And good evening.

You've got More Than Money.

You've got Gene Dickison, your host, your personal financial adviser for the next half an hour, at your service and very, very honored to be.

So we appreciate you sharing part of your evening with us.

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But we have an entire team that answers every single one of your questions right back to you, even the silly ones.

And we get those on occasion.

But bottom line is, whether your concerns are about investments or retirement, about income taxes or Roth conversions, about estate planning, perhaps choosing an executor or finding someone to run a trust for you, or business, starting, running, liquidating a business.

We're here to help in any way that we can.

We lay claim to being the most relevant financial show on TV today.

And I stand by that claim without reservation, because we respond to you.

We don't set the agenda.

You set the agenda with your calls and your questions, as we will this evening, we'll be interviewing a very special guest, and we often do that.

But Q&A, answering your questions is really important.

So, of late, we've been doing a bit of a hybrid.

So let's go right to our financial correspondent, Megan.

- What's our question this evening?

- Hi, Gene.

Our question is short and sweet.

It says, I'm 69 years old and I'm wondering, is an IRA to Roth IRA conversion a good idea?

Thank you for your help.

-Yeah.

Question short and sweet.

Answer maybe not so much.

It really does depend.

69 is on the higher end of a time frame for doing a Roth conversion, but that doesn't eliminate it as an option at all.

Everything depends on your personal financial goals.

So if your goal is, I've got plenty of cash flow, I don't really need additional cash flow, my income tax bracket is pretty modest and this whole RMD thing that's coming up in three years really is annoying to me, then a Roth conversion fits you rather nicely.

It'll reduce your RMDs, perhaps eliminate them.

You'll move out of an IRA, perhaps at a lower tax bracket.

And if you've got plenty of cash flow now that you can meet your needs, you can salt these away into a tax-free environment and perhaps draw upon them when you're 79 or 89 or 99 and pull all those dollars out tax free, when in the future, ten, 20, 30 years down the road, might the income tax rates be a little bit higher?

My concern is yes.

So you might very well find yourself, if all those things fit, you might find yourself smiling about the Roth conversion you did back in 2022.

Excellent question.

Speaking of excellent, we invite folks to come to our stage that bring ideas and backgrounds and lessons that are most excellent.

So please help me welcome our guest this evening, the president of Alvernia University, John Loyack.

John, welcome.

- Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to be here.

- I've learned a little bit about your background and I think the pleasure is going to be all mine.

So I guess we'll find out here shortly.

- I guess so.

- President of Al Vernia.

There are a lot of folks out there go, I've heard of deans, I kind of know what they do, what does the president do?

- Pretty much a little of everything.

I think it comes with the job.

But I think if you focused in on key things, we set the strategic direction of the university.

We make sure we have the right team of people to execute it.

We set the goals and objectives.

And because so much of our ability to execute a plan is philanthropic in nature, we need to, as presidents, go out and raise the money to bring the dream to life.

So I think that's probably a good overview of presidents these days.

- Good overview, indeed.

As is our pattern, we kind of skip to the end first and then we backfill.

So, knowing where you are now, there's a lot of folks that are watching and they're going, well, of course, look at him, of course he's the president.

Of course he's the president.

But as you and I shared just real briefly, that's not where you started.

You didn't start as the president of a university, as a young man.

Give us a little sense of your family background.

- Sure.

I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, in Pittston, very meager beginning from a very large family.

My dad had 13 brothers and sisters.

My grandfather was a coal miner.

Some of my older uncles were coal miners before the mines closed with the Knox Mine disaster up in northeastern Pennsylvania.

And that's the way I grew up.

In many ways, very beautiful because everybody was your family in the neighborhood you grew up in.

But a different beginning.

I'm a first generation college student, so sort of the first to find their way to college, went to King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, as an accounting major, and then left there to go to PricewaterhouseCoopers, at that time, just Price Waterhouse, to begin my career.

- First of all, I think I was surprised my dad had 13 brothers and sisters, so... Crazy.

And we grew up, what, less than an hour apart, - That's right.

- So pretty interesting connection there.

As again, first generation to go to college.

What was that like to go from modest beginnings to a college campus when there's nobody in your family to go, hey, here's what's going to happen?

It's kind of... How did you, how did you make that transition?

- Yeah, in one sense, it seemed inevitable because my dad would always talk about, you're going to go to college, you're going to go to college, you're going to go to college.

Then it became time to do that and you sort of had to find your way on your own.

So that was a little scary, frankly.

As an 18-year-old trying to figure it out, trying to be, put yourself in a position to be able to be in college and then, of course, having to step up and do the work at the college level.

