S4E6: A Leader in Regional Healthcare Reflects on His Fulfilling Career in Medicine and Hospital Administration | (Dr. Jeff Bird, President of East Central Region for IU Health)

Throughout Dr. Jeff Bird’s long and fulfilling career in medicine, he has put his patients—and the people of Muncie—first. 

Dr. Bird grew up in Muncie. After completing his residency at Ball Hospital, he embarked upon a long and fulfilling career in medicine here in his hometown. As the hospital prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Dr. Bird reflects on the decades he’s spent—first as a doctor and then as an administrator—working to provide the best healthcare to the people who live and work in East Central Indiana. 

Since 2017, Dr. Bird has served as the president of the East Central Indiana region for IU Health, which includes IU Health Ball Memorial and Blackford Hospitals. Prior to assuming this executive role, Dr. Bird served 14 years as the associate director of the Ball Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program. Before that, he was the owner of a thriving private practice of family medicine. 

In this episode, Dr. Bird talks about his great passion for medicine and his great love for Muncie. He also shares why he feels compelled to give back to the community that raised him along with his reasons for feeling—in his own words—“bullish” about the future success of the city and the region.

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Transcript

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Hello and welcome back to our Call to Beneficence. My guest on the podcast today is another Jeff, my friend, Dr. Jeff Bird, who serves as the president of the East Central Indiana region for IU Health, which includes IU Health Ball Memorial and Blackford hospitals. Jeff accepted his position as president in 2017, the same year that I became president here at Ball State, and it's been a pleasure getting to know him in our years working together on various community initiatives, some of which we're going to talk about during this episode.

But first, a bit more about Jeff Bird. Jeff is a Muncie native who has spent his entire fulfilling career in medicine and hospital management right here in his hometown. During our conversation, I'm going to ask him about growing up in the vicinity of the Ball State campus, why he wanted to become a doctor, and what's ahead for him now that he has announced his plan to retire later this year.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So, Jeff, good morning. Welcome and thank you for making the trip over from Ball Memorial to joining me this morning.

[JEFF BIRD]

Thank you, Geoff. It was a long walk. It's very chilly this morning, but I got here.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah, it's not a long walk, except when it's seven degrees outside, which it is this morning. So, you know, you are among Muncie's most recognized and impactful leaders. You've lived in Muncie since you were a child, so why don't we start there? Describe your upbringing and talk about who in your family you considered, in your own words, to be your best friend.

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah. So, I am a first-generation matriculant to college. My mother and father both grew up in Muncie. My father, uh, was a very accomplished athlete at one of the county schools, and got a full ride scholarship to play football at Miami of Ohio. But the summer before he took off to go over to Oxford, he met a woman while he was putting gas in his old truck and fell in love very quickly. That woman is my mother. So, instead of going to college, and playing college football, my mom and dad got married that summer after a very, very short courtship. Dad was 18 and mom was 17. And about 14 months later—so I'm very proud to say it was 14 months later— along came me. So, my parents were 19 and 18 when I was born.

Surrounded by love in my family, my father followed my grandfather, his father, into one of our local factories. So he was a United Auto worker. It allowed us to have, you know, a typical Muncie, Indiana, middle class, factory worker income. So, surrounded by love. My grandfather was also a World War II veteran. Had married my grandmother before he went to go fight in Europe. And he was, uh, 39 years old when I was born. So, I spent nearly every weekend of my life with my grandma and grandpa. And my grandpa was my best friend growing up, no question about that. And one of the things that I think we had talked about was they owned a home on Riverside Avenue, right on campus, which is now where our new College of Health is located. But spending every weekend there was a ton of fun for me because they had an upstairs apartment in their home with three bedrooms and a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom. And they always had upper class Ball State male students who lived with them during the school year. So every year there was a turnover, and I got three new big brothers. So it was a lot of fun for me. My grandparents were simple people, but they very involved in the Ball State lifestyle. They loved to go to the football games and the baseball games and the basketball games, and I have vivid memories of walking from their house, back in the day, when the football field and the baseball field were right across the street from Ball Hospital on University and going to those games with them. Ball State Homecoming was always a big deal back in the 60s and 70s for them. Their students would always come back and visit. So it was a pretty incredible upbringing for me, and I'm very thankful to have been surrounded by the love that I had from my family.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So I understand there was someone not in your family who had a significant influence in making you want to be a doctor. Who was that? And tell us about that experience and that relationship.

