Abstract
Steve Bullock, former head of the American Red Cross in Cleveland and Ohio, discusses his involvement with the Cleveland City Club from 1982 to 2006. Bullock moved to Cleveland in 1982 to lead the Red Cross organization and joined the City Club in 1990, motivated by his commitment to public education and informed citizenship. He served on the club's board for seven years, including one year as president around 2003. The interview covers the club's transformation from a relatively invisible organization in the 1980s to a nationally broadcast forum reaching approximately 200 radio stations in 30 states. Bullock addresses the club's ongoing efforts to increase diversity, particularly African American membership, and discusses the tension between maintaining local relevance while attracting national speakers. He reflects on specific challenges, including the Antonin Scalia controversy regarding recording restrictions and the club's strategic planning initiatives. The interview also touches on Bullock's broader community involvement, including Leadership Cleveland, the United Way, and local school boards, as well as his views on public education funding issues in Ohio.
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Interviewee
Bullock, Steve (interviewee)
Interviewer
Humphrey, Tom (interviewer)
Project
City Club - Civil Rights
Date
8-9-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
64 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Steve Bullock interview, 09 August 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 807018.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/799
Transcript
Steve Bullock [00:00:00] Watch.
Tom Humphrey [00:00:02] I’m going to start by saying- You can hear me? Okay. And you can hear him? Excellent. My name is Tom Humphrey. I’m a professor at Cleveland State University. I’m here with Steve Bullock. And your last name is spelled B-U-L-L-O-C-K?
Steve Bullock [00:00:14] That is correct, yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:00:16] We’re at the Cleveland City Club on Euclid Avenue. Today is August 9, 2006. It’s about 3:30. And this is part of the City Club Oral History Project and part of the Euclid Corridor History Project. How are you?
Steve Bullock [00:00:32] I’m just fine, thank you. Just rushed down here, but I’m doing great.
Tom Humphrey [00:00:37] I appreciate you coming down. Yeah, I noticed your watch as we were kind of talking earlier. It’s an Art Deco watch.
Steve Bullock [00:00:46] I suppose you could say that. This watch was given to me, actually, by a friend who was an architect, and it was designed by an architect, which is unusual, I guess.
Tom Humphrey [00:01:04] Okay. It just reminded me of an architect from Glasgow named Rennie McIntosh. So I’m not sure if that rings a bell or not. His style is often drawn on my- Hardly what we were talking.
Steve Bullock [00:01:22] Right. Well, there’s a lot of architectural stuff going on at City Club and on Euclid Corridor. So I guess there’s a connection.
Tom Humphrey [00:01:34] Let’s start with kind of a basic question. You can fill us in how you moved to Cleveland, if you’re not from Cleveland, why you moved here, or. Or if you grew up here. Kind of bring us up to the point where you. In your life, somewhat briefly, if you will, to the point where you joined the City Club.
Steve Bullock [00:01:53] Okay. I spent almost 40 years with an institution in a number of positions leading up to senior executive positions all over the world, actually. And in the early ’80s, I found myself living in St. Paul, Minnesota. And there was an opportunity with the same organization. It was the American Red Cross, I’m happy to say there was an opportunity to come to Cleveland and head up the organization here in Cleveland and the state of Ohio. So my family and I moved to Cleveland in 1982. I actually came in January of 1982, and my family came after school was done that year. So they joined me in May and June, actually early June. And as the head of the Red Cross at that time, the organization was located just a few blocks from here on Prospect Avenue, where the headquarters was. But I got involved in a lot of activities in the city. I was able to get into leadership Cleveland in 1983. And that led me- My involvement there led me to a lot of other things. Now I was involved with the City Club, served on a couple committees, but I was not a member in the ’80s. I actually joined the City Club in 1990. And my interest in the City Club actually comes, I should say, out of my lifetime interest in public education. And my interest in public education is related to a beliefs, a set of beliefs that I hold, and that is, I think for a society to be a democratic society, in particular, to be effective, its citizens must be informed, and I’ll even use the word educated and informed. And educated. I’m not talking about college degrees or PhDs, but have some level of understanding of how a society works, some understanding of the issue. So that is for that reason that over the years, I’ve supported and been involved in public education, including serving on the Board of Education, where I live right now in University Heights, Cleveland Heights-University Heights. And the City Club, for me, serves a similar purpose also. I believe very strongly in free speech, but my real purpose is to work as hard and as smart as I can to make sure that people are informed and that I’m informed actually, as well.
Tom Humphrey [00:04:58] It’s a byproduct of keeping others informed.
Steve Bullock [00:05:01] Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:02] Just as kind of an aside, I may be wrong. It seems to me that W.E.B. du Bois made some of those, kind of argued for the same thing. The best way to attain civil rights was to learn about what your civil rights, what people’s civil rights were, and to remain educated.
Steve Bullock [00:05:23] Yes. W.E.B. du Bois and others at that time certainly spoke on these issues. And I will admit that I am a student of all of those thinkers, W.E.B. du Bois being one of them. But I have embraced those concepts and believe them, believe in them.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:50] Okay, so you moved in Cleveland in- I’m sorry, you moved to Cleveland in 1982.
