Waldron Career Conversation with Austin Waldron '78: Retired Senior Vice President of Operations at Health Care Services Corporation, Parent Company of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois
Austin Waldron graduated from Weinberg College in 1978 with a major in psychology. He had originally planned to become a doctor but after a quarter of organic chemistry he sought out other options within the medical field. He had a long and successful career in operations at Health Care Services Corporation before recently retiring. Austin hopes today’s Weinberg College students realize that they too can pursue many paths, regardless of their major or even with a major change part of the way through their Northwestern career. This is one of the reasons why he initially invested and ultimately made a philanthropic gift to name the Waldron Student-Alumni Connections Program. He is thrilled that this is a resource where students can engage with, and hear from, alumni in a wide variety of industries, that were once, where the students stand today. In this episode, we talk about how Austin’s arts and science background helped him move up from where he started in customer service to be a Senior Vice President by the time he retired.
Cassie Petoskey (00:00):
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast where we bring you stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. This episode is an alumni career chat brought to you by the Waldron Student-Alumni Connections Program. Today we're speaking with Austin Waldron who graduated from Weinberg College in 1978 with a major in psychology. Austin had planned to become a doctor, but after a quarter of organic chemistry, he chose to pursue other options within the medical field. He had a long and successful career at Healthcare Services Corporation, the parent company of Blue Cross Blue Shield before recently retiring.
(00:32):
Austin hopes today's Weinberg College students realize that they too can pursue many paths regardless of their major or even with a major change part of the way through their Northwestern career. This is one of the reasons why he initially invested and ultimately made a philanthropic gift to name the Waldron Student-Alumni Connections Program. He is thrilled that this is a resource where students can engage with and hear from alumni in a wide variety of industries that we're once where the students stand today. Austin, thanks so much for being here with us today.
Austin Waldron (01:01):
Thanks for setting this up, Cassie. I'm always happy to talk about the program. It means a lot to me. Anything I can do to help spread the word and have other people understand what it's all about and how we got here is right up my alley.
Cassie Petoskey (01:16):
Absolutely. We're so excited to hear more about the Waldron Student-Alumni Connections Program and chat with you about it. But before we get into that, I wanted to start with your Northwestern story and hear more about your experience while you were on campus and if you can share some of those impactful classes, professors or internships that you had that led you down your career path.
Austin Waldron (01:40):
Sure. I had a really great experience at Northwestern for, I don't know, a couple reasons. I only applied to two colleges. I'm from Chicago and one of them was U of I and then Northwestern. Obviously, I was attracted by the reputation of the school. I did well in high school and stuff, so the scholastic challenge that it would present to me was important to me. I went in with the pre-med as my plan. I had always had that as my plan. Neither of my parents are doctors. A lot of kids at Northwestern are children of doctors who were in pre-med. But I just was always interested in medicine. I was a science nerd and so that was my plan.
(02:31):
I was lucky enough in freshman year to live in the NU apartments. So I had an apartment with three other guys and we shared a bathroom in the middle. So I never had the experience of taking the basket down the hallway to the shower room and all that. I don't know that I missed a lot, but I feel like I was fine without that. But about halfway through sophomore year, I kind of ran into some trouble with pre-med and you can translate that into organic chemistry. Things did not seem to be going the way they need to if you want to be a successful doctor. So I kind of pivoted.
(03:08):
There wasn't a lot of support around that pivoting and that's kind of where I got into wanting to support this program. One of the things about Northwestern that I never thought of about that much then, but I have since, and when I went to orientation, my nephew's a software there, they talked about the fact that three quarters means you have a handful more of opportunities to take different classes than you do in two semesters and you can vary your program more. So I had a couple classes that I really stand out and I'll never forget. I took two quarters of German history and two quarters of Russian history.
(03:47):
In both of those classes, the professors were so deeply ingrained in teaching that class. I mean my professor in German history, his name was Shean, he was Irish, but his voice would lapse into kind of a German accent when he'd say German words. I mean he was just so powerful. It made a big impression on me, and the same thing with Russian history.
(04:12):
Then also I did some things that would would've been totally... My family and friends would've said, "What's he doing taking art history?" Or I took a literature class on science fiction that was really fascinating too. So I think once the pre-med seemed like it was going in a different direction, I really kind of tried to get into classes that weren't something that would've normally been in my comfort zone. I think it really rounded me out and helped. Another reason I think that Weinberg and Arts and Sciences is such a great school because it gives you so many options.
Cassie Petoskey (04:51):
I love hearing about some of these different classes you've taken. You mentioned pivoting your major. What did you end up pivoting to?