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah. So, spending weekends with my grandparents really meant that, uh, my dad and my grandfather had bought a little plot of land, just west of – Muncie people who are familiar with Muncie would know, it’s now where the Robinwood Neighborhood is. That was a woods and a cornfield. When I was growing up, they bought this lot there. There was only one other house out there. And literally my father and my grandfather built the house that I grew up in. We lived in one room, my mom and my dad and I, while they built the rest of the house. It took them about two years. And then when I was about 8 or 9 years old—they actually owned the lot next door to that house—my dad, my grandfather built a duplex on that property. And the very first young couple that moved into that duplex that my family owned was a couple named Larry and Tony Carter. And it turns out that Larry had just graduated from the IU School of Medicine and came to Muncie to Ball Hospital to be the very first family medicine resident in the United States of America—I take that back, in the state of Indiana. Our residency at Ball Hospital was the first family medicine residency in Indiana and the fourth nationally. 

So Larry was the first graduate. He was only about 10 or 12 years older than me. So he was a huge influence in my life. Nurtured my thought of the love of being a doctor, and particularly the stories that he would tell about the relationship with the patients that he served were a huge motivator for me to want to become a family doctor.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. And we're going—that’s going to be a thread, a theme, that we'll talk about a little bit. But I think you know Mike McDaniel [JEFF: I do] who's a Ball State trustee. Like you, he attended Emerson Elementary School before going to Northside High School, which is now Northside Middle School. After you graduate from high school, you went to DePauw and I understand you studied zoology?

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

How did you go from thinking you wanted to be a doctor to studying animals at DePauw?

[JEFF BIRD]

So interestingly enough, again, being a first generation matriculant, I didn't know a whole lot about, you know, what to expect in the college life. I had been a pretty good student at Northside High School. So I got a fair amount of scholarship money and had opportunities to go to a few fairly prestigious schools. I actually got an appointment to West Point and chose not to do that. And I also got admitted to Yale University, I want you to know—

[GEOFF MEARNS]

All right.

[JEFF BIRD]

President Mearns, and it came down to the ability, really, was I going to be able to travel and still see my family? I was, I was a homebody. And the thought of, you know, going several thousand miles away to school intimidated me, quite frankly. So, chose DePauw. I had gone to football camp both at IU and Notre Dame the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. And for some reason, neither of those schools were interested in a five, eight, 155 pound cornerback. So I wanted to play football. So it became very clear to me that I was going to need to play at the Division III level if I could. So decided to go to DePauw. It was a great experience for me. I'm so glad, that I went there. But when I went as a pre medicine student, the curriculum there was very different than it is today. So you had two choices: zoology or chemistry. There was not even a biology major at DePauw at the time. Chemistry was not one of my favorite topics in school, so I chose the zoology route. It served me well in my life because my family incessantly makes fun of me around “Oh, look, dad, here's a bug...what's the name of that one?” Or you know, “Oh, look...a mollusk in the river. I'm sure you know everything about the anatomy of a mollusk,” and I do.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

(laughs) We love our children, don't we?

[JEFF BIRD]

Yes. Very much.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Okay. So after you graduated from DePauw, you began your own medical training at IU School of Medicine. And then your residency brought you back here to Muncie, where you and your wife, Susan, moved into that upstairs floor in your grandfather's house. What do you remember about those days?

[JEFF BIRD]

Not much, I'll be honest with you. My wife could probably give you lots of good stories about that, but, you know, one of the things that served me well in life was, I was a very hard worker. I wasn't always the most talented or the smartest. But I was really willing to delve into whatever it was that was put before me. So, the IU School of Medicine has regional campuses. Muncie has, for many decades, has had a regional campus. So during my first two years of medical school, again, I was able to live in that little apartment at my grandma and grandpa's house. Went down to Indianapolis for most of my third year, fourth year is kind of electives, and I got to go around, but was mostly in Muncie.

We had been married between my second and third year in medical school. So, uh, and had a baby then late in my third year. And we also had we had our second child one week before I started my internship. So I can't say that our family planning necessarily followed a course that maybe I would recommend, but in retrospect, it was great.