Steve Bullock [00:05:55] Yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:05:56] But you didn’t join the City Club until 1990. You joined, or you started to come to the City Club when it was in its current space, is that correct?
Steve Bullock [00:06:04] No, I actually was involved in the old space as well. And before we came here building. Right. Yeah. In fact, my first activity with the City Club would have been sometime in 1982. A gentleman who is now deceased by the name of Bert Gardner, was a longtime member here. And one of the people who, you know that I spent a lot of time. We belong to a fraternity, same fraternity. Anyway, he invited me to come and introduce myself to an audience and discuss the work that we were doing at the time. So that was. And that would have been like maybe the spring of 1982. And then, as I said, I served on a number of committees, but Well, I didn’t get involved on committees until we were here. We were in this space, but I was. And I attended a number of forums in the, in the old space as well.
Tom Humphrey [00:07:12] Who kind of stands out as well? Let’s back up. I’m sorry.
Steve Bullock [00:07:16] Okay.
Tom Humphrey [00:07:18] No, no, let’s go that way. Who stands out? Bertrand Gardner invites you to the club, asks you to come. Start coming to the club and getting a little involved. Start coming to some forms. Who are the people that kind of stand out as speakers that you remember in the 1980s? Who you think, oh, yes, I remember.
Steve Bullock [00:07:36] That person or two, or maybe just one. That’s fine. I’m not going to probably remember some of the names of some of the people in the 80s. There were a number of. And I’m not going to remember the times anyway, but there were a number of national figures who came, like the president and so forth. But when I really got involved, I remember John Glenn and people like that. And then of course, Clinton and Bush. Presidents. President Clinton and President Bush, more appropriately stated. But I will tell you that my recollection is more about the issue than about the presenter in most cases now I remember the presidents because they were president, you know, but for the most part I focused on the subjects.
Tom Humphrey [00:08:45] Okay, let’s go at that area a little differently then.
Steve Bullock [00:08:49] What issues do you use?
Tom Humphrey [00:08:53] In other words, when you saw somebody less concerned about who was speaking, more concerned about what they were talking about.
Steve Bullock [00:08:59] What made you say that? Yes, okay. And I don’t want to do an overkill on this issue of public education, but it was almost always something about public education that caused me to say, I want to be there, I want to hear this. And largely because of the difficulty in addressing the issues and trying to make public education successful. So I’m, like I said earlier, I want other folks to be informed, but the byproduct of that is for Steve Bullock to be informed. So I always found my way to as many of those kind of presentations as possible. Local presenters and national presenters. So that’s been going on since I first came to Cleveland and continued, of course, after I joined the club. Some other issues that. And these have been more recent, particularly during the time I was president of the club. Issues like same-sex marriage. And I would say that my position on same-sex marriage is about as firm as any zealot could be. But I learned a lot, and that’s by listening to people who are on the opposite side of the issue, that than I am who favor same-sex marriage. And I still do not. But I have a lot better understanding of what the issue is about and a lot, I think, more sensitivity to it as a result of paying attention and listening to others. And that would be true on a lot of other subjects. And I’ll just mention one other. That’s been almost a lifetime issue for me as well, and that is because of my work with the Red Cross. I don’t know if you know this, but the Israeli Red Cross had been, until now, denied, just recently had been denied admission to the international Red Cross to be affiliated with the international Red Cross movement. And the reason for that is they refused to accept the cross as the emblem for the Red Cross and wanted to bring their own. And the world just worked out that issue, but we all worked hard on it and tried to understand why we couldn’t fix this. And we had a number of speakers come to this club to talk about that and talk about the relationship actually between Israel and the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Arab world.
Tom Humphrey [00:12:00] Okay, what were some of the issues or what are some of the issues that you think that are critical to public education in a place like northern Ohio?
Steve Bullock [00:12:13] I think the real issue probably is the system itself. It is very- Sometimes I say it’s not uncomplicated, which means it’s complicated. I mean, it is complicated and I think doesn’t work well. And when I talk about the system, I think there are rules and policies put in place that may not even be necessary. I mean, that do not contribute to the success of educating people, educating students. So that’s one. And that’s one of the reasons a lot of these folks running off and starting other independent charter schools and things like that. But the other thing is. And this will be controversial, I’m sure, but it’s what I believe. The people who have the ability, the capacity, resources and learning, the people who have the capacity to help fix the public education system have abandoned the system and gone the public education and have gone on to private or some other means. And they’ve taken their, as much as they can, their resources and certainly their expertise with them. So, I mean, I think that’s a real issue. And we see that when there’s an attempt to pass a levy, they don’t pass. Now, there are a lot of other reasons they don’t pass, but that’s certainly one of them. I think the third thing I’ll mention is the lack of- And perhaps the inability to involve the parents of the students is a real barrier to effectively educating students.
