Mathews brothers experience success in collegiate, business worlds

It was 1964 when Dowagiac’s Fred Mathews led a group of other Cass County men and women to achieve what many thought impossible: the establishment of an institution of higher learning in a largely rural community.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary last fall, Southwestern Michigan College has grown to not only be one of the cornerstones of Cass County, but to be one of the premiere community colleges in the country. In a time when many schools are in a state of free-fall, the Dowagiac college continues to thrive, earning consistently high marks in student achievement, enrollment and other metrics.

For the last 50 years, Mathews served as the president of SMC’s Board of Trustees, making him the longest serving college chair in the country before stepping down in January of this year.

While these accomplishments are things that any person would envy, Mathews’ greatest legacy is not the one he created with his fellow board members in 1964; it’s the two he and his wife, Thelda, have devoted much of their lives to raising, teaching and mentoring, even before the birth of SMC: their children, Scott and David.

Today, the Dowagiac brothers have established themselves as accomplished leaders in their own rights, each in their own world: one in academia and one in business.

In David’s case, it’s right here where he grew up, as the president of the college his family helped create. As for Scott, it’s on the country’s west coast, as president of one of the largest digital automotive advertising firms in the world, Cobalt.

While the Mathews’ brothers took wildly different paths to end up where they are today, their stories began together in Dowagiac. Both are graduates of Dowagiac Union High School, with Scott earning his diploma in 1977, followed by his younger brother a year later, in 1978, graduating as valedictorian of his class.

The two would continue to chart similar courses to one another, both choosing to study at Michigan State University, albeit in different fields.

It was at this point when their journeys began to diverge.

After earning his bachelor’s degree, Scott attended classes at the University of Chicago, where he received his MBA.

“Like many people coming out of school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next,” Scott said. “I got an interview with General Electric right out school. I ended up working with them for the next 14 to 15 years or so.”

His long stint with the multi-national corporation set the stage for his career in managing the intersect between traditional business and the emerging technology industry. Coming out of college into technical marketing and sales management, he later became a leader inside GE’s Healthcare division, overseeing projects relating to medical systems.

After graduating from MSU in 1982 with his science degree, David took a radically different path from both he and his brother’s original plans to attend medical school. Bitten by the “skydiving bug” a few years earlier, he decided to enlist in U.S. Army, hoping to become an Airborne Ranger.

“I always had a sense of patriotism, a love for our country, and the idea of going into the military always appealed to me,” David said. “Plus, the idea of joining one of the military’s most elite groups holds an attraction to a lot of young men.”

Commissioned as an officer after going through basic training, David served 16 months in Korea, where at one point he was one of two officers leading the American presence inside the two nations’ demilitarized zones. Following his extensive tour of duty, he went through Special Forces training, and eventually came to lead his own units of paratroopers.

 

Changing Course

Despite achieving a tremendous amount of success in their respective fields, both brothers eventually decided to take new paths in their careers, leaving their employers to embark on the next chapter of their lives. David left the armed forces in the mid-1980s, and Scott retired from GE more than a decade later, in the late ‘90s.

“I never wanted to be a career officer,” David said of his decision to leave. “What I wanted to be was a special forces team leader. I had set my heights high, and I obtained it. Now what?”

That “what” became teaching, as David decided to enroll in North Carolina State University, where he obtained his doctorate in mathematics.

“I came to the realization that college had been a positive experience for me, and I knew that I wanted to be on the other end of that experience,” David said.

He spent the next decade teaching and consulting around the nation. He devoted much of career to studying methods on how to more effectively teach college students high-level mathematics, leading teaching workshops on the subject.

After meeting with so many fellow educators, though, another realization dawned on David, which would eventually cause him to change courses yet again.

“I had to make a decision: I can have a really productive career in consulting, and make a small difference nationally; or I can try to make a really big difference in one place,” he said.

As fate would have it, the decision to become an administrator led him back to his hometown, to the college which he and his brother had witnessed the birth of more than 30 years earlier. David became a dean at SMC in 1999, before ascending to the presidency in 2001.

Since then, SMC has grown to tremendous heights, with the school currently encompassing 15 buildings across two campuses in Dowagiac and Niles. In addition to growing its academic programs, the president has focused on creating what he calls the “total college experience” for SMC’s students, building three student dormitory complexes and enhancing the school’s student recreation center.

“College, at its best, is more than just classes,” David said. “It’s a time of growth and learning new things about yourself. That’s why part of the mission of SMC is to give people these new opportunities, so they can figure out what they would like to do in the future.”

For Scott’s next act, he decided to turn his attention away from large conglomerates like GE, shifting his attention toward the rapidly booming tech startups emerging on the west coast during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. After working with several companies in the Seattle area, he got a call in late 2001 from the leadership at Colbalt, who wanted to bring the veteran aboard their growing ship, where he would serve as chief operating officer.

“We’ve been building what has become one of the largest marketing companies in the digital space since then,” he said.

Currently a division of CDK Digital Marketing, Colbalt works with partners like Google to provide marketing to companies such as GM, Lexus and Hyundai.

“We help automotive dealers and manufacturers to market their cars digitally, using the Internet,” Scott said. “Over time, more and more digital alternatives are emerging, such as mobile apps on tablets and smartphones. We leverage all kinds of Internet technologies and apply them for our customers.”

Ascending to the presidency this fall, Scott oversees the operations of the 1,200 employee company, which is on track to become worth $1.2 billion in the coming years.

“I get to be the coach of a really good team,” Scott said of his role in the company. “Most of my direct reports have been here for a long time.”

The company was recently featured in Seattle Business, winning the magazine’s 2014 Tech Impact award in marketing, featured alongside major corporations like Microsoft and T-Mobile.

Despite the burdens of their daily jobs and the hundreds of miles separating them, the two brothers continue to talk to each other often. In spite of the image of intense sibling rivalry that is often seen in the media, neither Scott nor David said that is the case in their relationship.

“As soon as he became a green beret, I quit trying to wrestle with him,” Scott joked.

They both have expressed admiration at each other’s accomplishments, as well.

“We came at it from very different routes and perspectives, but he [David] is an amazing leader,” Scott said. “I learned a lot from him. At the end of the day, what we do is very different, but it’s also the same.”

“I think neither of us had a clear picture of where we would end up when we were kids, but we always expected a lot of out ourselves, to do the best we could,” David said. “It turns out that had benefits you can’t even imagine.”