How my wife did it, having two children 20 months and below, basically on her own. But you know, my grandma was a very good surrogate mother for her. So yeah, we lived there basically my whole intern year and then got a little bungalow that we raised the children in.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So at that time in your life and in your career you were deciding on a medical specialty. And you told us a few minutes ago that one of your role models was the one who encouraged you to become a family doctor. (Jeff: Yeah.) So tell us a little bit about that ...was that a difficult decision for you? Or by the time you got to that point in your career, that's what you knew you wanted to do?

[JEFF BIRD]

It was actually a very difficult decision for me, because one of the things about medical school is, you know, the first two years are all about the basic sciences. You don't really get to touch patients. You don't learn much about true patient care. And then the third year of medical school is various rotations in most of the medical specialties. And I found myself, no matter what the rotation was on, loving what I was doing. So at one point, I was convinced I was going to be an obstetrician. Again, a life of athletics ... hen I did my orthopedics rotation. I thought, oh, this is it for me. I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon. I did general surgery and I thought, oh my, I love, love the excitement of being in the O.R., maybe I'll do that. And then I just kept coming back to my fourth year, wanted to spend some time with Doctor Larry Carter, and I did, and I just thought, you know, I see what he's doing, the relationships that he is able to have with his patients. And, you know, I think that's what really got into my heart, that ability to make an impact in someone's life, to really understand, you know, you're not a diabetic or a hypertensive or you don't have appendicitis. You're a human being with a human condition and being able to recognize the influence of all of those things around our humanity that affects our health, really was the thing that solidified my desire to do family medicine. And the cool thing about being a family doctor is, you know, I had an unlimited license to practice medicine.

So, though I wouldn't have recommended you come to me for brain surgery, I could have legally done brain surgery. So, I did a lot of things as a practicing family doctor, and it kept the day fresh. And I’m so blessed by the patient interactions that I had during my career.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit later about some of the changes over the last 40 years and maybe some of the challenges in delivering that kind of personal care. So, aside from Muncie, were there other places that you thought about going to start your private practice, either in Indiana or someplace else in the country?

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah. You know, I'm a Hoosier, born and bred, clearly. So I didn't really look much outside the state. My wife is from Munster, Indiana, up in The Region. So, and we were very, very close with her family. So we looked at a few opportunities in Lake County. We looked at a few opportunities kind of halfway between. Indeed, we had gotten to the point of actually going house shopping in Wabash, Indiana, because there was a great opportunity for me there. And, as I like to say, the doctors who had influenced me, the family doctors in Muncie during my residency training, a couple of them that I most respected, asked me to go out to dinner with them one time, and I think late, late in the game—March or so of my, my third year residency—and I called Sue and said, hey, I'm not going to be home for supper. I'm going out to dinner with these two physicians. And there was a long pregnant pause on the phone, and I go, is everything okay? And she said with clearly tearfully, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in Muncie aren’t I? And the answer is yes. (both laugh)

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So you started in private practice, and after, I guess, a few years, you returned to Bell Memorial Hospital as the associate director of the hospital's Family Medical Medicine residency program, which is the program you completed. (Jeff: Yeah.) What was that transition like, going from being a practicing physician to holding an administrative role in the program that you trained in?

[JEFF BIRD]

You know, it was a wonderful opportunity for me for a couple things. One, I've never been very good at saying no. And if you're a moderately competent family physician and you're not very good at saying no, the practice of that can become overwhelming. And it truly was becoming overwhelming to me. I was not very good at setting boundaries. And, you know, it was affecting my family life. That's not the person that I wanted to be. And it's pretty hard once you grow a practice to a certain size to downsize that practice. I had always loved teaching. People often asked me, if you weren't a doctor, what would you do? And I said I'd be a middle school science teacher and the head football coach at Muncie Central High School. 

[GEOFF MEARNS]

It’s not too late. I don't know if they have openings yet, but—

[JEFF BIRD]

I actually had coffee with the coach yesterday, so might be another retirement gig for me. So, you know, the opportunity to go back and to still have a small private practice and to teach doctors hopefully how to be better doctors was very enticing for me. I'm a lifelong learner. And I thought I had something to give back, and it allowed me to get a little more control of kind of my professional life. So, I spent 17 years there in the residency. Made lifelong friends of the people who came. We had a really, really good residency. And it was sought after by people all across the country. Which really opened up my eyes to some opportunities to see and do different things, challenged me in my ability to be a great teacher.

