Catching up with: BOT chair Mike Berghoff
The following are excerpts from a interview on a variety of topics with Mike Berghoff which aired on the Sept. 13th edition 'Gold and Black LIVE.' Berghoff has served as chairperson on the Purdue Board of Trustees for the past several years as has been the liaison between the Board and Purdue athletics.
GoldandBlack.com: There must be times where you’re wondering what your day job is between the Board of Trustees and Lenex Steel.
Berghoff: It’s a lot. It went up substantially once you become chair. Mostly your email traffic goes up a lot, your requests for meetings and appointments goes up a lot. It’s a juggling act.
GoldandBlack.com: Have you ever seen anybody quite like Rondale Moore at Purdue?
Berghoff: I mean, he’s so good, it’s almost like a video entertainment. You go to a game and anything can happen with this guy. As a fan, what a treat we have to be able to watch him play. He’s also just a really good student. I think he’s on course to graduate in three years. He’s a smart kid. I’m not crazy about him graduating in three years (laugh).
GoldandBlack.com: In terms of legalized gambling, the President comes out and talks about the faculty and staff. This is something they are certainly going to discourage, if not, not allow. How has that been from a board of trustees standpoint and what should the emphasis be?
Berghoff: It’s new, this is a bit of an experiment for the state which means it confronts us with a bit of a challenge on how to deal with it. We’re going to take up a policy of some sorts. We don’t know where it is going to go, we don’t know how much control we’ll have over our faculty and staff, but we think having one certainly puts us in a better spot than not having one. There might be some rare cases where a student-athlete actually thinks that his instructor/professor/staff person might be influenced in some way and somehow that might weigh on him or her. So, we’ll see what comes out of it. But we’ll give it a try and at least go on record in saying that this is something we have to be really careful about.
GoldandBlack.com: Anything you do, philosophically, is strictly about protecting the student-athletes.
Berghoff: You’re exactly right. People are going to gamble. It’s legal in most states. But that’s not the point. The point is the impact it has on amateur student-athletes. Is there any additional influence that gets placed on them because there is money involved?
GoldandBlack.com: How important was Jeff Brohm staying at Purdue from a board perspective, but also a university perspective?
Berghoff: I can tell you I’ve been to a lot of events since we made clear that he’s staying for a long time and I often think about what it would be like at this event had we made a coaching change and that is not a very good feeling.
(That is) especially (true) because we have no doubt that we have the right person for the job. He’s such a unique fit for Purdue that losing him after two years would have been a real struggle to reset. It’s like a rocket has left the pad. We’re not into orbit yet.
You pull the stage out from under you (had Brohm departed) and we would have done something. Mitch and I and the Board would have made sure it would have been an incredible next move, but having somebody in place with two years under the belt with that kind of potential is a really big deal (and would have been a challenge to replace).
GoldandBlack.com: What do you see in Brohm from a managerial standpoint that makes him unique?
Berghoff: He is very close to the action. There’s all sorts of styles, but his style is highly present and highly vocal. He has his fingers in more than just the play calling and practice. He has a pretty tight control over what is going on in that building, whether it’s how visitors are handled, what the travel schedule looks like. He’s an operator.
The other thing is he makes his expectations very clear. You know what is expected of you, you know what is required of you to play. He’s demanding, and competitive people respond to that. So I think that’s the biggest part of the success. When you combine that with the fact that he connects with 18- and 19-year olds on the recruiting trail, he can load up this place with a butt load of talent. Combine the talent with his style and that is part of the reason why we have turned it around so quickly.
GoldandBlack.com: Where does basketball fit in to the overall university picture right now?
Berghoff: I’m glad you brought that up because the basketball program has created so much happiness and support over the last couple of years. We’re, as Matt says, a tip-in away from winning three Big Ten championships when no one was expecting us each year.
They are fun to watch, they win a lot, they win at home, (they have the) best home record in four years. Matt is an incredible coach. Just like Brohm, he’s perfectly suited for Purdue. His character, his style, just everything about the guy is so well-suited.
It’s been such a staple of our athletic department. Especially over the period when our football program was struggling. I think for the fan base it is like having two favorite restaurants, you go to one in the winter and one in the fall.
GoldandBlack.com: There was a point a couple years ago where they had the two straight NCAA tournament disappointments. You guys came to a position where his contract had to be dealt with. What convinced you guys to invest in him long term?