You know, that first year was an interesting transition from high school to college to being more independent, to sort of figuring it out on your own.

- Do you have brothers and sisters?

- I don't.

I'm an only child.

I think my dad was overwhelmed by the 14.

- That is crazy.

That's so cool.

That is so very cool.

In your growing up years, were there influences?

Was it your dad?

Was there a teacher?

Was there a mentor in your youth that you would point back to and go, I learned a lot from...?

- Yeah.

I think the person I would point back to that I've learned the most from in my life was my grandmother.

So my grandmother was sort of always there, was a great escape hatch as a, you know, early teen, late teen growing up.

Always somewhere to go, always somewhere to get advice, always loving.

I think she would have been the quintessential grandmother in that sense, or Nana in this case.

But, and frankly, I think a lot of life lessons I learned from her just sitting and having conversation or I would ride my bike on Saturday morning and she would make me breakfast when I finished.

It's just that special connection between grandmother and grandson.

- And this was your dad's mom?

- My mom's mom.

- Your mom's mom?

So we got 14 on one side, you go to your mom's mom, so you've got cross-pollination.

That's fantastic.

And, my guess, it's just a guess, that your showing up on your bike on a Saturday morning.

must have given her joy.

- Oh, yeah.

There's no two ways about it.

- A grandma that has a grandson who wants to come see her.

- Yeah.

- Wants to come spend time with her.

A lot of what I've read about your background, the word relationship just keeps popping off the page.

Do you think that started with your grandma?

- Most certainly.

- Wow.

Wow.

So we're on to King's College.

It's a transition I relate to directly, again, in that, in that formative piece of your, prior to your career, was there one person, was there one influence or did you walk away with just a sense of, here's what is important that I pulled away from my four years of King's'?

- Yeah.

You know, frankly, it was one person that I would point to.

So her name was Janet.

She was an accounting professor who I actually met on a campus recruiting event.

And she taught a class.

And she was just so enthusiastic about accounting and just so enthusiastic in general.

It sort of led me to King's and then I got there as an accounting major.

The first year you got a general advisor, but your second year she became my advisor and she really was my mentor throughout my career.

Although I'll give great kudos to the small but very professional accounting department King's had back in those days.

They were all invested in your success.

But Janet would really be the person that I would have seen as a mentor and an advisor.

- She had passion for her subject.

- She did.

And for students.

- Accounting.

The vast majority of us...

I am married to a tax accountant.

The vast majority... Oh, my gosh.

You hear accounting and you go, OK, I'm already sleepy, I'm dozing off here.

Obviously, that was not your feel.

That was not her feel.

Do you think her passion lit the fire in you as well or enhanced the fire in you?

- Yeah, totally.

I would have never thought that I would have been a college student and been an accounting major.

It's really Janet's enthusiasm that sparked the interest, and I really started as an IT major.

But you had to take accounting classes.

By the time I got to my second year, I was an accounting major.

And frankly, Janet convinced me that, you really you should do this, there's a great, great career opportunities, all the big firms recruit here, you could be good at this.

And one thing led to another.

Well, it's a shame she didn't really know what she was talking about.

- That's true.

- As we fast forward, I think we've let the cat out of the bag.

It's exactly what she projected is exactly what happened to you.

Price Waterhouse, let's be clear to everybody out there that's not in the accounting world or hasn't been in the accounting world.

This is top shelf.

So we're going from modest upbringing, first generation college to top shelf.

What was that transition like?

- That was a fun transition, I have to admit.

So you work hard for four years.

I interned there in the spring before I started full time.

So when I got there, I knew people.

They start you in a big group of, I think there was 45 of us that spent a month together, training, and you make relationships and it was just a great professional environment.

Worked on great clients.

It was a really nice way... - Where were you based?

- Philadelphia.

To start a career.

So, yeah, it was... That was a bit of a transition.

Small town, northeastern Pennsylvania to big city Philadelphia in a, in a good way.

I mean, just so many more things to do.

I lived on South Street in an apartment with another fellow that I worked with when I first started.

And, you know, we had a great time working and a great time outside of work and played softball in the local softball league.

And, you know, it was just a great way to start a career.

- Again, we often bump into stories of mentorship.

You had one, this young lady at King's, was there someone at Price that kind of maybe took you under their wing or you were able to emulate?

- Yeah, that's absolutely true, too.

So, in fact, the manager who was on the team training us for a month, his name was Tom Higgins, wonderful guy, really became my mentor.