Tom Humphrey [00:14:36] Do you think the. This is part of my overall public education too. I get to interview people and I get to ask them questions that maybe aren’t exactly what everybody’s looking for. But I get to educate myself. So I’m going to do it. I get to ask people who are much more expertise on subjects than I am. Do you think the funding system in the state of Ohio is part of the problem?
Steve Bullock [00:14:58] I think in Ohio the way schools are funded is definitely an issue, a major issue. I think there are a lot of inequities in it and it is difficult for the system, the school district, to keep up with cost of educating even when it’s well managed. And that obviously is another problem. And it’s not- Right. It’s a separate issue. Right. It’s not always well managed. But even when the district is well-managed, it is difficult for the district to be able to keep up with cost. And they can’t do it in this state without going back to the voters. And that’s where the problem comes in. So I mean you can. I don’t know how you can, as it stands now, how you can be successful without going back to the public every two, three or four years at least.
Tom Humphrey [00:16:02] Well, especially because the state is reducing.
Steve Bullock [00:16:04] The amount of money it puts into school districts. And before I came to Ohio, I understand the lottery was. Institute was voted in and there was supposed to be lots of money coming from that. And I still another reason why I go to these sessions. I still don’t understand where that. What’s going on with that, where that money went. [crosstalk] Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:16:26] That’s a good question. Less and less of it seems to go to- Well, to become the cash cow for the state.
Steve Bullock [00:16:33] Yeah. Doesn’t go to schools.
Tom Humphrey [00:16:34] No, it was designed to. Do you have a solution in mind? Do you have a plan? I mean there are a lot of plans for fixing the funding. I think one is better than another.
Steve Bullock [00:16:49] No, I’m not sure what the answer is. I think that if there could be, and I don’t know if this will ever happen, if the voters would ever agree to this, so I don’t even push it. But if there could ever be a time when we would agree that there would be some sharing between the poor communities and the wealthier and maybe wealthy isn’t the right word, but the better off communities, we might be headed towards something that would help to solve some of it.
Tom Humphrey [00:17:28] Well, the discrepancies in expenditure per student is dramatic. It’s almost directly reflected in how each school district scores on the state tests. It’s certainly an issue The Supreme Court is this Ohio Supreme Court has declared the property tax method of funding. The Supreme Court has declared that it’s unconstitutional.
Steve Bullock [00:17:48] Right, correct. Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:17:49] They did that some years ago.
Steve Bullock [00:17:50] Right. Several years ago. Well, the, I think the reason is at least they don’t believe they have the ability to put any teeth in that in their decision. They say you need to fix it, state legislature fix it. But there’s no, they haven’t done it and there’s been no punishment or anything as a result of that.
Tom Humphrey [00:18:17] Right. Well, the politicians who could promote it or who could propose it from wealthier communities.
Steve Bullock [00:18:23] I’m not going to political suicide plan.
Tom Humphrey [00:18:26] And of course the people from poor communities have been ringing the bell for a long time.
Steve Bullock [00:18:30] Yeah. But this sort of goes back to my earlier comment about one of the problems is that the people who have the ability to make a difference have gone to a different place in their, their influence is not being felt where it probably if felt could make a difference.
Tom Humphrey [00:18:56] I guess go back to the City Club.
Steve Bullock [00:19:00] But this is fun. I enjoy this.
Tom Humphrey [00:19:03] This is the thing that drives people out of urban areas in many respects. It’s not that there’s not loveliest housing. It’s not that there aren’t lovely neighborhoods. It’s not that there aren’t great places to live and raise kids. There are, there are parks and pools and everything else and great libraries and what have you. But if people feel like they’re not getting a good, if they’re not going to be able to send their kids to high quality public schools, then they’re.
Steve Bullock [00:19:28] Going to get somewhere else. Yeah. And even if they didn’t intend to use the public schools and that’s the case, a lot of people prefer the parochial schools and others prefer private schools. And I think that’s wonderful. But even so, even if they plan to send did not plan to send their children to the public schools, they still want a good safe system if they’re going to live in that community.
Tom Humphrey [00:19:57] That’s a big issue and it’s faced, I think by almost every major urban center in the country. I haven’t seen any hard long lives solutions.
Steve Bullock [00:20:07] Right, right.
Tom Humphrey [00:20:12] When were you president of the City Club and kind of how did you, did you run for president of the club? Did somebody ask you to be president of the club or like many people who had organizations like this, did you just miss a meeting?
Steve Bullock [00:20:27] No, it didn’t happen when I, as a result of missing a meeting. But let me go back to the beginning as to why I ended up joining in 1990. I’d had these conversations with Bert Gardner. And then the other person was Dick Pogue. Excuse me, another person, I should say, not the other. Chester Gray was someone that I talked with about the City Club a lot. The Tafts, Seth and Rick, [inaudible], Larry Robinson, folks that I talked to about the City Club. And it was actually Chester Gray and Dick Pogue who encouraged me to. Well, after I joined, who encouraged me to come on the board. In fact, Dick Pogue had someone call me to say that they were going to be my campaign chair. And in the early days, maybe you’ve heard this if you didn’t know it, to get on the board, you had to run, you had to campaign. And my reaction to that was, you know, I’m on a lot of boards already, and I don’t need to campaign to get on as much as I like the City Club, and I’ll do whatever I can, but I don’t need to campaign to get on the board. So I didn’t campaign. And then eventually they changed that rule, and Dick Pogue and Jim Foster came back to me and asked me if I would consider being nominated for the board. And I said yes. Once I got on the board, I chaired the Program Committee and was involved in a number of other committees. And I had an interest in stepping into a greater leadership role. And I was asked by, again, Dick Pogue and other members of the board to be. If I’d be willing to be considered for that. So I served as vice president and then for one year. Two years. One year, I think. And then I stood for president and I was elected.
