Please tell us about your career or profession.

Having retired after 35 years as a Protestant minister, I am–in my afterlife–working as full-time professional genealogist.

I served churches in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and was named Pastor Emeritus of the Congregational Church in Whitewater, Wisconsin, on my retirement therefrom. My graduate degrees in theology are from Eden Seminary in Saint Louis (Master’s) and Christian Seminary in Indianapolis (Doctorate).

As a genealogist, I am an editor, researcher, writer and volunteer board member. I founded The Genealogy Symposium with Billie Stone Fogarty, and this non-profit works to provide hands-on learning for adults in archival and library settings across the country.

How has volunteering helped you live your values?

My chapter advisor, Warner Mills Beloit ’78, made it clear that giving back was an essential part of being a man, a family man, and a Phi Psi. I have been a chapter advisor at various points since 1992 to three different chapters–my own, Wisconsin Gamma, as well as Illinois Epsilon at Illinois State University and Indiana Epsilon at Valparaiso University. Keeping in contact with undergrads and helping them spot better choices and smart decisions is probably the most rewarding part of having served the Fraternity on local levels.

Since 1992, I have served as an appointed officer of the Executive Council, most often as chaplain, frequently as Mystagogue, and on occasion as alumni director of alumni associations. It’s been a privilege to work with every national administration since Dick Ong, and with four executive directors and two interim executive directors along the way.

Throughout your time volunteering, please share a moment that has reminded you why fraternities matter.

In ancient days, the odd-year national programming by the Fraternity was the Leadership School and District Council. More than once, acting as a facilitator with undergraduate attendees, I had the chance to engage in deeply meaningful, trusting conversations with chapter leaders who were challenged by… whatever. It may have been life, it may have been a relationship, it may have been parents, it may have been academics… all of those concepts have been discussed and shared with me by my younger Brothers along the way. That they were willing to reach out and engage me, a largely unknown figure who came to be their fathers’ age, was incredibly rewarding and a real reminder that brotherhood’s bonds are not limited to generation or to chapter, but are a real asset and benefit to all of us–young and old–across the years.

If you could give your college-self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Relax. All the pressures to which we are subjected as undergrads are all-too-often self-imposed. That is not to suggest one should become a slacker, rather, the importance and life-long benefit of fraternal life includes the important gift of memory making within the chapter experience. Even now, more than 40 years since I was a neophyte, I can recall the names and hometowns of all my pledge brothers, and can recount numerous stories about the fun, the stupidity, and the powerfully important things we did as young men. As an old man, I treasure those friends more fully than I understood back then.

Are there any meaningful traditions or practices that you have carried with you since your time in college?

ATTEND FOUNDERS DAY. Period. Each chapter and alumni association should make it their business to connect and celebrate *together* as brothers across the years and from varied chapters.

Beloit, Wisconsin, in winter is a bleak place. We RELISHED the chance to go to the Chicago Alumni Association’s Founders Day event each year. In that era, it was held at the Union League Club–dark paneling, coat-and-tie, cigars and potent potables–and I had the opportunity to meet undergraduate brothers from the other chapters then present, from Illinois Alpha at Northwestern, Illinois Beta at the University of Chicago, Illinois Delta at the University of Illinois, and alumni from all parts of the collegiate map. It was an amazing chance to connect with guys and to see how each of us took our Phi Psi experience, in context of our home campuses.

What does supporting the next generation mean to you?

I am one of the rare folks fortunate enough to call my own son, my brother. Cullen McDonald Beloit ’11 and I are also the only father/son combination who have served as Beloit’s chapter GP in its 145-year history. I was present at his initiation, and I am hopeful he will join me in the ranks of the Fraternity’s Order of the S. C., that body which recognizes those who have attended seven Grand Arch Councils along the way.

Supporting the younger generations, beyond that great persona joy, means opening my mind, heart and spirit to hear the challenges and triumphs the present generation endures and enjoys. The life of a fraternity member is very different now than it was for me in the mid-1980s. It doesn’t mean one is or was better than the other–it’s just different. I need to understand how campus life and chapter experiences differ from my own mindset in order to be accessible and available when I am called upon to aid or comfort a brother in need.