Episode 147
The Kettering Model: Bridging Academia and Industry for Automotive’s Next Leaders
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Dr. Robert McMahan, President of Kettering University, started out as a kid with binoculars, staring up at the stars, fascinated by the unknown. Now, he's shaping the next generation of leaders who will drive innovation in the auto industry before they even step foot into the workforce.
For Dr. McMahan, leadership isn't about power—it's about unlocking the potential of those around you. He believes a true leader creates an environment where people thrive, where great ideas don't just exist but move forward.
Too often, companies think they've built a culture of leadership because they've put values on a poster in a conference room, but when you ask employees what those values are, they can't tell you. Dr. McMahan is determined to change that.
At Kettering, leadership is modeled, not just taught. Leaders must make tough decisions, but transparency matters—helping people understand why decisions happen so they feel connected to the bigger picture.
Kettering isn't your typical university. It operates on a co-op model, where students spend half their time in class and the other half working in the industry. This hands-on approach means graduates don't just have theoretical knowledge—they have actual experience solving problems inside organizations.
This model benefits students and keeps the university ahead of industry trends. Students rotate between school and work, bringing back insights about what's happening. That constant feedback loop helps Kettering adapt its curriculum to match the industry's ever-changing needs, making it one of the most future-focused universities in the country.
But who is McMahan outside of work? He is a Joni Mitchell fan, an aerobatic pilot (not a great one, he admits), and a lifelong astrophysics nerd—he even had a poster of an astrophysicist on his wall in college.
More importantly, he's the kind of university president who walks the halls, buys students coffee, and keeps the conversation going. Because leadership isn't just about decisions—it's about connection.
Themes discussed in this episode:
- The role of education in shaping future automotive leaders
- Why the auto industry must shift from command-and-control to authentic leadership
- The key to building an organization with values that drive real cultural change
- How Kettering’s co-op model gives students real-world experience before graduation
- How future automotive careers will evolve and why students must adapt now
- The disconnect between academic learning and corporate expectations—and how to fix it
- The power of real-time industry feedback in keeping STEM education future-ready
Featured guest: Robert McMahan
What he does: Dr. Robert K. McMahan is the seventh President of Kettering University, where he has led a decade of transformation, strengthening its reputation as a leader in STEM and business education. With a background spanning academia, government, and venture capital, he has been instrumental in shaping innovation policy, technology investment, and engineering education. His career includes roles as a physics professor, science advisor to North Carolina’s governor, and senior strategist at In-Q-Tel. A recognized thought leader, he has contributed to groundbreaking astrophysics research and holds multiple patents, making a lasting impact on both education and technology development.
On Leadership: “I've always believed that leadership is really about facilitating the success of others. And you hear people say that sometimes it even sounds cliché, but it really is true. It's about unlocking the potential of the people that you work with because none of us is an island, and it's one of the things that we like to teach students here about leadership and about working in organizations. You can have the best idea in the world, and you can be the most inventive and creative person, but if you can't work with others if you don't know how to mobilize an organization and move an idea through that organization to create winners along the way to get ownership, you will be alone and you won't be successful no matter how good your ideas are.”
Episode Highlights:
[04:52] Leadership Isn’t About You: Forget the spotlight—real leadership is about creating the conditions for people to thrive. Dr. McMahan shares why the true mark of a leader is the success that follows them.
[07:20] Start with Actions, Not Words: Students see through empty talk—so if you want to teach leadership, you have to live it. Dr. McMahan explains why the best way to shape future leaders is by modeling the values you expect.
[09:36] Values That Stick, Not Collect Dust: If your values need a flowchart, you’re doing it wrong. Dr. McMahan explains why the best organizations boil their purpose down to a simple, undeniable driving force—one that people actually remember and live by.
[14:06] Lead Loud Enough for Them to Hear: Students don’t learn leadership through lectures—they learn by watching it in action. McMahan shares how modeling transparency, tough decision-making, and real accountability shapes the next generation of leaders.
[17:20] The Kettering Model: Fresh out of school, full of game-changing ideas… and then reality hits—corporate silos, endless processes, and a system that doesn’t care how smart you are. Kettering’s secret? Throwing students into the deep end before they graduate.
[24:02] The 12-Week Reality Check: Forget waiting years to update a curriculum—Kettering students bring real-world feedback straight from the field every 12 weeks, keeping the university ahead of the curve and the industry on its toes.