Tom Humphrey [00:22:46] So this is in the early 1990s.
Steve Bullock [00:22:48] No, this was- No, this was- I was- I served on the board seven years. So this is- And I’m still on. Because now I’m a past president. Yeah. So I just finished my seven years this year. So it would have been- I would have been president three years ago now. Three years removed. So, yeah, about 2003. Yeah. I remember having Blackwell here, had not met him. That wasn’t very interesting. I’m a Democrat and he’s a Republican, by the way. Let me say this. When you are involved with the City Club, if you are a true believer in free speech, and especially when you become president of the City Club, you will find yourself in situations where you’re supposed to be polite, more than politically correct, but cordial and supportive of people who are, who share beliefs that are totally foreign to your own. So that happened. Not foreign, but certainly on the opposite side. So that happened to me a lot of times, including I remember when we had the guy from Lambda Legal. He came during my time as president. This was the same-sex marriage guy. And I thought I got to pray about this one. But it was a wonderful. I spent the day with him and he made his presentation and I’m the guy who’s applauding him. But I don’t agree with you. So it’s just really an interesting experience. But again, it was a growth experience for me because it really helped me to understand that I need to respect their beliefs although I don’t agree with- But anyway, back to your question. How I became president. When I became president, I served president one year and I did one year. Although when I first started, I thought the job of president is a lot more than standing up at that podium on Friday and introducing the speaker. I mean, you’re chair of the board and you need to be making some other things happen. So when I first started, I thought, well, you know, I need more than a year to try to accomplish all the things that we talked about accomplishing. We were trying to initiate a strategic plan and we did, but it didn’t get- It just got completed. The third person, the second person to follow me, actually completed it and took that much time. So I was saying maybe I should serve more than one year. But about halfway through that first year, I was saying, I’ll be glad when the six months is over so I can do some other things in my life other than this. Because it really was, if you do it, it’s a full time job.
Tom Humphrey [00:26:01] So I’ve seen that question was a little out of order. Let’s go back to- You’ve been attending club functions for a while and you finally joined the club. What kind of group urged you to jump the barrier, if you will, leap across and finally jump into the club?
Steve Bullock [00:26:21] I think I would have done it sooner except that I was very busy, not overwhelmed, but very busy trying to move the Red Cross to a different place. So I, at that time, I was limiting myself to the other activities that I got involved in. Although one of the outcomes of Leadership Cleveland is that you’re supposed to get yourself involved in community activities. But we were- The Red Cross was in an old building just over in Prospect in Playhouse Square area. And the organization, not being overly critical, but the organization needed a bit of rebirth in terms of what it was doing, its programs, how it was structured, how we were funding ourselves. So I spent time on that and we ended up getting out of the building. We moved into the building into our new building in 1990. And then after that, I began to get more involved, and I was ready to get involved here.
Tom Humphrey [00:27:40] You mentioned the Leadership, Leadership Cleveland a couple times. Could you explain what that is?
Steve Bullock [00:27:46] Leadership Cleveland, which has just been merged with two other organizations and is now called- I just got a letter today about this. It’s called Leadership Partners or something like that. Now, Lee Hill, who is a member here, is the new CEO of it. But Leadership Cleveland is a program that was sponsored by the Growth Association before the Growth Association merged with Cleveland Tomorrow. And they sponsor an annual program in which they select- In my time, it was about 50 individuals, and I don’t think they’ve gone beyond 60 individuals in the community from various segments of the community. I was there representing the nonprofit sector. There were several of us from the nonprofit sector, the business sector, the religious sector, education, seven or eight others, small business, large business. And they select executives from those institutions and put them through a year’s program, introducing them to the Greater Cleveland community and the issues facing the Greater Cleveland community and potential possible solutions. And the people who go through the program are supposed to be a part of the solution because you learn what the issues are and then you’re expected to help to try to address them. So every year they graduate 40, 50 individuals through that program. They become members of the Leadership Cleveland alumni.
Tom Humphrey [00:29:45] So you kind of ask them to join the club and then tell them to sit down, roll up their sleeves and get to work?
Steve Bullock [00:29:50] Right. Right. Correct. Absolutely.
Tom Humphrey [00:29:53] That seems- How many clubs operate? What other clubs did you join in the city? Social clubs or athletic clubs or something like that?
