Steve Neely ’75

“I say I’m the poster boy for liberal arts, because I was able to put my education to work in three distinct careers. After graduation, I taught for five years. Then I went into medical equipment and supply sales and sales management, overseeing 450 sales reps. I was a road warrior for 20 years and then owned my own small business in Springfield for another 20.

When people ask what my profession is, I tell them I’m a salesman. It connects to being a teacher in the sense that teachers sell kids on wanting to learn more. Wittenberg’s outstanding faculty were great sales people in that way. There are lessons I learned that I didn’t even realize I was learning.

Academics at Wittenberg prepared me very well for life after college. But if there were anything particularly illustrious about my college career, it was that I met my wife, Mary Alice. Unlike me, she stayed in teaching. A specialist in early childhood education, she ran a preschool in a church close to Wittenberg. Now she does a lot of volunteer work. Springfield is a wonderful place to raise a family, and our relationships after college allowed us to perhaps make a difference in the community by being involved in a variety of ways.

Living in Springfield and being around ‘Wittenbergers,’ four blocks from the University, we have more insight than most alumni. I continue to be amazed by the quality of the students, and I believe in President Frandsen and his senior team 110 percent. Wittenberg is a terrific institution.

My wife and I have this feeling, this affinity to the University and what it did for us. I look at so many of my close friends and, sitting one-on-one, they’d say, ‘Wittenberg made me what I am.’ So many are successful because of what Wittenberg did for them. It’s the life experiences and the opportunities, whether relevant or not, that 40 years later we can draw on. And it’s the personal relationships that made us.”