Honoring a Legacy: Raymond C. Headen’s Journey from Cleveland Streets to Judicial Trailblazer
What happens when two childhood friends from opposite sides of the tracks join forces to disrupt the status quo?
Join us on a heartfelt journey as we celebrate the life and legacy of the Honorable Raymond C. Headen in a special three-part series of the Disruptor Podcast.
Hosted by John Kundtz and Jan Almasy, this episode takes an intimate look at Ray's inspiring transformation from an inner-city Cleveland kid to a trailblazer in the judicial community.
Hear firsthand how Ray and John's 50-year friendship was forged during a time of significant civil rights upheaval and how it shaped their lives and careers.
This "Throw Back Thursday Edition” of the Disruptor Podcast was originally recorded in August 2021. This conversation with Ray has been remixed into a 3 part series to honor his memory after his passing in May 2024.
Ray's impactful work as a lawyer and judge, his commitment to justice, and his role as a disruptor in the legal field are all explored in depth.
Listen to stories about their middle school days, the transformative power of racial integration, and Ray's encounters with pivotal moments in history.
This episode is not just a tribute but a call to action, encouraging listeners to continue the causes Ray championed.
This is more than just a podcast—it's a testament to enduring friendship and relentless pursuit of progress.
***
Engage, Share, and Connect!
Spread the Word: Valuable insights are best when shared. Share this episode with peers who may benefit from it if you find it insightful.
Your Feedback Matters: How did this episode resonate with you? Share your thoughts, insights, or questions. Your engagement enriches our community.
Collaborate with The Disruptor and connect with John Kundtz.
Quick Connect Call:Dive deeper into the discussion. Book a 15-minute chat with John Kundtz -> Schedule here. Stay Updated: Don't miss out on further insights. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and our Blog
Honoring a Legacy: Raymond C. Headen’s Journey from Cleveland Streets to Judicial Trailblazer
What happens when two childhood friends from opposite sides of the tracks join forces to disrupt the status quo?
Join us on a heartfelt journey as we celebrate the life and legacy of the Honorable Raymond C. Headen in a special three-part series of the Disruptor Podcast.
Hosted by John Kundtz and Jan Almasy, this episode takes an intimate look at Ray's inspiring transformation from an inner-city Cleveland kid to a trailblazer in the judicial community.
Hear firsthand how Ray and John's 50-year friendship was forged during a time of significant civil rights upheaval and how it shaped their lives and careers.
This "Throw Back Thursday Edition” of the Disruptor Podcast was originally recorded in August 2021. This conversation with Ray has been remixed into a 3 part series to honor his memory after his passing in May 2024.
Ray's impactful work as a lawyer and judge, his commitment to justice, and his role as a disruptor in the legal field are all explored in depth.
Listen to stories about their middle school days, the transformative power of racial integration, and Ray's encounters with pivotal moments in history.
This episode is not just a tribute but a call to action, encouraging listeners to continue the causes Ray championed.
This is more than just a podcast—it's a testament to enduring friendship and relentless pursuit of progress.
***
Engage, Share, and Connect!
Spread the Word: Valuable insights are best when shared. Share this episode with peers who may benefit from it if you find it insightful.
Your Feedback Matters: How did this episode resonate with you? Share your thoughts, insights, or questions. Your engagement enriches our community.
Collaborate with The Disruptor and connect with John Kundtz.
