From Jewels to Schools: Meet Board President Phillip Ellison

In this episode, we meet Philip Ellison, our newly appointed Board President and Executive Director, Procurement Services for Spring ISD. Philip shares his fascinating journey from working in the jewelry industry to a career in school procurement. We also discuss the importance of employee recognition programs and the impact of volunteerism, offering insights into how these initiatives contribute to student success and effective operational practices within TASBO and beyond.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today, we welcome our new board president, Philip Ellison, who is Executive Director of Procurement Services for Spring ISD. In this episode, we learn about Philip's first career in the jewelry business before getting into school business. We also discuss the value of recognition to employees and volunteerism. I'm your host, Tom Greer, with special guest host and Tasco Executive Director, Tracy Ginsburg. We want to get to know Philip, our new president, better. Do you have any hidden talents or surprising facts about yourself that you're willing to share on the podcast

Phillip Ellison - Jewelry Designer

SPEAKER_01 0:38

space?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Surprising facts. Well, uh, let's see. Before I got into purchasing, I was a jeweler, worked for a jeweler in high school, and um ended up going to New York and getting a degree in jewelry design. And so while I was there, um I did some freelance uh designing for the diamond district there, and then also uh worked for a uh one of the premier 18 karat and platinum gold or platinum jewelry companies in the country. Uh we were making things for Van Cleaf and Arpills, Cartier, Harry Winston, Tiffany. So um that was a that was a really amazing opportunity. Um but yeah, so that's a little bit about me.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So how did you go from that to purchasing? I wanted to ask you this for a very long time.

Transition to School Procurement

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Okay, well, let's see. Um there was a reason that I did. So I ended up being in the workshop, right? And and and missed that interaction with the customer. And what I didn't realize until 15, 20 years later was the reason I was dissatisfied working there is because I lost that interaction with the customer and lost that satisfaction of making things for somebody. And so when I talked to my boss and I was like, I'm not happy. And he's like, Well, you might want to work at, you know, start up your own business. And I said, How'd you do that? And he said, Well, when I moved here from Germany, I built this shop and I built a studio platform up above his office. It was about a foot and a half tall with a mattress in it. And he slid in there and slept there for seven years until he could build his clientele and then move his family over. And I was like, Yeah, I have zero interest in doing that. And so I started looking back into what in jewelry did I enjoy, other than you know, making jewelry. And um, there was a point at which I was working for a costume jewelry company when I first moved to New York and I worked in the design room. And I was uh my job was to make the items that were designed by the jewelry, the the designers. I I was my job was to make them manufacturable. And so we had a manufacturing facility of about a hundred employees. Very few of them spoke English, and they needed a template of how to make things 100 an hour. And so I worked in the in this in the supply room with all the findings, and so I got familiar with all the different parts and working with the suppliers, and I thought, well, you know what? Fashion buying and merchandising. I'll be out there buying jewelry for Van Cleef and Arpels, or I'm sorry, for Sax Fifth Avenue. And then I would go to all these estate sales around the United States, and I would buy this jewelry, and then then they'd sell it at Saks. And I talked to a uh fashion buying merchandising professor at FIT, and he said, Well, no, that's not really how it works. He said, if you're a fashion buyer and you're working for a retailer, you could be working in estate jewelry one week, but if we need you in toddler's underwear the next week, you've got to go over there. I said, Yeah, not so interested in that. So uh started looking around the country to purchasing, fashion buying, something like that, and found that there were only two universities in the country that had purchasing as a degree at the time. And one was University of Houston downtown, where I first started going to school, and where my dad was an adjunct professor. And then the other one was University of Arizona. And so I was able to move back home with my family, go to school with my dad, and uh and spent some really, really wonderful time with him. And so that's so so my degree is in purchasing materials.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

What was your dad? I mean, off topic, but what kind of adject professor? What was his specialty?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

He he was a math professor.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Ah, that doesn't surprise me either. Well, I think that was so much fun. What an honor.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