And really helped the hospital in ... Muncie is a community because when you've got an opportunity to continue to train physicians who are going to stay and serve the community, that was a really big deal. To me. So, yeah, I think it was a period of time in my life that was really professionally fulfilling. And it also allowed me to pursue some leadership things that private practice really made a challenge. So, that I think affected kind of the next steps administratively in my career also.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So I'm going to ask you a question about leadership in just a moment but take yourself back to when you were supervising that residency program and imagine you and— I'm a resident— (Jeff: Yeah.)—we're riding up in the elevator, so you got about 75 seconds. And I said, So what's the most important thing I need to know from somebody like you to be good at this particular practice? What's that message?

[JEFF BIRD]

So I had a phrase, and my phrase was: having a keen understanding of your own ignorance. It's really easy as a physician to get in a position where you think you know all the answers and you don't. So being able to admit to a patient, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm going to find out for you. You don't have to know everything, every minute about, you know, every interaction. So, being very careful about staying humble, in knowing that there's someone out there smarter than you that you can go ask the question of. And, you know, don't ever pretend that you know an answer that you really don't ... don't understand.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

I think one of the things, that as leaders, we also need to understand is that sense of humility.  (Jeff: Yeah), recognizing the limitations of your own experience or knowledge. So, with that in mind, in 2009, you became the vice president and chief medical officer at Ball Memorial. And that was a pretty important, pivotal, challenging time for the hospital because of a merger that had just happened. That was when it became part of the IU system. Is that right? (Jeff: That's correct.) Yeah. So describe that transition, that merger and how it looking back now, you know, what's that been about? 15, 16 years—

[JEFF BIRD]

16 years ago.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah, yeah. How that benefited the hospital and the communities that you serve.

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah. So that was a really big deal, right? Ball Hospital was built in 1929 and we’re coming up quickly on our 100th anniversary. The 2000s were a time of retraction in the payer world. And, you know, this is after Muncie had kind of, you know, lost much of its middle class. So financially, the hospital was really having some challenges. This was also a time of rapid acquisition of larger health care systems bringing other health care systems into the fold, in an effort to control greater shares of the market, quite frankly. So we had had a couple tough financial years in a row at Ball Hospital. I was serving on the board of directors at the time, and we knew it was worth investigating what it would be like for the hospital. Were we going to be able to remain independent? Or with the better course of action be to join one of the larger, indie, health care entities? And you know, we interviewed them all, and made the decision in late 2008 to join—it wasn't called IU Health at the time—but to join that entity. And I think it really was a pivotal time not just for the hospital, but for the community. What we are able to do today, the services that we are able to offer, the scope of the practice, the quality of what we're doing, is substantially better than I think it would have been had we tried to remain independent.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah, you know, it certainly was a prudent decision and one that, as you say, that benefits the community. My only complaint is, you know, as I'm walking in campus, I can see that IU symbol on the top of the tower. But other than that, you know, it’s been pretty good. 

[JEFF BIRD]

You know, I wear Ball State sportswear almost every day.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yes, I do, and I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So jumping forward a little bit in 2014, you’re named the chief operating officer, at that time it's called IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. Then in 2017, as I said in the introduction, right about the time that I was joining Ball State in the community, you became the president of the East Central Indiana region for IU Health, which includes not only Ball Memorial, but IU Health Blackford Hospital. So when you first started your career, when you were growing up in Muncie, did you ever think that someday would come when you would be managing, you know, a lot of maybe much of the health care in the entire East Central Indiana region.

[JEFF BIRD]

God works in mysterious ways, President Mearns. (Geoff: Yes it did.) No, I had no intention of that. I loved being a family doctor. However, I will say that, though there was much for me to learn on the finance side and on the operations side, I often tell people on my team, I often get interviewed by—our emerging leaders just did that yesterday, interestingly enough—and I feel like I got an MHA and an MBA on the job those three years when I was both the chief medical officer and the chief operating officer. I don't think there's anything that has prepared me to be a health care leader better than being a practicing physician and being a practicing family doctor. I was able to touch nearly every part of the health care continuum in, um, it's pretty hard for a doctor to come down to my office and point his finger at me and say, you don't understand, because he knows I do understand what it's like to be a practicing physician. So, yeah, the path was unanticipated. But I feel very blessed to be able to be doing what I'm doing.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So, can I ask you a similar question to when I ask you a moment ago. In 60 or 75 seconds, your leadership message to that group yesterday ... what was the key message, that or lesson that you imparted? 

