a person in the entertainment industry. But, for whatever reason, I'm not sure, but he kind of took me under his wing. We became good friends, and we remained good friends up until he passed away at the age of nearly 99, and he was living in Hawaii at the time. But, uh Dick was a great friend, and uh through his association with the university, he became the first president, national president, of the Ohio University Alumni Association as a volunteer. And he would back on campus uh on some special occasion, and uh was having a conversation with the president of the university at that time, who was Dr. Vernon R. Alden. And Dr. Alden mentioned to him he was looking for somebody to to take on the responsibility of the Ohio University Alumni Association as the executive director. Unbeknownst to me, uh Dick said, "Oh, I got this young man in California. He'd probably just be perfect for that job." So, uh President Alden called me and invited my wife and I to come back to Athens to interview for the job. Quite frankly, I had never considered going to work for the university. But, that was a free trip Ohio to visit our family in Chillicothe. It was about the best excuse I could think of at that point, but it uh became very interesting and then he offered me the job before we got out of town and and uh the salary was was substantially less than what I was making in Los Angeles, but uh we could we thought about it for a period of time and thought, "Well, we had three children at three daughters at that point and would it be good for them to grow up in Ohio and get to know their grandparents and their cousins and aunts and uncles?" And so, I accepted the job and came back in April of 19 uh '67 as the executive director of the Alumni Association. Uh Sue and the children remained in California for a couple of months selling the house and uh selling the automobile, making arrangements to transfer back to Athens. Big job she had. Major responsibility. So, uh we started our career in 1950 1967 and uh I did that for a couple of years and then Dr. Alden asked me to uh take on the responsibility for the development program at the university and still maintain the administrative responsibilities for the Alumni Association. I said, "Uh Vern, I know nothing about development or fundraising. You have to give me some time to acquire the knowledge before you evaluate me." He said, "Oh, don't worry. No problem about that." So, uh I accepted the job and about 6 months into it uh Vern resigned and accepted the job with the the Boston serving the Boston Company the Boston Safe Deposit Company in Boston. Uh but Dr. Alden and I remained close friends through the years and right up until his death uh in in 90s. And uh it was a good good friendship, long friendship. And, so I stayed on as the uh chief development officer and uh for the next 28 years. And then in 1972 also became the CEO of the Ohio University Fund. In those days it was as it was called, Ohio University Fund Inc. That was established by Dr. Baker in 1945, I believe it was. And so I was that remained in that capacity also as the CEO for another for 25 years simultaneously as being the chief development officer. I became uh vice president for development in 19 uh 85, I believe it was. I've said many times over that I never thought about going to work for a university. It was just circumstance arose and after much thought you I mean, you think about that the job remained open for 4 months before I even accepted decided to come back. It was a major decision to do that. And it was it was a major decision for my wife to be able to agree to do that as well. Cuz she loved California. She liked living there and and uh to come back to Athens, Ohio was uh not in her plans, I'm sure, as well. But it it was uh a wonderful decision as it turned out. And we made we made so many friends through the years. Dear friends. Friends who were major benefactors. And as I've said that so many of my former friends are now buildings on this campus. And uh I I have uh I I take pride and solace in knowing that when I see these buildings and call their names, I I think of them as individuals and the kind of persons they were and how how wonderful they were and how fortunate I was I have been to to know so many great people. So, and I enjoy the history of Ohio University cuz it's a very historical place and I'm kind of a student of history myself and there is a lot of history here and history yet to be made.