It was it was a real blessing because um my junior my junior year, he was diagnosed with cancer and um no, my sophomore year, and then my I was able to help my mom take care of my dad, and we'd lay down in bed at night and we'd tuck him into bed and just talk about life. And it was just, you know, when you I left when I was 17, 18. And and when you're 18, your parents are idiots, right? They don't know anything. And so I was in my early 20s when I moved back home and really found a appreciation for my parents and got to spend that time with my dad. It was a real, real opportunity. Oh, how awesome. Yeah, that story. You know, purchasing being my my second career, and one of the things I did realize is how blessed I've been because I've been I've had the opportunity to be in places that um help me satisfy my core my core need, right? That gives me fulfillment in life. And and and that's to satisfy other people's needs. I mean, you know, some people get uh get in trouble by over volunteering, right? They volunteer for this organization or that organization or multiple organizations. And I've unfortunately I'm one of those people, or my wife has always been, okay, Philip, you got to cut back. You can't, you can't do that. If you're gonna do that one, you gotta cut back on that one. And and it's just been this, I don't know, internal drive for me to to have that need to satisfy other people, uh, to make other people happy, uh, really. And so I mean, here I am, you know, president of Tespo. It's some something worked out right through all that. Um procurement um I found fits that mold, right? And I'm buying things for other people. And I mean, I'm using taxpayer funds, but I have internal customers that have needs, and I'm satisfying those needs. And so that's been, you know, my passion, but it's also been my drive for the last 30 years. Um, you know, I went from private sector to higher ed and now in K-12. And so I guess that's my elevator speech, but I guess that's an elevator speech for a downtown high rise, right? With maybe a couple of stops and long, long elevator speech.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

That's all right.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

But, you know, we appreciate you serving as TASPO's president this year. We got a

Presidents Challenge - Focus on Student Success

SPEAKER_01 7:10

lot of great feedback from your president's challenge with the theme of achieving outstanding service by focusing on student success. Uh, what are practical ways for all of us to consider to embed this in your office or department?

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Well, you know, I I mean, another part of that challenge is not to be the best business official in Texas, but to be the best business partner in your entity. And I think, you know, there's a couple of ways of doing that. One is taking advantage of TASBO, right? To be the best business, business official in Texas. I mean, you've got the opportunities here with TASBO, whether it's uh through workshops or training or certifications, but the other side is partnering and partnering with uh your colleagues, and and the ultimate success is the success of students. And so, you know, practical ways of doing that, you know, be a problem solver. Don't raise concerns uh without offering solutions. My our superintendent says, don't come to me with a problem unless you have three possible solutions we can talk about. And so, you know, be creative, but think about um your situation that you're in. But also be proactive. You know, if you see something that's gonna be a train wreck, you know, let people know before it happens. Don't just sit back and go, wow, that's that's not gonna work out. Watch this, you know, be a part of the solution. But on the opposite side, you know, if you see an opportunity, get the right people around the table and see if uh you can make things happen. We just had our employee recognition banquet last weekend. And our Teacher of the Year, uh, we have a celebration for them. Obviously, we recognize them, but our local vendor, uh, a uh dealership, gives a free car to the teacher of the year. And they've done that for the last, well, because they've given away 16 cars now. And so um, you know, and that's they feel that neat because they're part of the community. Um, but afterwards, I went to the general manager and I said, hey, listen, you know, you guys have been such a great partner of ours. Why not build on that relationship? Let's see if our transportation department can use you for their white fleet or for maintenance for their vehicles and things like that. And so, you know, we went over there last week and we spoke with them and we talked about purchasing cooperatives and doing a solicitation and getting awarded that way and how can we do business with them? I mean, if we have maintenance that's needed for a vehicle, why not bring it to across the street practically to get that maintenance done? And so um, you know, there was an opportunity. So I put the right people around the table. I got the general manager of the dealership, I got the head of our transportation department and our communications group, and you know, we sat down and talked through it. So that's another way of using that uh collaborative knowledge uh to help grow grow your uh your district.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