Austin Waldron (05:00):
So I kind of defaulted to psychology because a lot of the sciences I had taken in freshman and sophomore year outside of organic chemistry were pre-reqs for psychology. So I went into that and I liked that a lot too. I liked the experimentation. I still remember, I had a final paper and all the youngsters who are going to listen to this won't probably even remember Patty Hearst, but this was in the Patty Hearst era. I don't know if you remember her, but she was an heiress to the Hearst Empire and she was kidnapped by these radicals. Then they had video of her holding a rifle on people robbing a bank. So they think she was compromised and joined the cult. So I did a big long final paper on that and it was really fascinating. I got a good grade on it too.
Cassie Petoskey (05:53):
Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's wild. So interesting and that you were able to pivot into something that you still enjoyed and had some of those pre-reqs accomplished. I'm curious, you obviously pivoted from what you thought your path was going to be in college, but pre-med you think you're going to go to med school. So when you pivoted to psychology, how did this end up impacting your career path?
Austin Waldron (06:18):
Well, I pivoted to psychology without having any clue of what I would do when I graduated. I mean, I didn't really in my mind want to be a psychologist. So it was really that's a good major for what I had already had under my belt and I liked it so let's do it and see what happens. I mean, really I had no clue, but I took one job for six weeks that was horrible, and then I got a job because I knew somebody who worked in at they called it at the time personnel, now it's HR. But I got a job at Blue Cross as a claims or customer service rep and kind of the rest is history. I was promoted rapidly.
(07:03):
I really liked the world of operations where you have to figure out how things happen and how to make them better back your way through the chain of events. I just enjoyed it. I think partially the well-roundedness of my background, I was good at managing people and good at negotiating and people liked working for me and I liked doing it. It's one of those things I've said to many people over in my career, every company, every big company has a lot of people in operations. But when you're in high school they don't say, "Hey, would you like to be in operations?" Because it's not a thing on its own.
(07:48):
There's a lot of things that are rolled under it in most companies, processing. Some companies have IT as part of operations. Some people have financial operations. But it's all how things work behind the scenes. It's a big part of all big companies. If you like it, it's one of those things where you sort figure out who likes it and who likes doing it. It's pulling the string to see what happens. I just found it fascinating. I took some chances that I think is another important lesson for kids going into the workforce.
(08:26):
They were opening up offices, moving the operations, decentralizing them into smaller cities. The first one they were opening was a claims and customer service office in Danville, Illinois, home of Rob Petrie and Gene Hackman, the Van Dykes. But they asked me to go down there and open the office and manage it and I said yes. Never in a million years did I think I'd be living in a town of 25,000 people down in Central Illinois. Believe me, I mean it's only 120 miles from Chicago but it's a very different world.
(09:08):
But when you're the only one, when you're in charge and you're new, you can do things and you make mistakes, there's nobody to tell you you shouldn't have done that. Well, I mean, after the fact they do, but you get a big break because you're it. That was a big part of my kind of learning experience at work.
Cassie Petoskey (09:31):
Austin, you mentioned that you had a long career at Blue Cross. I'm curious, you mentioned this role opening up an office. What were some of your favorite roles throughout your career and how many different roles did you have?
Austin Waldron (09:47):
Well, I started as a service rep, which I liked too. I was always one of those people who say to the customer, "I wish I could change that rule, but I can't. I think it's stupid too, agree with you." In some companies you'd get in trouble with that. But as a boss, especially as I became a boss over at customer service, let's face it, the world of health insurance is complicated. People don't understand there's a contract. People think if their doctor tell them they should have something that's going to be paid. So we're the bad guy.
(10:27):
We have to admit and face the fact that some things happen that are not good. When you hear them, you don't have to say, "Oh, that's just our policy." You can say, "I wish that wasn't the case." So I liked being in a position to empathize with people and get my folks to understand that we may not be able to change it, but at least it can help the customer understand why that's the case. Also, in the world of customer service, people get wrapped up in the fact that they told somebody something and they're right. So some things would get escalated up to me in my various roles when I was a manager, when I was a VP. Sometimes I'd look at the facts and I'd say, "The customer service rep was technically correct in what they told you, but I'm going to reverse that because it's not right."
(11:20):
Oftentimes, that gets the customer service reps mad because they say you caved. I'm like, "Well, you can use the word caved if you'd like. I'd like to use the word I distilled all the information and came up with a different solution. By the way, I have the right to do that." So one of the things you get for the big paycheck. So I enjoyed it a lot. Like every job, you have days that aren't perfect. There's bureaucracy that you sometimes have to deal with. But my division in claims and customer service, we were pretty highly respected. We had a good reputation and so I was given pretty much freedom.
Cassie Petoskey (12:04):
Then you mentioned you were a manager, VP. What was your last role before you retired?