And so I worked on some of his clients coming out of training and had done that on my internship before I had started, and built a really nice relationship.

So Tom was kind of my mentor, my ears and eyes, my advisor, my champion.

Everybody has one in big firms like that.

So, yeah, absolutely the same kind of experience.

- Fantastic.

There are folks listening this evening, either grandparents, parents or the children of all the above who are saying, accounting, accounting.

It is such a fundamentally valuable body of professionalism to build off of.

We're going to swing back to that here in a moment about the building off of because you've you went from Price to some pretty interesting additional career accomplishments.

But if you could give advice, just one or two maybe lessons learned or tips perhaps to aspiring accountants, something that you might share?

- Yeah.

You know, I think the accounting education is a great analytical bootcamp, really gets your brain going on solving problems.

And frankly, you can take that, and my career is probably a good example, that you can take that and do tax accounting your whole life or you can take it and use that financial, analytical mind and the ability to build relationships and pretty much take that career anywhere you want it to go.

I've done a lot of things that I would have never guessed, including being a university president, when I started at Price Waterhouse, but definitely a great way to get your mind going in business and you really can take it anywhere you want to with a little experience.

- I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'll apologize to my audience and to you as well, because I try to stay linear.

I try to stay on my track.

But so much of what you just said is almost verbatim the intent, the end result, we pray, of a really good college experience today, getting a young person from point A to point B, and that point B being able to solve problems, be able to learn effectively across, be able to shift gears and do different things with this foundation that's been created, versus, I know exactly how to put this top on this base and that's all I know how to do.

And, and if the tool isn't right there, I don't know how to fix it.

It's the exact opposite.

And in essence, you've kind of lived that process.

No wonder they wanted you to be president of the university.

From Price, where did you go from there?

- Lutron Electronics right here in the Lehigh Valley.

So did all kinds of things for them, helped start a manufacturing plant in Saint Kitts and did the first barcoded inventory system and did some finance work for them.

And it was also a fun time.

- How did that occur?

How did you get from Price to Lutron?

- Actually, a friend of mine who went to Lutron from Price, they had this sort of liaison between finance and operations and I wanted to do something more operational and one thing led to another and I wound up taking the job.

- I know that you also have an advanced degree from Lehigh.

- Yes.

- Where did that occur in all this mix?

- So the next stop, the next place that I worked was Union Pacific.

And when Drew Lewis became chairman, they moved the corporate holding company from Manhattan to Bethlehem.

- We were in Martin Tower, when there was a Martin Tower, one of the nicest places I ever worked, by the way, and made the jump there to be director of financial reporting.

And during that time took advantage of the opportunity for a free master's degree and went to Lehigh and got my master's degree, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

What a great institution.

- indeed.

Pretty different than King's.

- Yeah, much different.

- Different cultures, different, different kind of mindsets.

You say you enjoyed it so apparently it did not throw you a curveball.

- Yeah, it was great because it was this great blend of some students who were just going from undergrad right into an MBA to seasoned professionals in all different stages of their career.

- At this point, you're roughly how old?

- The late 20s.

- So late 20s.

So not a huge gap.

- No, no, no.

But enough that I was out in the workforce for a while.

I think that was the other thing that made it valuable.

People ask me this all the time, should, should I work before I get an advanced degree?

And my answer is yes, you should, because you learn a little bit about the real world and then you can bring that back into the classroom, rather than just absorbing what you're learning in the classroom.

We try to do that in our educational model, so students get both.

But certainly back in my time it was very much, you know, classroom.

You have to go out in the real world to sort of get that little bit of seasoning that made the education even that much more worthwhile.

- And again, I apologize.

Again, this is my show of apologies, apparently, because this experiential of attribute, of current 21st-century education very much embraced at Alvernia I'm guessing your personal experience has influenced that to a significant degree.

- Yeah, I think so.

So I didn't...

Most of my career was in corporate, doing a lot of different things and then sort of meandered my way into higher education and became a president.

So I probably don't, only because I don't have the background to do it, look at higher education the way a lot of presidents who came up through the ranks in higher education do.

So I'm focused on two things.

One is when I went to King's College, a college education was virtually free, relative to what you're paying today.

I think I left with a $5,000 student loan after four years, left and got a good job.

That was the end of that.

So today, that investment is much more significant by parents and students.

And so you need a return on investment.

And if I'm only teaching you in the classroom and I'm not getting you out there experientially to apply what you learn over and over before you graduate, so then when you leave us, you hit the ground running, and in all likelihood, you hit the ground running with somebody who did that experiential learning with... - Like Price.

