Volunteering Some Thoughts

York Mayo says it was one of the more challenging speeches he’s given during what would have to be described as his second career.

The audience was comprised of roughly 50 12- to 18-year-old inner-city youths gathered at the Worthington Pond Farms in Connecuticut. “I don’t speak to that age group very often,” said Mayo, a former executive with what is now Lenox American Saw who now carries a business card announcing him as a ‘public speaker, advisor, mentor, and worthy grand pooh-bah.’ “I didn’t really know where or how to begin.”

So he started with a question; he asked those assembled to identify the individual who started his famous speech in 1962 with “I have a dream.”

“Everyone knew the answer, of course, and I then went on to ask them about their dreams,” said Mayo. “Later, when one of them guessed correctly that I was 68, I asked if someone my age could still have a dream. When they said ‘no,’ it set me off like a rocket.

“I told them I not only have a dream, but I have it written out — something I told them they have to do,” Mayo told BusinessWest, adding that what’s down on paper is for him to someday, and preferably soon, become a nationally known motivational speaker. He admits that he’s not doing very well in that pursuit, and for a number of reasons.

“They say you need a Web site to be a national motivational speaker, and I don’t have one. It also really helps to have written a book, and I haven’t done that yet, either, so that’s two strikes against me,” he said with a laugh, adding quickly that perhaps the biggest reason is that he’s been too busy being those other things written on his business card.

He’s a mentor to many individuals, ranging from John Majercak, director of ReStore Home Improvement, to Angel Rodriguez, a 16-year-old student at Roger L. Putnam Vocational High School in Springfield, who Mayo has convinced to put some goals down on paper — and then do the hard work necessary to meet them.

“When I first him a year ago, I watched him, and I said, ‘this kid could go either way. He’s a great talker, he’s a very personable guy, a very charming guy, and a very smart person; I could see that he’d be a good salesperson, or he could go the other way and be a great con man,” said Mayo. “I said I would be his mentor, but only under the condition that he changed a lot of the things he was doing and develop goals and a vision, which we would work on together.”

He did, and they have (more on that later).

Mayo is also doing a lot of advising these days, with much of his time devoted to the building of a new Putnam. He’s the president of something called the Roger L. Putnam Technical High School Fund, which was set up to close an estimated $4 million gap between what has been allocated for the new school (projected to cost $150 million) and what it will actually cost to build the facility.

In that capacity, he’s spending a lot of time talking to business owners and organizing tours of Putnam for them. The goal is to convince them to make an investment in the school, the city, the region — and also their own futures in the Pioneer Valley.

When Mayo does get the occasion to speak in public, he’s spending most of his time and energy convincing people in the business community to do all those things he’s been doing since he retired early from Lenox in 1999. Summing up the past decade, he said he’s been making himself available to serve others.

“There are so many needs that are not being met by volunteers, and the government just can’t do it all and shouldn’t do it all,” he explained. “We as citizens should be setting aside a certain amount of our time every day to volunteer and serve others.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Mayo about the many ways he’s giving back, and why he believes others in business can, and should, do the same.

Talking the Talk

Mayo told BusinessWest that, while he is a mentor to many, he has several mentors himself. One of them is John Davis, the former president of American Saw & Mfg. and current president of the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation.

Among other things, says Mayo, Davis has helped him make what he called a somewhat difficult transition from the business world to working with and for nonprofits — and also having to deal with governmental bodies like school committees.

“For someone like me who comes from a great company like American Saw and from the business world, dealing with the Springfield education system is very frustrating,” he explained, noting quickly that, while not all businesses are run effectively, American Saw was. “And to go from that culture into the education world … there’s a huge gap.

“So I call John and spout off and say exactly what I feel,” he continued. “He calms me down and gives me some advice — he’s my mentor now, and I’m glad he is.”

Making this difficult transition has been part of semi-retired life for Mayo, who spent 30 years with American Saw, much of it handling international sales. He said goodbye to the corporate world in 1999, and almost immediately began making that aforementioned transition.

In 2000, he became volunteer executive director of the Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity, and served in that capacity for more than three years. In the summer of 2005, he served as interim president and CEO of Goodwill Industries, and a year later took on that same role with Girls Incorporated of Holyoke.

With ReStore, Mayo has worked primarily on a capital campaign that began nearly three years ago. The goal was $1 million, to be used primarily to help the organization move from its current 8,000-square-foot facility to a 32,000-square-foot building, and more than $950,000 has been raised to date.

Over the years, he’s volunteered time to a number of groups and causes, ranging from the Advisory Board of the Andrew M. Scibelli Enterprise Center to the ReStore capital campaign; from the Business as a Force for Social Change Program, led by Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe, to the Minnechaug Land Trust. He’s even found time for the Wilbraham Men’s Chorus. (Mayo frequently sings to his audiences when giving speeches, and is noted for his Elvis impersonation.)

Mayo said that his top priority at the moment — and the biggest consumer of his time — is the Putnam High School fund, an assignment he took on at the behest of John Davis, who charged him, in essence, with getting area business leaders involved not only with the funding and construction of the new facility, but also with what will go inside the walls of the new school.

“The way I describe it is bringing the business community into the school,” he explained, “so that it has an effect on the curriculum, the equipment, and the overall well-being of the school.”

Mayo is at Putnam almost every day, with much of his time spent organizing tours of the facility that have a number of motivations, ranging from educating the business community to providing Putnam students with opportunities to gain confidence and public-speaking skills by helping to lead the tours.

The overriding goal, however, is the get businesses involved with the school, and with the education system in Springfield in general, he continued, adding that this constituency can, and should, have enormous sway over the curriculum in each program. “We want business to have more of a say in this school.”

The Mentor Mentality

While his work at Putnam keeps him busy, Mayo still finds the time for many other endeavors, particularly the art of mentoring.

He says business leaders should not only be mentors, but they should have at least one individual, and preferably several, mentoring them. The ReStore’s Majercak and Suzanne Parker, director of Girls Inc., serve as both mentee and mentor, said Mayo, adding that he has learned a great deal from both executives.

“I’ve learned much more from them then they have from me, that’s for sure, and that fact helps explain why every leader should have a mentor — they’re just invaluable,” he said, adding that he’s been relying on mentors all throughout his second career.

“When I started at Habitat for Humanity, I had no idea about Springfield … I really didn’t know the difference between State Street and Main Street,” he said. “Why? Because I worked in East Longmeadow and lived in Wilbraham. I went to Logan, Bradley, or Kennedy; the only place I went to in Springfield was the Student Prince to entertain customers. I had no idea what was going on in Springfield or any of the politicians or how it all worked.

“Fortunately, I had a great mentor,” he continued, referring to Bill Mazeine, one of the founders of Bank of Western Mass., owner of a distribution company, and a strong supporter of Habitat. “Every week we would meet, have a beer, and he would take a napkin and give me my marching orders.”

Mayo became a mentor to Angel Rodriguez through his involvement with Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

As he mentioned, Rodriguez was at critical juncture when the two first discussed the matter of mentoring.

“I remember telling him that I thought he had great potential,” Mayo recalled, “but the potential to either go this way, which would not be good for you or for society, or this way, which would be very good for you and very good for society.”

The two sat down and wrote out some goals, said Mayo, who has his own copy. They included getting straight As the next year and earning a starting spot on the Putnam football team.

“He’s not a very big guy, so I thought maybe these goals were a little unrealistic,” said Mayo. “But while he didn’t play in the first game and didn’t play much in the second, I was there to see him go out with the starting offense for the third game. It was unbelievable; he had a goal, he put it in writing, and it came to fruition.”

When not advising or mentoring, Mayo is finding ways to get his message to business owners and managers — the one about how they need to get involved in the community as volunteers.

Often, the comments come back to the issue of time — how to find it, or make it, at a time when everyone is working harder and longer, and how to make the most of it.

“Business people … we generally do a lousy job of planning our time,” he explained. “Jim Davis [John’s father] was always talking about time, how it’s the precious commodity we have, and how we have to maximize the time we have in the day. Business people are filling up their calendars every day with business stuff, which is important, but we should learn to be in control of our time so we have the opportunity to serve our community.”

In Conclusion

Returning to the subject of his work with young Angel Rodriguez, Mayo again stressed the importance of putting goals and dreams down in writing, thus giving them more importance and permanence.

As for his own goal that’s down on paper? Well, maybe some day Mayo will become a nationally known motivational speaker. But for now, he’s too busy being a mentor, advisor, and grand pooh-bah. “My strategy is to take every single opportunity that I can to speak locally, and hope that leads to chances regionally and then nationally,” he explained. “So far, that strategy is not working at all; it’s mostly because I’m so busy volunteering that I’m not paying the attention to this that I need to.”

Besides, he still doesn’t have a Web site or a book with his name on the cover. He apparently doesn’t have time for those, either.

George O’Brien can be reached

at[email protected]