Quick Connect Call:Dive deeper into the discussion. Book a 15-minute chat with John Kundtz -> Schedule here. Stay Updated: Don't miss out on further insights. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and our Blog
Hi, this is John Kuntz of the Disruptor Podcast. I want to welcome you to a very special edition of our podcast. On May 21st, 2024, the world lost a great husband, a great father, a great lawyer judge, and I lost a friend who I met 50 years ago while I was in the middle school. I had the pleasure, in August of 2021, to record a podcast with the Honorable Raymond C Hedden. I've taken the time to remix that podcast and republish it in a three-part series. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you learn something about friendship for over 50 years and I hope you take the causes that Ray was trying to work on, both as a judge and a lawyer, and continue to move them forward is part of his legacy. Again, thanks for listening. Hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:
Welcome everybody to Apex Communications Network. As always, I'm Jan Olmesny, but today I'm not actually your host, I'm just here as the special guest. I'd like to sneak into your special guest. We have an even more special guest that will be coming on. Y'all already know me, I'm not really that important, but this episode's segment series, if you guys have been paying attention, is a little bit different than the traditional Apex podcast episode. Right, these episodes are still about ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things, but there's a catch they have to be somebody that is innovating a process, disrupting an industry, or actively being somebody that is knocking on the door of everything that is status quo in order to try to change a status quo. Right, In order to introduce properly the real idea of what this is supposed to be. I'm going to introduce the gentleman that is really the brain behind this entire idea, the disruptor himself, Mr John Kuntz. John, welcome back to Apex.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, jan, I appreciate it. I'm super excited to be here today. We talked about, on the first segment, we're in a period of massive digital disruption or, if you take to a step further, experience disruption, and what I always like to say is, if you're in business or you're out there, you're either being disrupted or you are the disruptor, and what I mean by that is you're either Netflix or Blockbuster, you're either Airbnb or the hotel industry or probably, in a good analogy today, you're either the taxi cab industry or you're Uber or Lyft. And so I'm like super excited to bring in one of my colleagues on the disruptor community. It's a gentleman I've known since I've been in seventh grade. We went to middle school together, we went to high school together and we've remained friends and really respect his approach, his openness, and he really is trying to be the disruptor in the judicial community. So with that, jan, let's welcome my good friend, ray Hedden, who is truly a disruptor.
Speaker 3:
Welcome to the party, ray. Good morning. Good morning, how are you guys?
Speaker 2:
I'm good man, just excited to be here, excited to be doing stuff like this. Why don't we start off with just how you and John met and what that was like at that time? But we were talking before we hit the mics that when you guys met from the very beginning it was a disruptive period. It was a disruption at that time. So why don't we explore that just a little bit?
Speaker 3:
I guess I can take a start because in a way, disruption was in essence, the civil rights movement. It was the opportunity of an inner city kid from urban Glenville, ohio, cleveland, where some of the riots occurred in the 1960s. I was there, met Martin Luther King early on in 1972 as a result of really, I think, a disruption that occurred in racial integration. I was actually bussed out to a university school, a prep school for boys, one of the best in the United States, and I am proud to be knowing John since I was 12 years old, and that was a disruptive event because it allowed for people to be friends and to know each other personally for years and years. A lot of progress. But the progress that came in racial integration and the ability for us to be here talking to one another as a result of what leadership of people who saw that people like John and I needed to get together way back almost 50 years ago now. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's amazing. You know what, ray? What always struck me and I've been giving this a lot of thought a whole bunch of new kids. New kids also came in together.
Speaker 1:
I didn't really know the difference between growing up in Shaker Heights versus growing up in Glenville, which was great because it took away any implicit bias. We didn't have any implicit bias at the time and we got to know each other. For the people we were, not where we came from or where we grew up or who our parents were or any of that stuff, and I think that was, and it was a good time for that. Right now. There was not a great time in the country. Right, we were in the middle of the Vietnam War. It was certainly those, the racial tensions that had gone on in late 60s, early 70s. But I think, with you coming to university, school, middle school, us all just being dumb teenagers, we got to be, we got to see each other for what they were, not for where they came from, and for me that was a huge one of the many pivotal moments in my disruptor life, if you will.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely, absolutely. When you think about it, that's the whole point of America. It asks us that we all should be able to stand tall with one another in unity, where you are, what your race is, a background, regardless of whether you've got cash or no cash. I give credit to the old white men of the 1960s and 70s Roland McKinley and the board of trustees at US to see that the future was integration, the future was diversity, the future was inclusion. All the things that we were talking about. Those guys took a moment in time when things could have gone in either two directions. There were riots, there was war, there was a lot of disruption, and they chose to take a path that allowed for us to get to know each other and look at what's going on. 50 years later, we are both in the process of hoping to disrupt other institutions, other places, so that literally everything improves when you're disrupting.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I agree with that. I think that when you come into any type of arena, that has been at a baseline for however long. I've always been curious as to why people don't use the word that I just used right there why? Why is it like this? Why does it have to be this way? Right there, why, why is it like this? Why does it have to be this way? Why are situations playing out the way that they are? I've always been one to never take something at face value and, like you said, to the credit of those people that were on that board at that time doing the things that they were doing, they were asking why, why is it like this? Why are we still doing this? Why are these kids not able to be together? And then here we are at this point where you and John have forged this friendship over years and years is an epitomization of what they were hoping would happen at that period of time.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. You hit it right on the button. I'd like to say, as a judge, that I stand on the shoulders of a whole lot of people. Nobody stands to where they. Of a whole lot of people, nobody stands to where they are without a lot of help. And that might be family, that might be institutions, it might be friends, it might be all kinds of different things, but it just doesn't happen by accident. In the absence of being able to rely upon other people, we're not going to be able to be successful, and the country won't be successful either. Agreed, we're not going to be able to be successful and the country won't be successful either.