No, that's great. You know, you talked about TASPO and the student success part and innovative part is all built into a lot of our

Recognition Programs

SPEAKER_01 10:24

recognition programs. They want us, they want to hear from that the nominees how they're contributing to success. So I think a lot of that is based on past board decisions and and volunteers who put together these programs. You guys want to talk a little bit about uh the status of all of our individual and district awards programs? Tracy?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Sure. I could start, you know, our oldest award program is the award of merit at the moment. And, you know, Philip was instrumental in its success. I mean, when I first came to TASPO, Philip was chairing that award. He uh Tom Campbell used to be on our team, kind of led it for a number of years, and then Philip took it over and built it into the program it's become. And we took the AOM, and last year I think we had 84 record recognitions, which is tremendous. We started uh less a half dozen. I believe this year will be our 15th year, or no, our 20th. Yeah. Anyway, it'll we're approaching 20 years of of nominations, uh recognitions. Several years ago we added our award of excellence, and it's just to recognize outstanding financial practices, you know. You read in the news about everything everybody's doing that's wrong, we don't ever get to celebrate what's right. And so this is an opportunity to do that. And we have about 30 districts that participate in that award. You know, it's it's a take a deep breath award. It has a lot of documentation required. And uh I'm so proud of all the districts that have stepped up from both awards.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

They're both great programs and great awards to, like Tracy said, to be recognized by your community, by the board. You also have the opportunity to create or to build your internal processes. You know, these awards are make stuff up. Let's let's, you know, hey, do you have this document, make this document up? These are things that you should already have uh in your policies and your procedures. Uh, and you're simply documenting and showing that you have them, or you're working towards getting those compliant documents um bolstered so you can show them as proof of uh fulfilling those and getting the award. So it's you know, it's it's not a it's not a um trophy because you created stuff. It's showing that you have the necessary documents to be uh a best in class uh agency. So it's a it's a great, great tool in that way.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

What I like about it, and you know, of course, you guys are more involved in the day-to-day of the application process, but I've seen enough to see that just the process itself of applying can help your department talk about the things that need to happen, the things that should be documented. Even just going through the process, whether you win a you know, the award or not, and honestly, if you go through the process and and follow the instructions and you'll be in good shape, but just going through it pays dividends.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

And I always tell people who step into a director purchasing role in a new district or CFO, I said, you know, you really should apply for these awards because it'll give you a chance to really understand what's happening in your department and if they're your areas of strength and your areas of opportunity. And so I've many people take advantage of that opportunity. And uh I'm anxious to see those programs continue to grow.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

I've been to some districts and they've talked about, well, we've never had a problem with uh our financial audit. We've passed all of our audits, and you know, I've getting had the opportunity to sit down with them and look at their operations, and they're just lacking. And the the great thing about the award of merit, it's for purchasing operations. And so it's how do you do business? It's not how do you report, but how do you do your business? And so those documents that go into um, you know, uh your policies and procedures uh give a lot a better um give more visibility to how you do business. And that's that's a real telltale sign of a strong organization.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then we have a number of individual awards, uh, you know, the RISE Award five years ago, uh, and it's to recognize those people who are new in the profession but are seeing are seen as the future. Uh, and then we realized we were kind of missing out on the uh on an a group of established business professionals, business and operations professionals, and uh the board had the foresight to implement the ambassador award. And those are people that are already involved in TASBO. They're already seen as leaders in in their district, in their community. Uh, and you know, we typically recognize five to six individuals a year there. And then the final award, uh, another award is the Pathfinder. Uh, it's for our operations folks uh who maybe uh risk management, people who, you know, are just down in the trenches making sure that all the wheels stay on, but but they're innovative in the way that they approach. We've had some terrific recognitions in the transportation area, uh, construction and trades, the director of maintenance for Beaumont several years ago was recognized. And, you know, they're the unsung heroes. And, you know, when I think back to my school career, they were the guys I like to go visit with and go walk the schools with. Because I don't know about you, Philip, but you know, I remember how much pride those teams have in their work and they love to showcase it for their fellow colleagues and and community.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I I I really like the the title Pathfinder because these are people that have um had a some some obstacle in front of them that they had to overcome. And they've found they've found the path, right? The pathfinder. They've found the path to get through that and show how they could overcome these adversities. And I I think it's a great title for the trophy, but also a great recognition for those organizations, those those groups, those departments that really um are able to put their heads together and and and dig through adversity, that grit that everyone talks about, right? To to get through those adversities. So that's a it's a great uh new award that we've added.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