Steve Bullock [00:30:02] Well, I became involved, of course, with the United Way and served on committees for the Cleveland Foundation. I became involved early along at Case Western Reserve. I was on an advisory committee and chaired it for a while for the Mandel Center when the Mandel Center was first started there. And I’m still involved there. I actually teach, teach a class there, one course. So I became involved with them. I was involved with the Visiting Nurses Association for a while, the Diabetes Association. Currently I serve on the foundation board at Metro for Metro Hospital, still on the United Way board, on the executive committee of United Way. I am on the board, actually chair of the board of AAA, which is called Ohio Motorists in this area. So I’ve- And I serve on a number of scholarship committees and just at the foundation yesterday, some activities there. So those are the kinds of things. And of course, as I said, I was involved wherever possible with the public schools, including the City of Cleveland and we live in University Heights. So I was involved there. Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district serves the two communities, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, went on the board there. I actually became president of the board for one year and I served four years. And that was also during the time when I was still trying to move the Red Cross and decided that I could not run for reelection. So I just served four years and went back to work at the Red Cross.
Tom Humphrey [00:32:15] But not the City Club. I’m sorry, not the Union Club, not the Athletic Club.
Steve Bullock [00:32:19] No, I- No, we want to talk about that. Okay. I was invited to join the Athletic Club when I first came, but I joined the 13th Street Club which is down, just around the corner from the Union Club. And then later I moved my membership to the club at Marriott. I was not invited to join the Union Club in 1982 when I came here.
Tom Humphrey [00:32:54] It couldn’t have been still segregated.
Steve Bullock [00:32:55] Yeah, it was. It was in 1982 when I came here. Nolan Ellison, who was president of Tri-C and I think there was a lawyer whose name, whose name- I know him well, but I can’t think of his name right now who’s still here. And I think he’s still a member of- were the two Black members of the City Club. I mean of the Union Club. And I remember Frank Joseph took me to lunch there soon after I came and he said now I want you to know that the chances are you won’t become a member here. And I said well I’m fine. I’m not applying. And he told me about- He said it wasn’t that long ago that I couldn’t be a member here. And he’s Jewish. So you know, we had that conversation and we went on with our lives. And then I’m going to say maybe 10 or 12 years ago they decided to really push forward to try to get African Americans and other non-white members. And I was one of the people. They sent these old guys.That doesn’t sound nice. But anyway, the older members agreed to do this. So a couple of them called me, took me to lunch and would you consider it? And my attitude was there probably was a time when I really needed the Union Club. And it probably would have been when I first came to help me network and meet the people that I needed to get to know to get the support for the Red Cross. And not only Red Cross, Red Cross and all the other organizations that I was involved with, but Leadership Cleveland did that for me. I mean it really introduced me to- Which is one of the great benefits of Leadership Cleveland is. Your network is as good as it gets in Leadership Cleveland, and the relationships are sincere. So I didn’t need the Union Club, and I knew that they didn’t want me and I didn’t need them, so why should I join? And now they’ve come a long way, and I applaud them, really. There’s a good friend of mine, a woman, is president of the board at the Union Club, so she’s on me again. Come on, you got to come with me. You got to come. And I love you and I’ll support you in any way I can, but I don’t have any interest or need to join the Junior Club.
Tom Humphrey [00:35:36] So what was the City Club like when you first started in the 1980s?
Steve Bullock [00:35:41] It was integrated from the beginning. It was integrated and friendly. I think there’s still an issue here. And we talked about it when I was president, and we still talk about it, you know, to try to open, open it up. It is open already to anybody who wants to become a member, but it is viewed by a lot of folks, particularly Blacks, as still being white. And the reason. One of the reasons we tried to do something about this, too, is if you watch a forum, the people who stand up and ask the questions are usually white men, older white men, and there are some women as well. But usually, I mean, that’s the face that you see. So people, even younger people, it’s an issue there as well. We started this young leaders group, and that has helped, but for the most part, they don’t come to the Friday Forums. Now, there are a lot of other reasons. They’re working, and they’re at a level where they can’t take off for an hour and a half. Usually, most of them in their workplace, they’re trying to climb the ladder there. So there’s still the need to try. And that’s part of this strategic plan, is one of the initiatives is the diversity issue, is to try to- There’s no need to change the policies, but there’s a need to communicate more effectively to the total community that, you know, the City Club is a club, is a place for everybody who lives in Northeast Ohio in the period that-
Tom Humphrey [00:37:35] You became more active, I guess after 19, after you joined. And then I’ll ask that in a second. Now I’ll go ahead and ask. In the period after you joined in 1990. Well, when you joined, the club was kind of on a downward cycle a little bit. It was losing members, but membership was declining.
Steve Bullock [00:37:58] Yeah, it was kind of it was, I don’t know how you describe. Was an organization that was very quiet, almost invisible, hiding in that building where they were and not really going anyplace. I think that’s right.
Tom Humphrey [00:38:19] Right. In the 1990s, when you started to take a more active role in the club, there were several members of the club and the club itself that the people who run the club, the administrators.
Steve Bullock [00:38:32] Who run the club.