[JEFF BIRD]

You know, I think the challenge for leadership, particularly when you're emerging as a leader, is I gave them a message of courage, actually. You know, again, understand your own limitations. Understand how the biases of who you are have an inflection into the leader that you want to become. But those challenging conversations, those really difficult decisions, to recognize the emotional part of that, to get the facts when facts are available. And, you know, I lead through consensus. I like to hear a lot of different opinions before I have to make a difficult decision. And I think, you know, really, truly having the courage to trust yourself as you develop your leadership skills, and having a great self-awareness about what you're good at and where you need other people to help fill in the blanks.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Thank you. So one of the many things that I admire and appreciate you about you, Jeff, is your dedication to the community here in Muncie and Delaware County. You've been involved in a variety of organizations. Rather than talking about any one of those specific organizations, why are you so engaged in the community?

[JEFF BIRD]

Well, you know, I think it's a pretty unique situation when I get a chance at this point in my life to reflect back. I talk to you about my background ... there were so many people, an innumerable number of people, who touched my life and helped nurture me in this life's journey, in addition to my loving family. And you know, giving back, it just feels so natural to me. I still have, you know, one of the—there's many things that I love about Muncie, but one of the things that I love about Muncie is its size. Because I think, as you and I know in the things that we've done together, it's big enough and complex enough that we have a lot of really challenging issues facing us. But it's not so big and so complex that you feel like, you know, even as an individual, you can make an individual positive impact. So, I appreciate that. And I appreciate the ability to influence and inspire, and I hope that I'm able to do that with humility, because I'm not in it for me. I'm in it because this place that's meant so much to me that, uh, anything that I can do to help it on a trajectory to be its very best... that's what I'm going to continue to tirelessly work to do.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. You know, and I think you're right about Muncie. One of the interesting things is you can see and meet the people who your engagement is improving their lives. And so that's so very gratifying when you get stopped in the aisle of the grocery store or walking downtown. And it makes it so gratifying to make it personal.

[JEFF BIRD]

It does, it does. And you know, again, I’ve got a pretty big family—my grandma and grandpa that I lived with came from families of ten and nine siblings—and so, I don't know how many first cousins my dad has, but it's a lot. And those families are still here, and they live everywhere in Muncie and Delaware County. So, you know, there's not a neighborhood that that I haven't truly been in that I haven't had, you know, blood relatives live in. So it adds a legitimacy to the fact when I come in and I say I want good things to happen for you. There's a, maybe there's a little bit of an inner trust there that some title on a badge, you know, doesn't necessarily afford you that that same opportunity.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So in just a second, I'm going to ask you about your plans in retirement, but it sounds like if you were to run for mayor or county commissioner, if you just got your family to vote for you, you’ve got a shot.

[JEFF BIRD]

I probably could win. Yeah.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Maybe just with their votes.

[JEFF BIRD]

I have no desire to serve in an elected capacity.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

So before we get there, why don't you just share briefly, you know, the impact that IU Health and Blackford Hospital are having on the communities, you know, professionally. And incorporate into that the Optimist Primary initiative that has been spawned by the Ball Brothers Foundation.

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah. So, you know, and again, I'm blessed to serve on the Ball Brothers Foundation board of directors. So that's another one of those things that's near and dear to my heart. And the impact, the positive impact that foundation, and others have on our community. So, you know, I think being the clear health care leader, in East Central Indiana, that's, that's a pretty onerous task. So one of the things that I like about my organization is, you know, traditionally people that, you know, when I'm out and about, people say, well, you're the president of the hospital. That's great. You guys are really busy. Yeah, you know, but if I was really doing my job, I'd close a floor or two. And that's the family doctor in me, right?

So IU Health has a mission, and IU Health's mission is to make Indiana one of the healthiest states. It's really easy to lose sight of that mission, because so much of our revenue is driven by inpatient sick care. And I would like to be able to elevate us out of that and work on the things that allow people to have a high quality of life. And I think we really spend a lot of time, effort, and resources, both financially and talent, to influence the communities that we serve. We have health care disparity and inequity in the communities that we serve. That's something that's very, very important to me. And I am working really hard locally in Muncie with our, Concerned Clergy Group, which are the predominant African-American pastors in town, to reestablish trust in health care. You know, it's, it's a steep mountain that we're trying to climb. We are not healthy in East Central Indiana. There's lots of work to be done. But if we use our resources, prudently and wisely, we’ll be able to make an impact greater than just taking care of sick people in the hospital. That's my that's my goal and I hope that will be my legacy.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So on a personal note...tell me about what Susan and your children and your colleagues thought when, uh, you shared a few months ago that that 2025 was going to be the year that Jeff Bird is retiring? 