[29:39] Careers with No Map: Gone are the days of climbing the corporate ladder—now, the game is about navigating an ever-changing maze. Dr. McMahan lays out why the most valuable skill isn’t what you know, but how fast you can learn, adapt, and solve problems on the fly.
[32:27] Astrophysicists, Joni Mitchell, and Bad Aerobatics: Dr. McMahan opens up about his love for the cosmos, his not-so-perfect aerobatic flying skills, and the music that’s stuck with him since he was 18. Turns out, even university presidents have their obsessions.
Top Quotes:
[06:04] Robert: “To me, being a successful leader and what I really focus on is providing the framework, providing the support that allows the people that I work with to be successful because when they win, we all win.”
[10:55] Robert: “One of the ways that you motivate, that you really establish that vision for an organization like a university, is you bring everybody together and you guide them through that conversation. And you say, what is it about? What are we about? And then, through that exercise, you develop a very concise and very small —with the emphasis on small—set of driving forces. You can call them strategic pillars, you can do whatever you want to, but something that everyone in the organization can articulate and say, "This is what we're about.””
[19:34] Robert: “All the soft skills we always talk about: communication, teamwork, all of these things, organizational behaviors. You can't teach those in a classroom. The university is actually not the right place. So, they built an educational model that said, "You're going to go to university, you're going to go to one of the top engineering schools in the country, but you're only going to spend half the time in the classroom. The other half of the time, you're going to be a professional—in an organization in a mentored way.”
[00:00] Robert: “When the entering class comes in as freshmen, we divide it into two groups. And because we're engineers, we call it the A section and the B section. These two groups enter a rotation. So, when the A section is here on campus, the B section is out in their professional placements in industry. And then, they rotate. And that rotation occurs about every 12 weeks. Now, one of the interesting things about this is students are not shy. They tell us. We're one of the few institutions, I think, that gets evaluated every 12 weeks as to whether or not we're being relevant. Because they'll come back and they'll say, "No, that's not what we're doing. That's not how it works." And so, we actually get that feedback every year, four times. It allows us to modify our facilities, the types of things we're teaching in the laboratories, the types of techniques as well as the curriculum, to suit the evolution of these industries.”
[30:32] Robert: “ In that older structure where you had kind of a long-term contract of "You join an organization, you stay with that organization, and you move up," you had very well-defined boundaries for skills and what you needed to do and how you would up-skill those as you move through the organization. It's no longer true. Students have to prepare for a different kind of professional reality. At the end of the day, what is the university really teaching them? Is it the factual knowledge that they get out of a book or in a lecture? No, no, it really isn't. We are teaching that, of course, but what we're really teaching is the habits of mind—the resiliency, and the flexibility, and the ability to decompose complexity. Take a very complicated system, break it apart into tractable pieces, solve those problems, and then put it together and have a solution.”
Mentioned in this episode:
This episode is sponsored by Lockton, click here to learn more
Transcript
[Transcript]
[:Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.
This episode is brought to you by Lockton. Lockton redefines business insurance and people solutions with a personal touch. Their global team of 11,000 is driven by independence, not quarters, to tailor success for your business. Discover the Lockton difference, where your goals become their mission.
Independence, it's not just how you think but how you act.
On this podcast, we talk about leaders in the auto industry, and they're typically leaders who have been in the position for some time or somebody who has something to contribute to the mission of driving cultural change in the auto industry. But what about those leaders who are in charge of molding our future leaders before they even step foot into the auto industry? What about those people? Well, today, get ready to meet the visionary leader who sits right at the intersection of astrophysics, uh huh, that's right, astrophysics, technology, and education. He currently serves as the seventh President of Kettering University. He has a diverse background spanning the world of academia, business, and government. Our guest today has been instrumental in shaping the future of both scientific research and automotive innovation. Before taking the helm at Kettering, his career included a notable role as a senior technology strategist and venture capitalist for In-Q-Tel, a CIA-funded venture capital organization. It's the first time I've ever said that in my entire life. This unique experience and that breadth of experience that he has undoubtedly contributed to his ability to bridge the gap between cutting edge research and practical applications in the industry. Under his leadership, Kettering University has solidified its position as a powerhouse in STEM education and innovation, and most certainly in the auto industry. Did you know that this university ranks fourth among colleges producing the highest share of inventors per student? Outperforming prestigious institutions like Stanford and Carnegie Mellon. Right here in Michigan, in our home state. Kettering has earned recognition as a national leader in preparing STEM and business entrepreneurs and innovators, but perhaps most impressively, the Wall Street Journal has ranked Kettering first in the country for career preparation. Now, that is quite possibly the longest introduction I have ever given anybody, but there is so much there and so many important points that I want to make. So, without further ado, please welcome to the show, Dr. Robert McMahan.