Berghoff: That was not a tough choice. There was emotion amongst our fans and even amongst the board members. It’s frustrating when you lose. With the body of work and the evidence there, it was so clear that there was really never a moment where we weren’t convinced that Matt was going to take us to the Final Four and compete for a national championship. One of the differences now is our talent is improving. I think Matt has changed, too. He’s way more comfortable. He knows what he wants and he knows he can win. It’s causing talented kids to sign on the dotted line and come to Purdue.
GoldandBlack.com: How did your your role as a liaison with the athletics come into your being over the years?
Berghoff: I’m not really sure. The board chair at the time, Keith Krach, made me the athletics liaison. (At the time) there were some things going well, but it was not a period we would point to as really good athletic years. I think just naturally I’d care so much about the university’s reputation that I just couldn’t personally tolerate not competing at the highest levels and not feeling we had a chance to go to a Final Four or a chance to go to the Rose Bowl again.
So I stepped into that in a way that I could just connect the Board, President and the athletic department in a way that showed it was a priority. Winning matters and that’s what we were committed to doing.
GoldandBlack.com: How did you get a fiscal conservative like Mitch Daniels to buy into doing things financially the way things needed to be done?
Berghoff: That was the toughest part. The guy is an incredible leader. He was top-50 in Time Magazine. I’d put him in Top 25. He cares about the university’s reputation, as well. He had a very difficult time tolerating lackluster performance, but he also had a very difficult time with the national model that set up on what it takes to fund and operate a Division I athletic department and it’s out of whack.
We all should be disappointed that we’re spending as much money as we are to field these teams. But that’s reality. He feels the same way when he has to pay a distinguished professor more than he’d like, or a dean. That’s just reality. He’s a smart guy, he’s a passionate guy, he knew what was required. All it was (to convince him) was just make the case. We made the case and we were all together on that.That part wasn’t very hard.
GoldandBlack.com: Have you seen anything in the past couple years since Purdue has been back in the limelight that has affected the University (from a fundraising or enrollment perspective) for the better?
Berghoff: There’s no direct link, but there’s also absolutely no denying that we are viewed differently now than we were in 2013 when Mitch arrived. It’s not exclusively because of Mitch, it’s not exclusively because of anything the Board is doing. Athletics play a role. Our fan base is more excited. The combination of a well-run university with a lot of innovation and sound, sensible goals and initiatives, plus a winning athletics program, is a pretty strong combination.
Our applications are at an all-time high. Our enrollment is at the highest level in the history of the University. Our fundraising is at all-time records. Research (at the University) may not be directly impacted, but everything is pointing up. There is a correlation in all of this, it’s just tough to quantify.
GoldandBlack.com: Tell us where the State Street project is.
Berghoff: One thing it did was it enhanced the south end of the campus. It’s a busy street, (and had) no trees but now it is beginning to look more like a boulevard. So our campus is beginning to feel like the sense of place where you would really want to work and live.
We also worked with the city of West Lafayette to invest $120 million which got the attention of some developers that said, “Hey, is this the place that’s kind of on the move and a place where we need to get in now and start thinking about some development here before everyone else rushes in?” That along with the announcements on the Aviation District, the Discovery Park district, it just started to expand.
So that State Street move got the stone rolling and you’ve seen everything that has followed. We’ve also staffed a lot of people to make sure this happens and it’s been intentional. We have a master plan, we are following the master plan, but State Street is a big part of why people started paying attention.
GoldandBlack.com: This year is the 150 anniversary. What are the next 150 years going to look like at Purdue?
Berghoff: We are trying to figure that out on the Board now. Mitch is trying to figure it out because there are a lot of confusing signs. There are a significant number of universities who are seeing their enrollment decline, some of them in this state.
You know what employers are doing, how they value a college degree. But they also value customized certificates. (Employees may think) Maybe they don’t need a college degree. So, it’s a very tricky time in higher ed.
We’re preparing to accommodate this growth, kind of take a look around and see where we are, offer what the world wants as a way to maintain things (and ensure) our demand stays high. We think there’s a place for schools like this. Purdue students in STEM areas and Liberal Arts areas that are purposeful, hardworking, well-prepared, and if that demand continues, then we’re in a pretty good spot.
GoldandBlack.com: One of the selling points for higher ed schools like Purdue is kids that go there are going to have that experience of being immersed in everything because they live close to campus.