Tom Humphrey [00:38:36] Pushed for more active drive or pushed for more active recruitment of members. They moved to a new space here. And then maybe you could kind of take us through what happens after the club moves here as the club tries to revitalize itself in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Steve Bullock [00:38:55] Yeah. And I’m going to say that Jim Foster deserves and should have a lot of applause and credit for helping to change the image and the activities here. But moving here, we begin to open up to more than. More often, I think, and somebody might debate me on this, but to more than the members and inviting a few guests now and then when there was an activity. The club is now first open for lunch, serve lunch for people who are non members. And you can bring a guest or bring guests. And then there are a lot of activities, organizations that bring their activities here, even having weddings here. So it is. When I said earlier, it was invisible. It is no longer invisible. It is really a public, open, public institution facility. And I think having. After doing the work that we did, because when we first came here, it didn’t look like what you. You’ll see it now. It still needed work. And then I actually was away for almost two years. I went to Washington and headed up the National Red Cross for a while between Elizabeth Dole and the next president. They did this work while I was away. When I came back, I didn’t recognize the place. But the capital campaign was underway before I left, so I knew something was going on, but I didn’t know what it was, what’s going to look like. So once we did that and invited other organizations, outside organizations to use the place, I think it really changed, helped to change the image and we have changed our staffing. We had that happen, actually, when I was president, we. We brought on another person who focused solely on membership. We had someone before membership and fundraising. So we’ve been able to grow the membership. And the Young Leaders group was. And I can’t somebody will tell you when that was started, but that too, I think helped. Yeah, helped to really open the place up, to make it more alive.
Tom Humphrey [00:41:40] Do you think in the late 1990s, there was kind of a double push to increase membership.
Steve Bullock [00:41:44] Oh, yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:41:45] Capital campaign.
Steve Bullock [00:41:46] Yeah. Triple push or whatever, maybe. Yeah. Because we were looking at trying to increase our fundraising. I mean, after. Obviously the capital campaign was a big push, but because that was one time, you know, you get response. But then you got to continue and we started to do a lot of, I think, more emphasis on the plan gifts, getting people to make, put the organization in their wills and other plans, gift tools. And that’s really been great. But the other thing was the efforts to present ourselves to a broader audience. And what I mean by that, using technology to distribute some of the programs, you know, making it available to people online or whatever. You know, just using the technology that was available to us and we had people. That’s not one of my areas of strength, but I know my interest, particularly when I was president, was let’s find a way to get to reach more people and also find a way to use those products to generate revenue. So I think we’re doing fine and still got a lot of work to do, but in a lot of ways.
Tom Humphrey [00:43:27] Do you think. I guess there are two questions. Do you think that there was a change in the kind. In the club’s kind of atmosphere, the culture of the club, as the club brought in more corporate dollars, both among the membership and the kind of speakers people brought in or tried to bring in?
Steve Bullock [00:43:47] Yeah. Well, I’m not sure that- I think sort of upgrading the club as a place helped to increase our success and where we’re getting money from the corporate community, but I think it helped to involve them more. Like the Dave Daberkos. You know, he [Dave Daberko] comes to events, I mean, to Friday Forums- I mean, not just him, but other CEOs in the city. And I think we don’t pay speakers, so the money didn’t in terms of getting the speaker, although we do. We have these agreements and I could put Continental provide transportation, hotels and stuff like that, but I think just an increase in the number of broadcast sites like radio stations and so forth. I think that helped to. It helped us to upgrade the level of speakers, the national speakers, and that helped to attract other people in the community to come to the forums.
Tom Humphrey [00:45:18] Somebody I interviewed before said that when he first started hearing about the club in the .70s, maybe even into the 80s, it was somewhat less. Less relevant for him. It was less relevant to members of the business community, but it has become more relevant lately. Do you think that’s-
Steve Bullock [00:45:33] And I’d be curious as to, you know, why he said that. But I know we’ve had, like, the banks, you know, we’ve had secretary treasurer here. We’ve had other economists, you know, who speak to business issues. And so I think maybe. Maybe it wasn’t relevant when he first. In the seventies. I don’t know what was going on in the ’70s, but I do know that we made a concerted effort to try to make sure that we were. We had diversity also in our speakers in terms of their subjects and the expertise that they bring. And we’ve tried to bring people that appeal to every segment of the community, especially the business community.
Tom Humphrey [00:46:24] Do you think that the attempts to kind of draw a national audience. I think the City Club broadcasts some 200 radio stations.
Steve Bullock [00:46:33] Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Tom Humphrey [00:46:34] I can’t remember exactly the number off the top of my head.
Steve Bullock [00:46:37] In about 30 states, I think.
Tom Humphrey [00:46:41] Do you think that broad reach is kind of affected? Well, one has it enabled the club to bring in kind of speakers that it didn’t have access to before on a more regular basis? Yeah, lots of famous people, lots of important people have strolled through the club and given their speeches. But that kind of access opens it up to. Do you think it has opened it up to more people like that, maybe a national level?