[: [: [: [: [:You can have the best idea in the world, you can be the most inventive and creative person, but if you can't work with others, if you don't know how to mobilize an organization and move an idea through that organization to create winners along the way, to get ownership will be alone and you won't be successful no matter how good your ideas are. So really, to me, being a successful leader and what I really focus on is providing the framework, providing the support that allows the people that I work with to be successful because when they win, we all win. I always said to my sons, I want to be known as the kind of leader that when they're around, things are successful. It's not that people look at them and say, "Wow, that person," but that they notice all of a sudden that whenever that person is in an organization, the organization is doing well. And I think that's the hallmark of a great leader.
[: [: [: [: [: [:Because I know, as a leader in an organization, especially universities, are complex creatures. In fact, I've run corporations, and I've run universities, and universities are far more complicated than companies are. Because for one thing, they don't have the tools that companies use to align interests and motivate action. They don't have the same tools. But more so, universities have many owners. They have many people who believe that the university, and feel viscerally that the university is theirs. And rightfully so. The students own the university. The alumni own the university. The faculty and staff have an ownership role in the university. And so, managing all those different constituencies in the context of a very complex organization is the great challenge of a university. And maintaining a set of values, and being true to those values as you operate in all these various ways, is really the first and foremost element of training that leadership.
[: [:And I think about that in the corporate world. There are many examples where you'll have these highly diversified organizations. But when you reduce it to that kind of logic, you see that everything they do in all of these ways—I'm thinking about one automotive company that makes cars, but they also make lawnmowers, and they also make jet aircraft, and they have this wide range of product lines globally. And yet, when you ask, what is the driving force? Why do they do this? The answer reduces to, well, what they really make are engines. They really specialize. That's their driving force—to make the best engines that can be produced. And then they make everything that needs an engine as part of their product line. And so, one of the ways that you motivate, that you really establish that vision for an organization like a university is you bring everybody together, and you guide them through that conversation. And you say, what is it about? What are we about? And then, through that exercise, you develop a very concise and very small —with the emphasis on small—set of driving forces. You can call them strategic pillars, you can do whatever you want to, but something that everyone in the organization can articulate and say, "This is what we're about." These long documents with, these long strategic plans with part three, sub part two, slash B stroke—they're useless from a standpoint. You may create some accountability structures in that. You may have reason to do. But from a cultural standpoint, they're meaningless. You have to reduce the driving forces of an organization down to something that will fit on a wallet card—something that everybody can learn by heart because it's part of their heart. And they learn it by heart, and they can repeat it. And so, I'm very proud that in an organization like Kettering, you walk around, people can tell you. If you ask them, what are the values of yours? What are the driving forces? They can tell you what they are. And those values and those driving forces actually don't change. Or they may adapt over time. But the driving forces of an organization typically don't change. It's why we do what we do.
[: [:There is no substitute for that feeling, for that moment. And that's why they do it. But you have to respect that and let them know why.
[:Because they walk into the corporate world and, you know, there are processes and procedures, and there's this silo, and this function, and that function, and da, da, da, da. And we all know that, often, that creativity can be stifled in the corporate world. Now, it's getting better. But how do you prepare your students to face that world—where people are going to look at you and say, "Oh yeah, that's a brilliant idea! Let's put that on the next vehicle."? How do you prepare them for the corporate world?
[:The appropriate place for you to learn that is in an organization itself. Because only there can you learn all of these things that we value so highly once they get into professional roles—you know, all the soft skills we always talk about: communication, teamwork, all of these things, organizational behaviors. But you can't teach those in a classroom. The university is actually not the right place. So, they built an educational model that said, "You're going to go to university, you're going to go to one of the top engineering schools in the country, but you're only going to spend half the time in the classroom. The other half of the time, you're going to be a professional —in an organization in a mentored way. So that you learn how to work in an organization. You learn how to work with people. You learn exactly what you asked. —how do you work within an organization? How do you have a great idea and not be crushed?