- Right.

Exactly, the exact same model.

Then we did our job.

Because if you're leaving as a nurse, as an accountant, as an occupational therapist, as an engineer, you're moving into jobs that create the return on investment.

And if I did it right and I really got you ready and I let you take it out for a test drive a couple of times so that you made those mistakes sooner rather than later, you're off to a quick start in your career.

If you get that from Alvernia, then you have received your return on investment.

- This connection between the academic world and the business world.

We are of an age, when we were in college, it was largely nonexistent.

You walked through the hallowed halls of academia and the real world was left behind.

And now, if it's done well, it's almost the exact opposite of that.

Making connections is kind of the whole idea.

If I'm reading correctly, you got back to King's from a connection that you had made in your business life connections.

Again, relationships and connections are two words that seem to be all through your experience.

How do we influence young people to value, identify and value the relationships and connections that might be useful to them as they progress?

How do we do that?

- Yeah, I think that it has to again be part of the educational experience.

So if I have you out doing experiential learning, you can't isolate yourself, right?

You are pressed into service in building relationships.

And we do it two ways because we're a value-driven Franciscan institution.

You're also required to go out in the community and do service work.

So we get you out in the community, whether it's service, whether it's experiential learning, and in many cases, those two connect, right?

Because of the background of the student.

We get you going and learning how to build relationships.

And frankly, it's as important as anything you're going to learn in a classroom.

Every twist and turn in my career started with a relationship somewhere that ended with the next opportunity.

And if we can really get students to engage in that, engaging, creating partnerships, engage in working together, learning how to disagree without not being so mad at each other that we can't speak to each other anymore, those kinds of things, and get them that real experiential learning, so they're doing what they're going to do long before they are doing it every day, and doing it in that environment and learning how to build the relationships that will make them successful in that environment.

It's great to be a good technician, but if you can't work with people to apply it, it fails, right?

So we have to be able to do both.

That's part of, frankly, what experiential learning and service brings you at Alvernia is we get you out there, you get used to making relationships.

It's not so uncomfortable.

You start to get good at it.

And then when you leave us, you're a leg up.

- Outstanding, outstanding.

There is a tremendous trend, and this, sadly, will probably be the last question I get to ask you.

Time runs short.

There's a tremendous trend in business today that connects impact with profit.

People are not going into business simply to line their pockets.

They want to make a difference.

They want to have a societal impact.

Alvernia connects it kind of in the inverse making an impact and being, paying real attention to the cash flow.

I think the quote was, No money, no mission.

- Right.

- Fantastic.

Would you give us kind of your Reader's Digest view on this trend of business making an impact?

- Yeah, you know...

It's so much more valuable if along the way you can change some things for the good and it's not just about profit, right?

And that really goes back to Alvernia's model of mix of service and education and then experiential learning.

If we can connect you to the community and create a spark to want to help others and then train you well and get you out doing it and then get you out there, the likelihood you're on a business track that will be more in your life than just making a living or a paycheck or a profit , no matter how big the profit, that you're always also going to be focused on how what I'm doing impacts the people around me, the community I live in.

How can I help with that?

That's where it really comes together.

Frankly, in our society, we need a little more of that these days, we tend to be a little too polarized.

We like to get people to learn how to disagree the right way and still be friends and move on and still get things going and moving in the right direction.

Get you connected to the community, get you the training you need, get you the experience you need so that when you get out there, you can be one of those people.

No matter what your field, you're making an impact in your community and making a life, we like to say, making a living, making a life.

- That's well said, John, thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

That was a lot of fun.

- Oh, goodness.

Folks, connections, relationships, these are the foundations of not just a successful career, not just a successful profession, but a successful life.

And isn't really that why we want our kids and our grandkids to head off to college, to come out with the skills that allow them to have a successful life?

So I want to thank John Loyack.

Fantastic.

I want to thank all of you for spending part of your evening with us.

As we say, every single week, we are the most relevant financial show on TV because of you, because you ask us all the questions that are really, really important to you.

You are far more interesting than anything that I can come up with off the top of my now gray-covered head.

So send those questions to us.

If you have a suggestion for a guest that you might like to see interviewed on a future show, send that along as well.

Every single one of your questions will be answered back to you by our team.

I can't promise you you'll be on a future TV show because we simply don't have enough time.

But bottom line is that we're here to serve you in any way that we are able.

We're very, very pleased to do so.

And as John said, it's the interaction, the ability to communicate and have a relationship respectfully and with great empathy that really makes us advance.

So please join us next week when we return to this studio for More Than Money.