6 minute read
Earning the Title
Photo courtesy of PSAV
Earning the Title
By Carolanne Roberts
Things change gently with the generations. Mike McIlwain’s grandfather, a dedicated Mississippi farmer, had his eye more on crops than curriculum for Mike’s dad. That was understandable in the agricultural South, but the son had his sights set on college. He wanted to enroll at Mississippi State – and went for it. Mike himself, a 1987 accounting graduate, had the easier route.
“Dad would say to me, ‘You are going to college,’” he recalls. “He and my mom had set the tradition.”
Today, McIlwain and his wife, Susan, fuel another tradition by endowing the Joseph Watt McIlwain Scholarship to benefit full-time accountancy majors who are also entrepreneurship minors.
Although Mike’s family roots were in Starkville, he grew up in the rural town of Pahokee, FL.
“My father loved to fish and was a schoolteacher, so they packed up and moved to Palm Beach County in the 1960s,” explains McIlwain. “My mom, Bess, humored him, thinking it wouldn’t last. But we did return to Starkville a lot – for instance, Dad got his master’s degree at MSU one summer – and it was pretty clear early on that this was where I wanted to go to school too.”
He well remembers arriving as a freshman, driving 12 hours by himself, accompanied by only a few suitcases and an old TV.
“I felt like a foreigner,” he laughs. “About 80 percent of the students were from Mississippi and went home on weekends, so I quickly became friends with mostly non-Mississippians. Of course, I’d go to church with my grandmother on Sundays and watch football with my grandfather, but then I went back to the dorm. I was a dorm guy all four years.” His campus persona was “The Florida Kid.”
“I’ve always been something of a contrarian,” he remarks. “I’m a big Steelers fan even though I grew up in Florida and, back home, it was always cool to be a Mississippi State fan and then to actually go there. But I always thought I’d live in Florida.”
After completing a master of taxation degree at the University of Alabama, he took a position in Orlando, just a few hours from home. It seemed like the right move until his father, who had just turned 50, died in his sleep.
“Our world turned upside down,” he says. “Without my faith, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through it.”
After he married Susan, and his mother Bess Sikes McIlwain ultimately re-married and moved to Baton Rouge, being in Florida didn’t seem as relevant. He and Susan moved to New Orleans.
Joe Watt McIlwain, educator and MSU graduate.
Photo courtesy of Mike McIlwain
Having begun his career with KPMG, he worked as an accountant for KPMG and then Arthur Andersen for a total of eight years. Other opportunities led him northward, and he eventually became CFO of Motor Coach Industries, a $400 million business based in Chicago.
“I never thought I’d ever live north of the Mason-Dixon Line,” he comments.
McIlwain made a move to PSAV as CFO in 2009, and for the past eight years, he has been the company’s CEO. The opportunity at PSAV, also in Chicago, cemented his status as a Midwesterner.
This self-confessed introvert turns outwardly enthusiastic about PSAV and its global footprint in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East and, most recently, Australia, China and several other Asian countries. The heart of PSAV’s mission is providing event technology services for the hotel, resort and conference center industry.
“That includes sound, lighting, projection – anything needed to make the meeting effective and see that its message is delivered,” he says. “I wake up happy to do what I do and to have the opportunity to make the lives of our 9,000 team members better. We’ve got awesome people, and the clients’ messages are delivered effectively. We blend into the scene and make great events.” One major message their team members deliver is their own satisfaction. In fact, Forbes magazine has named PSAV to its America’s Best Employers list for the past two years.
McIlwain notes appreciatively, “Our team members brought us to the attention of Forbes, and the honor is based on anonymous employee ratings.”
The recognition gives McIlwain cause to reflect. “Sometimes people try to treat me differently because I’m a CEO,” he observes. “I’m always who I was and always will be. I feel I need to earn my title every day. My family is a key part of that, and so is Mississippi State. If you talk to our team members, they know about my family [Susan and their five children] and that I’m a State graduate and a Steelers fan. These roots matter to me.”
His alma mater is never far from his mind. McIlwain was selected as the 2017 Alumni Fellow for the College of Business and was named one of its Top 100 Alumni during the 2015 Centennial Celebration. He also spoke to the College of Business students through the Leo W. Seal, Jr. Distinguished Speaker Series in 2016.
“I told them it’s not where you’re from because we all have potential in us,” he shares. “Mississippi State was a great place to help me find my potential. But it was my potential, and I needed to bring that out in myself. The doors at Mississippi State started opening, and I had to walk through a lot more doors from there.
“I also talked about leadership because, even as an introvert, having my job means I need to motivate. My number one passion in the business world is fostering and creating leaders. I think everyone can be a leader, and I reminded them that leaders aren’t born, they’re made.”
McIlwain returns to campus at least twice a year as a member of the Accounting Advisory Board and often visits more because he still has family in Starkville. He flies into Birmingham, then stops in Tuscaloosa to see his daughter, a University of Alabama junior.
The Chicagoan notes there’s still a chance to send a next-generation McIlwain to Mississippi State to carry forth the tradition his dad began decades ago.
“We’ve got two left at home, and my son Joe Watt has already set his sights on Michigan, where his older sister went,” he says. “Our daughter Amelia is my last shot, and she’s definitely going South.” No pressure, Amelia, but wouldn’t it be nice? In the meantime, her dad is content with life no matter what that choice turns out to be.
“Everything that has happened for me is unbelievable,” he says. “If you told me that a kid who graduated from Mississippi State would be married to my awesome wife for 27 years, have five great kids and be CEO of a company, I never would’ve imagined it.
“It’s incredible. I should bask in this more than I do and realize that dreams come true.”
Susan and Mike McIlwain with their children (counterclockwise from left) Allie, Joe Watt, Kathryn, Amelia and Grace.
Photo courtesy of Mike McIlwain