[JEFF BIRD]

You know, it comes to everyone's life at some point. And, you know, it was tough for me... for the last 40 to 45 years, I've stepped foot into Ball Hospital nearly every day. When you think about the time that you spent in your work, it's by far the thing—much more than sleep even. I've done this thoughtfully. I needed a long runway psychologically for myself, so I didn't want it to be a three month or six month notification. Finding the new president will be a challenge. IU Health has gone through a reorganization. And, you know, I really had 4 or 5 counties that I was responsible for. Now, I'm, responsible for a large swath of eastern Indiana all the way up to our new project in Fort Wayne. So it's going to be a different job for the next president. But I'm ready. I still feel great. I'm healthy, and this isn't a retirement. This is a retirement from a specific job. This isn't a retirement for my life's work. My life's work is going to continue and hopefully be accentuated because I have a lot more time to do some things that are really important to me. I'm looking forward to getting back in the schools. To do volunteer work. I always had great passion when my four children were young. Coaching them. I've talked about that already today. And you know, I think I have maybe a knack for being able to organize things. So, I would like to get back doing things that I think are going to continue to improve health and continue to improve the quality of place of Muncie and Delaware County. And I'll look forward to doing my civic duty and doing my volunteer duty and hopefully being busier than I am today.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Yeah. So on that note, let's fast forward and project into the future. Imagine you and I get together in about 10 or 20 years here in Muncie. I know you're optimistic about the future of our community. What do you see? What makes you optimistic? And what do you think that future looks like?

[JEFF BIRD]

Well, you know, I think, Geoff, in the work that you and I have done together and, if I may, at least say what an absolute pleasure it's been for me. As you alluded to, we started in these roles nearly exactly the same time. I've seen a lot of Ball State presidents. We've been blessed to have some tremendous Ball State presidents. But your friendship and your ability to, really, truly get into the community has made an incredible impact. So I'm thankful for that. (Geoff: Thank you.) And I know we're going to continue to work together. We are blessed to lead the two organizations that have the greatest economic—we're the greatest economic drivers in East Central Indiana. And this concept of “meds and eds” can't be overstated in how important it is to continue to improve the quality of life and the quality of place in the communities that we serve. So I'm really, uh, bullish on where we are. You know, I've lived in this community for 66 years, and I don't think we've ever been positioned for success like we are today. And I would hope that, in no small part, you and I are playing a small role in that. I hope we continue to do that. But the ability to get like-minded people together. Muncie's got a long and unfortunate history of people saying we can't. One of the things I learned from my grandfather is those words were never loud around him. We can. I am sure that we can. And with the right people, continuing to do and make decisions for the right reasons, I think we've got a bright future ahead.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Well, Jeff, you certainly have established a legacy for yourself, a legacy that has not yet been completed. But it's a legacy built, as you mentioned today, on the foundation of integrity and compassion, humility and servant leadership. And those are the traits—this is the question I ask all of the folks who join me on the podcast, you know—the traits that I just spoke about, those really are the essence of beneficence. (Jeff: Yeah.) And at its core, beneficence is about doing good for other people through service and philanthropy. So as you reflect on your career and on your future, what does beneficence mean to you, Jeff?

[JEFF BIRD]

Yeah. So, I'm a man of faith. I'm not—I’m very proud of that. And you know, I believe God loaned me gifts. And I use them to glorify God. And I believe that's really what beneficence means to me. We all have opportunities to do good in this life. And that's what I hope to accomplish. I got a decent start. But there's much more, much more work still to be done. 

So when I think about beneficence and what it means to the university, and what it means to me, what a guiding light it is. And if we were all able to emulate those traits and characteristics, what a better place this world would be. And I hope in my little ability to impact, that I can continue to use the concept of beneficence in the work that I do to make Muncie and Delaware County a wonderful place to live.

[GEOFF MEARNS]

Well, Jeff, thank you. Thank you for joining me on this conversation. Thank you for your leadership. And on a personal level, thank you for your kind words and your support and your friendship. Thank you very much. 

[JEFF BIRD]

Thank you, Geoff.