Steve Bullock [00:47:04] Yeah, I think so. Now, I hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to, say, before the 80s, you know, as to what, although there’s some. You walk down that hall, you see the pictures of folks who were clearly here in the ’60s. But I know that it has created this broader reach, has enabled us to get national speakers, especially political personalities, you know, because everybody who runs for president, just about everybody, has come. Even during the primaries, they’ve come here. And I also know that it’s because they know that they’re going to be heard more than. However, we sometimes move the forum from here to a hotel, as I’m sure you’re aware. So, like when Condoleezza Rice was here, we went out to one of the big party centers, hotels, I guess, just so we could have 1,000, 1,500 people instead of the number that we can get in here. But still, that’s not the end of the reach because broadcast those as well. We broadcast and then we also make it available through the technology program. And that is more very recent. I mean, much more recent.
Tom Humphrey [00:48:43] Yeah, last like just a few years. Do you think the club used to have a kind of. It was a nationally important club, but it also had kind of a local feel to it. Do you think that local feel as being the local subject kind of matter, as being not necessarily pushed aside, but there’s less space for it because the club can- Because of its broader reach, because perhaps it’s reaching out to the corporate community and because they can, you know, the club can touch base with somebody in a company and say, do you know this person? Can you make an ask for us? I think that’s kind of a, not a negative result, but one of the unintended consequences that there’s less kind of local play at the club, at least in the Friday Forums.
Steve Bullock [00:49:29] Well, certainly I would agree that it’s probably true in the Friday Forums, but I don’t- It has not been eliminated. And I will tell you that. That I know that was a concern about on the part of some of the membership, because when we were doing the strategic plan, I heard that, you know, this is the Cleveland City Club, not the National City Club. And I, as president, I listened for those. In fact, I said to people, look, pull me back if I’m going away someplace that the City Club of Cleveland doesn’t want to go. Because initially I thought, hey, we ought to compete with the Press Club in Washington. And in a way we do, but we do have to, I think, remember, the founding purpose is really local was Cleveland. So we don’t do as much of it on Fridays as I’m sure we did in those early- Well, even when I first was involved. But we have forums sometimes three times a week. There was one today. But honest, I think that’s a legitimate question and it’s also a legitimate caution for us, for the City Club.
Tom Humphrey [00:50:58] Sometimes being big can be bad.
Steve Bullock [00:51:00] Yes. Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:51:01] Can lead to problems, and certainly led to problems a couple years ago with Antonin Scalia.
Steve Bullock [00:51:06] Yeah.
Tom Humphrey [00:51:07] What was your- I don’t ask anybody what their role in this was because it’s not the right question to ask. You were involved in the club at the time?
Steve Bullock [00:51:19] Yes.
Tom Humphrey [00:51:20] Was this a surprising development when he said, by the way, no recording.
Steve Bullock [00:51:24] It was surprising. Actually. It was a surprise for all of us. Actually. I was president at that time, but Dick Pogue, and I don’t know how many times you’ve heard that name since you’ve been interviewing, but I accuse him of running the club, and he does pretty much. And that’s not negative. I mean, he’s done some great things for this club. But we got Scalia through Dick Pogue’s efforts, and Dick Pogue, I think. I’m not sure that Jim. Jim might have spoken with him direct before he got here, but I know he spoke with staff and Pogue was the guy who had the direct contact. But even Pogue was surprised because we had explained to him what this was all about. We meaning Jim. The two people were talking, Jim Foster and Dick Pogue. But apparently he didn’t get it until he got here. And not only no recording, but no fundraiser. And we didn’t hear that until, actually, we heard the fundraiser piece when we were in the reception. He said it to Dick, and I forgot what Dick’s answer was, but it was a good lawyer’s answer that satisfied Scalia. No, it wasn’t that. It was a spin on what it really was. And he said, okay, fine. That’s fine. But he said he can’t be a speaker at a fundraiser and he did not want it recorded.
Tom Humphrey [00:53:21] Political ramifications.
Steve Bullock [00:53:22] Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:53:22] And, you know, as a Supreme Court justice, he doesn’t want to be affiliated with one group or tries not to be affiliated with one group. Large part is he knows what’s coming up on the docket.
Steve Bullock [00:53:32] Yeah, right. And I again, talk about- Understand the other guy’s point of view, but when he said it, I was about ready to faint. I thought, we have all these people here. What are we going to do now? Have Dick Pogue get up and speak, explain the activities of the Supreme Court or something? I don’t know. Anyway, it ended okay. We did end up some national news, a little negative press, but, you know, I don’t know if we even had some people. You know, that was our special award, Free Speech Award. And there were people who were saying we should never do this again because there’s so much trouble. You know, we should never do this again. And we just had Andrew Young this year, just a few months ago, and he didn’t talk about anything. So people were disappointed with that. Yeah, right. Well, John Glenn was- John Glenn was the first one. And we had it at the Renaissance, and it was really a great event, but all three of them were good events. We just had some challenges around two of them.
Tom Humphrey [00:54:58] Let me ask you kind of one final question, then I’ll let you tell me if you have anything you want to mention before we end here. It does seem to me kind of coming to some of the. Coming to things. And I was a New Leader for a while. Over 40, they kick you out, they take the key.