Berghoff: When people show up here, our campus is beautiful. They just need to get on campus. It is compact, we basically have a 10-minute walking circle around all of the classes which is pretty tight. A lot of our students, almost 50 percent, live on campus. That’s pretty high. The studies will show that you perform better when you live on campus, at least initially.
They get tired of being on campus sometimes, move out and do stuff on their own, but it’s a good setup.
GoldandBlack.com: Do you want Purdue to keep growing?
Berghoff: We want growth, especially by folks like Schweitzer Engineering Labs and Saab who are coming here with professional folks, hourly folks and establishing their operations on or near campus, bringing new headcount to West Lafayette. It’s going to spawn the residential district on the west side and totally change the way this community can support all sorts of the positive things that come along with more people. We’re not talking 20,000, but it makes a difference with a thousand here, a couple thousand there.
GoldandBlack.com: Back to football, tell us your view about the fundraising for the Ross-Ade renovations,
Berghoff: I think the fundraising is a critical part. The first part, though, is understanding what it is we want to do. It’s a bit of a challenge, but this (the Ross-Ade Stadium renovation) is a 50-year decision. We’re going to spend a fair amount of money, and when we’re complete, we want fans to notice a significant difference in their experience. We have to get this right.
What is the big time? Big doesn’t have to mean something flashy, it’s just we want people going back from a game telling others, “Have you been to Ross Ade lately? Did you know about this? This is really cool. This is why I go up (to games).”
We want to start drawing some of the folks from Chicago or Indianapolis who are saying “Maybe we should go to the game on Saturday!” But if not, for this this and this, we give them a reason to come up. We don’t know what that is yet. We’ve actually have set the reset button, the design team is meeting on Monday and Tuesday (Sept. 16 and 17) and we are taking a lot of influence from what Major League Soccer stadiums and what their ownership is doing, and also Major League Baseball because they are very creative about how they engage their spectators and how they get them to come to the arenas.
We’ll get it right. It’s going to be really cool and unique. We just don’t know what it is (yet). It’s going to cost some money.
Our fan base has been unbelievable showing up for the games. They’ve been very loyal because we haven’t given them a lot to be excited about on the football side, we have on the basketball side for a long time. We need football's improvement to continue.
We’ve made investments in this program and our fan base needs to expect to be asked for some participation on their part. They’ve noticed, they are aware. They’ve been very complimentary about what we are doing and I’m confident that they are going to participate.
GoldandBlack.com: What was the moment where the higher levels of university leadership, or whoever it might have been, said we have to do stuff differently here?
Berghoff: The amount of innovation that is coming out of this place, big and small, is highly visible. If you’ve been on campus, you’ve seen these food robots delivering food. Purdue is one of the first in the country to do that. Amazon moving here and opening up two centers, we were the first in the country to do that. All of the relaxed rules on commercialization for faculty and staff, Purdue’s commercializing product and on and on and on. The tuition freeze, the income share agreements, people are asking to come visit campus and see how we cook up this recipe all the time. Our rankings are higher.
Mitch has had a tremendous amount to do with that. He’s just an incredible innovator and when you have a president like that and a board that is aligned and energized to make a difference, if you put those two together, it’s not unlike success stories, you can have a business. That’s exactly what is happening here.
GoldandBlack.com: From a sports perspective, too, that alignment is different than it often has been.
Berghoff: I credit that to the people. Mike (Bobinski) is a world-class athletic director. We went out to find one. Without the (plans to build the) Football Performance Complex, we don’t get Mike. Without Mike, we don’t get Jeff (Brohm). Without those two, you don’t get all of their talent.
Matt has been grinding it out here, Sharon’s been grinding it out here, and they are the beneficiaries of all of that because now they have some help. We’ve been expanding their offices, talked about their locker rooms getting better, getting them the tools they need, all of that is made easier when the rest of the program is elevating to the levels that our fans want, that I want, what Mitch wants, and what the Board wants.
GoldandBlack.com: You started in 2009, how much longer do you want to do this?
Berghoff: Mitch appointed me, then I recruited him. That’s the way some people thought it went (he said with a laugh). Then I got reappointed by Governor (Mike) Pence and Governor (Eric) Holcomb. It’s been a world of fun and it’s been productive.
As long as those two things occur and the folks on the Board think I’m helping and not getting in the way, then I’ll continue to serve. I’ve been Chair for maybe three or four years, and that chair election occurs every two years. You’re elected by the Board. If I’m not the chair anymore, you know they got tired of me.
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