Speaker 1:
I agree, and you know, back to the motto of university school responsibility, loyalty and consideration, and in those words, I don't know they were ingrained in us, as you say. The old white men of the late 60s, early 70s also saw that and they were able to give you and me. I had my challenges for sure. You and I were given the ability to take advantage of that motto and move forward, and you made an amazing career out of it. I'm going to tout you a little bit more. After you went to university school, you went to Williams College and a number of my friends went there. It was a place I would have never been able to get into out of high school. And then you went on to become a lawyer at the University of Pennsylvania, came back to Cleveland, worked at one of the really nice law firms here in town and obviously have taken on more responsibilities, and now our judge, helping to disrupt, if you will, our legal system.
Speaker 3:
I could just for a second, john, because I think I want to share something that you said so insightfully. Those, quote unquote old white men saw that diversity, inclusion actually goes both ways. It's not just like letting a kid from black Glenville coming out to US and only helping me, it also helped you as well and likewise that's the whole point of this thing. If it doesn't go both ways, then you don't have that bridge of understanding, that bridge of connection that I think I've utilized in my traditional career to the benefit and disruption of where things can improve, because you got to have a diversity of thought and ideas and opinions and approaches. And that's what we learned when we got together, john, and that's why you're the disruptor and I am hopefully a disruptor, because I think that was what those, that was what was intended a long time ago.
Speaker 1:
I was a disruptor just because I was a troublemaker, but that's a different story. Well, I've been hearing those story at some point, John.
Speaker 1:
You're spot on, ray. That's what I learned going out into college and then into the professional world and then in my working for IBM for all of these years is that people with different backgrounds, different socioeconomic upbringings you name it they all can have really good ideas, and one of the things Jan and I have been working on is this whole idea of empathy and understanding what people think and how they feel and what they do and what they say allows you to bring this whole what we are today, this user-centric, disruptive user experience, into the marketplace of user experience into the marketplace.
Speaker 2:
So, on that same vein, we're talking about how your guys' relationship formed and the disruptive period. That was that time period, right, and a lot of people have been comparing ever since, really, march when COVID hit that this entire planet has just done this and everybody's trying to figure out which way is up. But it's the perfect time to disrupt, right? I made the comparison the other day and I really like it. I compared the entire world to like this snow globe.
Speaker 2:
Right, and when you have a snow globe it can still be this beautiful thing, but a lot of times all of the dust settles at the bottom and every now and then you need a disruptor to come in and just do this to really get the beauty that's behind the curtain.
Speaker 2:
It's all kind of settled at the bottom, everything's status quo, and if a disruptor is able to come in and shake things up, it really allows all of those beautiful glittery snowflakes to reenter the atmosphere and then the world is in this beautiful blissful renaissance for a short period of time, until it settles again and another disruptor is required to come in and shake things up. So, as far as it comes to shaking things up in the judicial side of things, legal entities that we've been talking about leading up to this, what exactly is going on in this 21st century We've talked about. You know we're a big show that likes to talk about data, so I'm super excited for this part of the conversation. But why don't we start to hit on the database and you can explain what that is and kind of explain how it came about?
Speaker 1:
Well, that's the end of part one. I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about how Ray and I got to know each other over 50 years ago. I hope you stay tuned for part two, over 50 years ago. I hope you stay tuned for part two, as Jan alluded to, part two will take a deeper dive into the database initiatives that Ray was working on as part of his judicial activities. His attempt to bring data analytics and insights and overall fairness and equality into the sentencing process is something that he had a passion for and I hope you learn about what he was doing and join his cause to keep Ray's passion moving forward and support his legacy legacy.
Speaker 1:
Then, in part three, jan and I will dive deeper with Ray around the concept he coined called mass incarceration. We will get to know and better understand the initiatives Ray was doing and where he was working and how he felt it would improve the overall judicial system in the state of Ohio and ultimately save the taxpayers money. Again, thanks for listening to this special edition of the Disruptor Podcast. We hope to see you at the next one. Thanks a lot. Take care Bye.