Austin Waldron (12:10):
The last role, I was a senior vice president of customer service. I had 9,000 people working for me. I was in the C-suite, as they say, chief customer service officer for nine years before I retired.
Cassie Petoskey (12:22):
Wow. It's awesome hearing stories from you about working at an organization and having these various roles within the same organization. I definitely think for our students who are thinking about various career paths for themselves, some of these big companies, there's those opportunities to grow or to try different things and find what you enjoy. So I think your career is just a great example of trying out those different roles. My last question for you about your career, when you moved to be a manager, can you remember back to what were the biggest learning curves for you from being the customer service rep to managing people?
Austin Waldron (13:04):
Well, I became a manager when I moved to Danville. That was the thing. So this might not resonate with some other people, but here I am opening a new office, and I mean people's mothers would come to the office to tell me that there was too much smoking in the... This was when smoking was allowed. So I was just not prepared for employees' parents coming to talk to me about the working conditions. I didn't think people did that. They don't do that in Chicago.
Cassie Petoskey (13:41):
Oh, that's great.
Austin Waldron (13:41):
Yeah. That's just kind of a little funny example, but there's a whole bunch of things that happen when you're a manager that are kind of not part of what the responsibility of the worker is. There are personal things, there are situations that come up and they expect you to figure out how to make it work for them. I would sometimes say to myself after somebody leave my office, I'm like, "What does this have to do with what we're doing here?" But to Janie or to Tommy, this is a big deal. So I think that's one of the lessons for managers or to-be managers to learn is you're doing a lot. You'd like to say you're just managing the work and that's your job and blah blah blah, but way more to it than that.
Cassie Petoskey (14:24):
Absolutely. I think with our Weinberg College students, they are probably going to enter into roles similar to where you started right after college. But I'm sure a lot of these folks, these students are soon to be managers as well as they continue doing well in their careers and that's great stuff to be aware of. Austin, overall, looking through the various roles you've had, how did you see your arts and science background playing out in your work?
Austin Waldron (14:52):
People ask that a lot and it's hard to answer. I think it's much more of a case of being exposed to lots of different things and being more well-rounded than a specialized education because you're dealing with people from all walks of life as a manager. My organization started branching out and we opened up a bunch of offices in Texas and then New Mexico and Oklahoma. I mean, if you're born and raised in Chicago, those are different worlds. You really have to learn how to deal with people from a perspective of where they're coming from, a lot more than growing up in Chicago and everybody I know is from Chicago. I don't know if that answers your question well.
Cassie Petoskey (15:35):
Yeah, the different perspectives and meeting people where they're at. No, I think that's great.
Austin Waldron (15:40):
I think that's another thing about Northwestern. I mean, I grew up in Irish Catholic neighborhood on the South Side. All of my friends went to one of two or three Catholic high schools and huge numbers of them went with their friends and my friends to U of I or ISU or one of the state schools. I mean, you end up with all the same people you grew up with. Well, not at Northwestern because the student body is so varied. So I think that's a real valuable thing that happens at a school like Northwestern is the mix of the student body.
Cassie Petoskey (16:23):
Yeah, yeah. Working with your peers in college sets you up to work with different populations and different groups and different locations when you graduate. Absolutely. Austin, can you tell us more about how you got started in supporting the Student-Alumni Connections? I know you mentioned a little bit about your experience, but as you got further into your career, how did you connect back to supporting this program?
Austin Waldron (16:48):
Yeah, it's interesting. I met with the dean, Sarah was the dean before Adrian, but we were having lunch and I really can't even remember now what prompted us to be getting together. But we were talking about this challenge of a school in particular like Northwestern and many of the other elite schools where kids go in and they have a lot of pressure from their parents and their families. My case, it wasn't pressure from my parents, but it was pressure from me because that's the only thing I ever planned. If things turn different, they are lost and that I didn't think Northwestern had the support to help them out.
(17:37):
When I went and I was there between '74 and '78, there was seven or eight suicides. A lot of the kids, when you uncovered what was happening, it was they were failing to deliver on what they thought they were supposed to. So I really wanted to figure out, is there a way we can institutionalize something that lets them know that changing your direction to something that suits you better than your previous plan or your parents or your grandparents is vital to your long term health. You have to live your life. If you do it because your parents wanted you to do it and you don't like it, well your parents are going to be gone someday and you are the one who's going to be left with doing something you don't like.
(18:27):
Half your waking life is at work when you're a full-time employee. Do you really want that to be something that is because your parents wanted you to do it and you don't like it? As a boss at Blue Cross, people, you'd see them clearly struggling and I'd say, "This isn't for you. This is not a reflection on your ability, but it's not a good fit. You're unhappy. Your supervisor's unhappy. I'm sure your family's unhappy. You go home at night and complain about it. Let's find something else for you."