The way that you do that is that you understand how organizations work. Because an automotive manufacturer, for example, craves innovation. They need new products. They need things that set them apart in the market. They crave this —but they have a process by which that is developed and a process by which it is implemented. Very often, where you get that crushing that you refer to —where they are dissuaded from or discouraged—comes from not meshing with the organization, not the fact that the organization is not open to the idea. Does that make sense? So, learning how to work within an organization and learning how to be a part of a team moving an idea forward is critical. And one of the things that I didn't appreciate about the Kettering model—that really is wonderful that I've learned since I got here—is since our students spend half of their time in engineering organizations, in laboratories, in research facilities, working with senior scientists, working with senior engineers, working on projects, seeing entire project life cycles, they do this before they graduate. As they are doing this, it also informs how they respond to each other. So, Kettering students bring that behavior back to the university, and they engage their education in a very different way. We can have a class here where a faculty member will be teaching some really sophisticated, esoteric topic in engineering, and he or she will turn to the classroom and say, "Jane, I know you're working in the cryogenic wind tunnel at this facility in your co-op. Is this how you do it there?" And Jane will say, "Well, kinda. We use this approximation because that part of the equation doesn't really mean anything to us." And so, you have this dialogue in the curriculum here that's completely absent at other institutions. It's an incredible model. It really is. And it's the answer. It's ultimately the answer to your question.
[: [:I'll mangle a quote by Charles Kettering— he was much more erudite than this—but he said one time, "If we trained musicians the way we train engineers, we'd make them take 12 years of music theory before we ever let them touch a piano."
[: [: [: [: [: [: [:Because it's not just, "Okay, we got this model, it works." We've got to keep our eye on the future. And since the industry is going through such a period of—I used to say transformation, but it’s not transformation—it's complete reinvention in the auto industry. But how do you stay connected to and aligned with those leaders, and therefore take their needs, the industry's needs, and channel that back into the world of academia? How do you do that?
[: [: [: [: [: [: [:So, there's a lot of that dialogue that comes. But I think that's true. There is very much a shift away from the kind of central command-and-control structures for many of these organizations to more collaborative leadership and a lot more empowerment and transparency through the organization. But there's still a need to observe those protocols as well. And hitting that right balance is part of understanding the organization in 2025.
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [:He was the one that among the very first to postulate the existence of black holes and neutron stars and all these things. But he did it so early on when everybody made fun of him. "This could never happen." "No, that's the silliest thing we've heard." And later on, he was proven over and over and over to be correct. This picture was just so engaging because it was... it's hard to describe, but having him sitting with his hand on this big pile of books, with this look on his face, it was just kind of like, "You wish you were as good as me." Kind of.
[: [: [: [:I tried to get tickets to her performances, but I was unsuccessful.
[: [:When I fly a figure in the sky, it's perfect in my own imagination. It's just not so perfect to the people on the ground. I love flying. It's always been a passion of mine, but not a vocation, but an avocation.
[: [:Because, like I said earlier, when I was an undergraduate, I saw the president of the university twice. I saw him once when he had a freshman reception in orientation week, and I saw him the next time when I was walking across the stage at commencement. Those are the two times I interacted with him as an undergraduate.mI never want that to be the case for students that come to Kettering. I want them to know, to feel like they can come and talk to me. And when I'm walking in the hall, they can stop and say, "Hey, can I talk to you about something?" Or walk with me.nOr I go over to—we have a Great Lakes coffee here on campus. I go sit in the Great Lakes coffee, and I just ask people to come over. Usually, I buy them a cup of coffee—that always starts the conversation—and then we go from there.
And so, I'm my own worst enemy in that because a lot of the time-slicing that I talk about is because I love interacting with the students, and I love walking and talking to the faculty. And in the corporate world, I was a huge proponent of managing by walking around and I retain that here at the university.
That's my biggest distraction—when I'm working on something that I don't want to necessarily work on, and if I'm pushing some paper on the desk, I'll get up and I'll go talk to some students. And then, at least that refreshes me, and I can come back and do the paperwork.
[: [: [: [: [:
