A guy from Drake University made quite an impression on the crowd at AIB College of Business last week.
Brian O. Brown – Drake’s associate athletic director and Director of the Drake Relays – was the featured presenter at the first of three events in the second season of the Monroe Colston Speaker Series. Brown’s assignment was to address the relationship between success and good character, for which the late civic leader Monroe Colston was well-known.
The soft-spoken former high-jumping star scored positive marks for his speech, which included a tribute to his mother, snippets of his background and solid advice to the audience of more than 400 community members and business students.
Brown began by saying he wanted to talk about Colston – and more: “… about the character of a man and the courage of a woman.”
He said his mother – a woman with a sixth grade education – is “the woman with the most character there could be.” It was her desire that he go to college, Brown said.
His mother did cleaning and housework, but she realized what values were important.
“She knew it was how she treated people and the way she interacted as a woman, not as a janitor, that really forged relationships.” Brown said.
He told students that all of them would sometime get “stuck in a place."
“You will find yourself at a crossroads, a place where you don’t know whether to go left or go right,” Brown said. “And when that happens, that’s when your character will be tested. When you’re stuck in a place, you have to pattern your life after principles, not people. Principles hold true, where people will let you down – not because they want to, but because people are flawed.”
Character is not measured in moments of comfort and ease, he said.
“You measure character in moments of challenge and controversy. That’s when you step to the plate. We all have struggles, no matter where you come from. But your struggle is your strength.”
Brown praised the character of Monroe Colston, a former real estate commissioner for the state of Iowa and consultant to the Greater Des Moines Foundation, serving as its president in the 1990s. Known as a nonconfrontational civil rights leader, he was inducted into the Iowa African-American Hall of Fame in 2007 and served on many business boards and councils. A week before his death in August 2011 at age 77, he was named by dsm magazine as one of Des Moines’ “Sages over 70,” a group selected for leaving a lasting impact on the community.
Last year, AIB hosted its first Monroe Colston Speaker Series, followed by a May dinner honoring Colston's legacy. That event raised more than $91,000 for AIB scholarships.