Relationships matter. A lot.

How you treat your friends, your family, your coworkers, complete strangers, anyone — is a direct reflection on you. It says a lot about your personality, your integrity and your character.

Dan Applegate is a man that knows the value of creating good relationships.

After all, relationships got him the job as the next superintendent of Niles Community Schools.

How do I know this?

For one, I didn’t have a relationship with Dan prior to the superintendent search. I knew nothing about him.

As I heard his first interview with the board of education, I wasn’t that impressed. He was good, but I thought there were other candidates that interviewed better and had better resumes and more experience than he did.

However, when I talked to other people that knew him — teachers, former colleagues and friends — they had a distinctly different take on his first interview.

They loved it. They thought he was great. They saw in that interview the things that they already knew about him — that he is very intelligent, loves education and truly cares about kids.

I didn’t get this because I didn’t know him.

By the time his second interview rolled around I had talked to even more people who had even more good things to say about Dan.

I could finally see what everyone was talking about. I walked away from Dan’s second interview very impressed and confident that he would make a great superintendent.

So did the board, which essentially offered him the job the next day.

If Dan hadn’t fostered such good relationships during his previous 14 years at Niles Community Schools, I doubt he would have been offered the job.

Niles would likely have missed out on a great superintendent.

That’s the power of relationships.

 

Craig Haupert is the community editor for the Niles Daily Star. He can be reached at (269) 687-7720, or by email at craig.haupert@leaderpub.com.