MAKING AN
IMPACT

As Kiwanis International marches toward 1 million members, its new CEO says he wants to help the organization leap from good to great

Interview conducted by Dick Isenhour

Rob Parker was named “most courteous” of his high school senior class.

“There’s a posed picture of me in the yearbook holding the door open for a girl,” he whimsically recalls. “I was a B student who didn’t study a lot. I didn’t become serious about school until I was in college.”

Indeed, it was his college years—and the years immediately following—that proved formative for the man who took the helm as CEO/Executive Director at the International Office this past August. He graduated from Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1982, and hired on as a lifeguard at the Boys Club in Fort Worth, Texas. He eventually became a club director, working with youth in an urban setting. The challenges, he says, were significant and included gang activity, teen pregnancies, and drug trafficking. 

That initial stint led to further work with Boys and Girls Clubs on a city, state, and national level. In 2004, he founded The IMPACT group, serving as an organizational consultant and executive coach, with a focus on strategic planning, executive team development, marketing and communications, fundraising, and board development.

Rob is eager to put his background and experience to use for Kiwanis. He sat down with Kiwanis magazine to share his perceptions on the current state of the organization, what he believes the future holds, and what steps he believes the organization should take to get there. He also shared some personal information from his “formative years.” Here are excerpts from that session:

Kiwanis magazine: What do you see as two important traits Kiwanians should share?

Rob Parker: If I can only choose two, I would want every Kiwanian to have a clear sense of purpose and a passion for serving others. In a world where so many people are searching for purpose and meaning in their lives, Kiwanis can help a person discover why he or she was put on this planet. Kiwanis can also be a great place for people to learn that life is not all about them, and that the best things in life come through serving others.

KM: In recent speeches, you have talked about “Kiwanis Classic” and “Kiwanis Next.” Can you share a little about what those means?

RP: Though change is necessary if we are to become a great organization, over the past 90 years we have done a number of very good things. In an effort to make sure we don’t lose sight of the things that have made Kiwanis a wonderful and enduring success, we have adopted the term “Classic” to describe the best of the past 90 years. “Kiwanis Classic” is an internal code name for our current service model.

“Kiwanis Next” is a term we are using to describe what Kiwanis will need to look and feel like to be attractive to the next generation. We are going to need both Classic and Next to reach 1 million members.

KM: Is there something from your youth that helped shape the person you are today?

RP: I would say the time I spent with my dad and brother, and my dad, in particular, at the Boys Club, where he was club director. My brother and I were very close in age and we would ride with him to the Boys Club. We couldn’t actually interact with him a lot during the day because he was working, but we were always close by. There were leadership development opportunities that happened through our Boy’s Club experience.

Included with that was camp. We spent a good portion of the summer away from our family in a situation in which we had to grow up quickly and fend for ourselves. We were often in an inner-city environment and had to develop our street smarts as well.

KM: Were you a leader as a student?

RP: My interests in school centered on sports, and more specifically basketball.  I was not captain of the team or a class officer or any of the traditional leadership roles.  But I was given my first leadership challenges at the age of 14 when I was hired to be a summer camp counselor. They gave me 12 young campers for a week and assigned us to a cabin a mile away from the closest other campers.  Now that was a leadership challenge!

KM: Who were your mentors growing up?

RP: Because we moved a lot, I don’t have anyone who was a mentor long-term. But I believe everyone needs adults—other than their parents—they can look to. I had a Sunday school teacher who was important to me, and I’ve had basketball coaches who I looked up to. Much of my personal discipline was formed through athletics.

Probably the most significant adult in my life in terms of inspiring me was my 10th grade English teacher. She was the first person to tell me she thought I had writing talent. Just her telling me that inspired me to write more.

KM: Having adults as mentors fits in with our Service Leadership Programs.

RP: I agree. The relationship between our adult advisors and our young people is critical to their development as future leaders.  For many young people this is the first time they have been pushed or challenged by someone other than their parents. 

KM: How did you choose Messiah College?

RP: I was looking for a Christian college that offered a health and physical education degree. Because I already was deeply in love with Stephanie, it needed to be within driving distance of my home. Messiah was the only Christian college in the state that had the degree I was looking for and was close to my sweetheart.

KM: You were married while in college. What sort of challenges did that present?

RP:   The challenges were great. We struggled financially, but there were great life lessons to be learned there about what it is that you really need as opposed to what it is that you really want. We were in the need category. It forced us to prioritize: family, school, graduating on time so I could get a “real job.”  I did have to quit the basketball team because I had three part-time jobs to work around my school schedule. All of that helped prepare us for the future.

Along with the challenges were some fun things.  We were sort of trendsetters there. We had several couples who followed in our footsteps in two areas. First, realizing that getting married while in college can be done, even though it’s difficult. Second, 10 months after we got married, we had our baby, which probably was the only baby on campus, and which inspired a baby boom among a group of our peers and friends who realized that was also possible.

KM: After graduation, you moved to Texas. What led you there?

RP: I had a newspaper clipping—I still have it—that reported they were laying off teachers in 47 states and there were only three states where they were hiring teachers: Hawaii, Alaska, and Texas. I didn’t have the money to get to Hawaii, and was unfamiliar with Alaska. We had a distant relative in Texas who said they would take me in, so I left my family with Stephanie’s parents in Pennsylvania, loaded up my car, and left for Texas.

I had sent out a hundred résumés for teaching positions all over the country, and didn’t hear back from even one. I took a part-time job as a lifeguard at the Boys Club, and I’ve never looked back.

KM: Share with us some information about your family.

RP: My wife Stephanie is a private piano and voice instructor. Our daughter, Andrea, graduates from Messiah College in May and will be moving to Indianapolis, where she’d like to work for a year and then go to graduate school. Our son, AJ, and daughter-in-law, Erika, live in the Atlanta area where AJ works for Crown Financial Ministries as an event planner and videographer. AJ and Erika are parents of our two grandchildren, Nicholas and Taylor.

KM: What do you find most rewarding as a grandfather?

RP: All the joy children bring without the challenge of discipline; the good, with very little of the instruction and discipline that’s required when you’re a parent.