(19:03):
So that kind of struggle and what I saw happening with other kids really was what prompted me to try and come up with something. So we kind of developed this idea of helping people realize that, in particular arts and sciences and liberal arts, are something that you should not be embarrassed to say you're majoring in history, you should be proud of the fact that you have so many options ahead of you. The rest is kind of developed over time. They put the squeeze on me for the money, you know how they are very good at that.
Cassie Petoskey (19:40):
Thanks to you we'll be able to offer these programs right well to the future for students. I can tell you, even with this quarter being on Zoom, students really appreciate hearing from alumni and hearing those relatable stories, so.
Austin Waldron (19:55):
Who knew. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but I see every day stories in the paper about big organizations totally changing their workforce, what they perceive happening in the future. Big companies are doing a bunch of pivoting. So I know kids are struggling with, "Well, I thought I was going to have an internship somewhere this summer and now I'm not. I was going to go do this thing overseas and now I'm not." So more than ever, the ability to pivot and kind of reposition yourself for whatever the world's going to look like I think is really powerful right now. I never really thought about it until just this minute, but.
Cassie Petoskey (20:41):
Absolutely. Because you never know. It's not like you can plan for a pandemic or whatever it may be down the line where you have to pivot next, but that's a great point. Austin, what did you see, you mentioned the need, what did you see as the benefit that came out of your support early on?
Austin Waldron (21:00):
Well, again, some of the programs where I've been, you've had the lunch and learns or something, it's so rewarding to have a sophomore or junior come up and tell me, "You don't know how much this is going to make me sleep better because I've been struggling for weeks and weeks with whether to change or not, whether to face the music. I hate what I'm doing. I realize from the program and some of the speakers we've had that I can do that and I'll be fine." I'm like, "You will be fine. You don't even have to know when you graduate necessarily. I didn't and look how well I did." So I kind of lucked into it, sort of luck but you know.
Cassie Petoskey (21:49):
Yeah, absolutely. Once you get into the working world, you kind of figure out what you enjoy and how you want to evolve your career from there. I think that's something that I've been talking with alumni a lot about recently with the uncertain times that even if students are finding their plan B or plan C after graduation this year, there's ways to strategize and find your way back to a career that's meaningful to you. So I think that's great. Austin, what are you most excited about that's going on with the program now and into the future?
Austin Waldron (22:22):
Well, I guess seeing your development of it and seeing it grow and seeing us come up with various forms of ways to communicate what's going on like the podcast. I mean, everything's changing in terms of how you deliver information right now. So it's great that we're able to do that and be able to reach out to more students.
Cassie Petoskey (22:45):
Yeah. The situation has made us be creative and I think it's just another great way to share stories like yours and other alumni who we're talking with on the podcast. Austin, you've shared a lot of really great insights and interesting facts about your own personal career and your story. Do you have any other advice that you'd like to leave with current Weinberg College students with today?
Austin Waldron (23:09):
Again, I would say to be successful in the business world and really just about any job where you're working with other people, you have to be true to yourself and integrity counts. In big business, it's easy to get wrapped up at I don't want her to hear me say this, so I'm going to go along or whatever. Be honest and be forthright and don't assume that somebody's trying to screw you if it's probably maybe they're just not that smart. Ignorance is often more the case than evil intent in dealing with business problems and stuff. Yeah, and take chances. Go out on a limb. Do more than what you're required to do.
(23:58):
I mean, one of the things that happened with me, that reason I got that manager job and the wonderful opportunity to move to Danville was because the area I worked in, we had a manager who was, for lack of a better word, not a very good manager and kind of lazy. As a supervisor manager, I started doing stuff for her that she was glad to not have to do that really was her job. But I've put the budget and actuals together and stuff like that. I learned a lot by having a superior who was willing to let anybody help her out. So take the opportunities if you get them to do more than what your job description says.
Cassie Petoskey (24:41):
Yeah, take risks, take those opportunities, put yourself in those situations.
Austin Waldron (24:45):
Maybe move to Danville if you have to. I mean, I thought it was going to be like Andy and Mayberry with aunt Bee, bringing me a pie. It's not exactly like that, but nothing is forever. I was there for five years and it seems like a long, long time now, but time flies.
Cassie Petoskey (25:04):
Absolutely, Austin. Well, time flies while I'm chatting with you. This has been great talking to you and hearing more about your story. So thanks again for sharing.
Austin Waldron (25:13):
All right. Thank you.
Cassie Petoskey (25:15):
For more information about Weinberg College and this podcast, please visit weinberg.northwestern.edu and search for Waldron. Also, we'd love to hear your feedback. Please email us at waldron@northwestern.edu with your thoughts on today's program. Thank you again for tuning into this episode of Weinberg in the World.