Its been a long week and a half but we are almost there. Two more days before we fly out to England and you can feel the vibe in the classroom. Yesterday Tim invited Douglas Kridler, President and CEO of the Columbus Foundation to speak to us and to be honest, that so far was my favorite experience in this course. Douglas Kridler is a successful man that has promoted and planned concerts for many bands and artists notably Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, the Rolling Stones, Alicia Keys to name a few. From his humble beginnings in Northern Ohio to planning his first concert as a sophomore in College, Mr. Kridler’s story is one that resembles the rags to riches even though he wasn’t really poor but it took a lot of hard work for him to get to where he is now. He went from managing a 4500 budget in college to running a 1.6 billion organization. The most interesting thing I learned about Mr. Kridler was his distain for live music. Having produced 1900 concerts, its not hard to see why the concert scene has lost its appeal to him. Nonetheless, he claims to still go to a concert here and there. His stories were quite fascinating from getting shunned his freshman year to being chairman of the International Performance Arts and being a campaign manager for Senator Glenn when he ran for president. One important lesson he taught us was that good ideas can come from anywhere and just because you have a degree doesn’t make you more intelligent than someone without one. I found Mr. Kridler fascinating and even humbling that he took the time to come talk to a small class like us even though he probably has meetings with government officials and dignitaries.
Tim just seems to pull out all stops when it comes to teaching us life lessons and the importance of music in this course. Wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled Paul and Ringo out of a hat tomorrow.