No, well said, well said, Philip. And that Pathfinder Award's a sort of a hybrid individual or team award. It could be either one. We're still looking for nominations. It's really easy to nominate a colleague for any of those awards.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

I as I tell people, there are things I love about my job when I get to tell people, wow, we get to recognize you. And then sadly, you know, sometimes you tell people I'm sorry. But uh the joy and excitement of our members who receive those awards is genuine. I mean, we do not recognize ourselves enough. Uh uh, we are a very humble profession, and um, you know, we need to celebrate.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

And we did a lot of celebrating at the Tasbow Engage conference in February. We we had a wonderful awards program at the Tasbow Engage luncheon. And then throughout the conference, we had two wonderful speakers. Kevin Brown, uh, he actually talked about heroes, kind of similar to what Philip and we've been discussing on the show. And then the first general session speaker who was on the podcast a month or so ago, Ann Grady, did a wonderful job. Uh, her topic was on wellness. She was one of our highest rated speakers ever. So we appreciated her insights. And what she did is she demonstrated how to successfully improve your stress management uh with practical ways and big picture thoughts. Um as we end the school year, we still there's still a lot to do to prep to close out this school year and prep for next year. Uh, what are some tips for our members to manage that stress successfully now and also set yourself up uh uh going into next school year, Tracy?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Well, I was gonna say, and

Prepping for Success and Wellness

SPEAKER_00 18:59

you know, this is a particularly stressful budget time. I mean, Phillips lived in that. I he and I've had a conversation where he was told you're gonna have to reduce more. And uh that's a fairly new I don't want to say it's a new concept, but you know, right sizing budgets. We're we're past right sizing. Now we're into the death by a thousand cuts. And uh just finding that balance between ensuring that our employees understand that they're valuable and they're needed and that they have the tools they need to be able to operate. And so I you know, I I I actually have just been reading and more and there's now a a very uh direct connection that's being talked about between uh mental well-being and workplace satisfaction, you know, and so I I do think we have to focus more on stress and how can how can we help help you in today's world? Because it's not just the world. I don't know, Philip. I don't know about you. I don't think it's just the world internally. It's spring. I think the world around us is somewhat chaotic at the moment, and it's hard to find to feel settled.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

It's it's almost like we've been crying wolf this whole time about you know doing more with less and working harder and having to to find ways to save money or to cut back. And it it you're right, Tracy. It's that time has passed. I mean, the the squeezing, now we're cutting. And it's it's we're getting to a part where it's really gonna hurt um with the with the funding sources that we've got right now, the funding situation. So it's it's it's really gonna take individual effort to find that piece that you've that you've got to reach. Um, you know, we had a wellness event last week, and we had a a room that was set up here in our admin building, and people could go to it, and there was a massage chair, and there was aromatherapy, and there was a video show on sort of calm music, and just a place for for people to go in and try to find a little relief during the day. And um, it was nice, it was kind of therapeutic. It was it was neat. Um, but I I think people just gotta be able to dig deep and find um the purpose, right? What's your purpose and why are you here? And um if it's not ultimately to um, you know, meet the meet the needs of our students and to help educate our students, it's it's gonna be a it's gonna be a hard road to hold.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Absolutely. And so I think more than anything, I think as we wrap up the school year, we need to tell everybody how thankful we are for them. Uh we need to take Some deep breaths, and we need to find some space to find some calm.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

I am Mr. Oi, I'm soaring through the sky.