Steve Bullock [00:55:19] But they give you another one. You can-
Tom Humphrey [00:55:22] Yeah. Now I go to the other club.
Steve Bullock [00:55:23] Right.
Tom Humphrey [00:55:25] But it does seem that the club has a problem kind of attracting African American members, younger especially. And so how is the club kind of addressing this issue? This is a critical issue in a community that’s largely African? Not largely, but there’s a significant non-white population. So how does the club address these issues moving forward?
Steve Bullock [00:55:44] Well, I think there are a number of ways that we’ve attempted to approach it. At one time, we had no African American or any non-white staff, and we talked about that a lot. So we have two people here now, and one of them is with membership. So I think that makes a difference. The other thing is, when we did our strategic plans, we identified that whole area, which we call in diversity, and we had great debate about where we should focus. But we settled. Everybody agreed that, look, we don’t want the club to exclude anyone, but let’s focus on those groups that we clearly are absent. And that starts with the African American community. They’re clearly absent here for the most part. So we’re taking a number of steps trying to develop relationships with African American organizations, businesses and invite. I am not coming as often as I used to now, although I will get back to that just because I’ve been overloaded on some other stuff and I just bring a guest and I guess I’m being a segregationist in some way because I always bring a Black guest and I buy a table and invite people to come just to try to get them introduced to the club and appreciating. And every time I bring someone, they love it. You know, it costs you 35. It’s more than that now, but just a few bucks, you could be a member and come on your own anytime you want. So I just think we have to- It’s slow. It’s going to be slow, but I think we have to work hard at that. And I really emphasize this when you may know this name, Boyd’s Funeral Home, which is largely- Well, it’s totally on the east side, I guess, but the old man Bill Boyd that is a member of our church, and I consider him a friend, he and Chester Gray were very good friends. He has never become a member. Chester used to bring him to the City Club. So when Chester passed away, I started to invite him. And one day he called me. He said, why are you a member of the City Club? And I said, bill, what are you asking me? He said, well, I asked Chester that same question and I said, I don’t see any Black folks there, so why are you there? And I said, because I’m there because I’m interested in what the club does. And I’m also interested in having Black people exposed to what goes on there. And I would like you to help me do that. So I still haven’t gotten him to join, but he’s elderly, not good health. So I’m going to work on his son, who’s also on the board at AAA with me. But you know, as I said, there are places, there used to be and there still are places in our society where I’m not sure other minorities have the same feeling, but I know that, that Black folks look at these places and say, well, that’s not really for me. I mean, I don’t see any of us there. And so it must not be fuss and they just ignore it. Which is not a good thing. I mean, I had that same challenge when I first started with the Red Cross. There were very few. When I became the executive director of the St. Paul Red Cross, I was the first African American to serve and be appointed to that position. So we just still have a long way to go. I guess there are still white institutions in the minds of some people. So this club, and we’ve heard that not from this diversity committee, has heard that from people other than me, they brought in. It was chaired actually by Courtney until she just became president, but she chaired that committee and she really did work hard at getting people to come in and just talk about why they, why they’re not involved and what do we need to do to try to improve that. So, as I said, it’s a slow process, but I think each of us working at it will eventually beat it.
Tom Humphrey [01:00:40] Do you have any other stories, anything else that you’d like to mention at this time before we kind of sign off on the camera and the recording? We’ve been at it for almost an hour.
Steve Bullock [01:00:50] Okay.
Tom Humphrey [01:00:51] As much as I feel I can talk.
Steve Bullock [01:00:56] No, I don’t think, I don’t think of anything off the top of my head at this point that we’ve missed. I would just say this. I think I know that I’ve seen the club change in a lot of ways in the time that I’ve been involved in the time that I became aware of his existence, distance. And then the time that I later when I became involved. And for me, it has been a great experience and a growth experience for me. And I attempted to try to add value to the degree that I could during the time that I was on the board. Now, as I said to the board a few meetings ago, I am no longer- I am ex officio. So I don’t have a vote. I have to learn how to be Dick Pogue, who influences decision making without voting. But it’s been a great. It’s been a great experience and I’ve tried to do as much as I can and I intend to stick around. I mean, all past chairs or presidents are invited to stay on as ex officio. And one of the issues that I intend to try to continue to help with is this matter of the perception of the club in the African American community and the lack of involvement of the African American community at the club. What I’d like to see happen- One more comment on that subject. What I really would like to see happen, my observation has been that when we have the Secretary of the Treasury here, we have the Dave Daberkos and Henry Meyers. If we have someone else at that level from Washington, you get the big CEOs and, and the audience is almost totally white. And when we have got, well, say Andrew Young, then you get Black people coming. I’d like to see a good mix at both. I mean, I think whites need to hear Andrew Young and I think Blacks need to hear the Secretary of Treasury. So that’s a long-term goal for me and we’ll continue to work at it.
Tom Humphrey [01:03:41] Well, I want to thank you very much for talking with you. It’s been great talking with you. I think we came to about an hour, a little bit more than an hour. Okay, we’ll turn these off.
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