Sense of Place

Sense of Place

Ted Place was enveloped in Northwest at an early age and now has a leading role in shaping its future, following a path his parents also steered.

When Ted Place '99 thinks of his first memories of Maryville and Northwest, he goes to a time when - at age 7 or 8, en route to a Bearcat football game with his parents - he found a $20 bill lying on the ground in front of the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building. After failing to find the bill's owner, Ted proudly invested the money in concessions at the football game.

It is a fitting story, considering the roles - professional and volunteer - he maintains as an adult to find funding for worthy causes.

As the chief development officer at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, he is overseeing a campaign to invest significant local and national philanthropic support into programs and physical upgrades to that facility, which includes the iconic Liberty Memorial.

As the new president of the Northwest Foundation, he is helping lay the groundwork for the University's next comprehensive campaign, bridging generations of Bearcats and encouraging them to consider ways they may assist their alma mater. He also is carrying on a legacy of advocating for Northwest and supporting the institution in ways his parents - Charles "Chuck" '72 and Linda Nichols '72, '09, Place - instilled in Ted when he was a child visiting the Northwest campus.

A small-town heritage

As Northwest alumni and Maryville residents through the early 1980s may remember, a P.M. Place discount store was among the businesses anchoring Maryville's downtown. Founded in 1910 by Ted's great-granduncle, Pryor M. Place, in Lathrop, Missouri, P.M. Place Stores Co. had about 50 locations at its peak in rural towns scattered across Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Illinois.

In 1975, Chuck Place - after beginning his career as a certified public accountant in Iowa City, Iowa - joined the family company as an assistant manager. Eventually, he climbed to chief executive officer, overseeing its transition to an employee-owned structure.

"We grew up going in and out of small-town discount stores, thinking about end caps and how the Christmas trees were placed," Ted, the oldest of Chuck and Linda's three children, recalls with laughter.

During those years, the Places lived in Maryville for a short time, just blocks from the Northwest campus, before ultimately settling about 35 miles east in Albany. As a child, Ted also began to see the charm of the Northwest community and the support its people showed each other.

While his parents were proud Northwest alumni, Ted was a regular at Science Olympiad events and band contests on the campus. During Homecoming weekends year after year, he watched his parents rekindle bonds with former classmates, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters - people he came to know like extended family members.

"Northwest was not just a place; it was also these people and their kids," he said. "It was really interesting. … They're building families, they're building businesses, but their ties were Northwest."

Ted's path to a career in his family's company might have seemed predetermined, but the retail environment was changing by the late 1990s and P.M. Place Stores sold to Shopko in 1999, allowing Chuck to retire at the age of 48 and turn to philanthropic work.

"The beautiful thing about that was that it was employee-owned," Ted said. "People that were running cash registers - and they were clerks, and they were assistant managers - owned a piece of this small-town company. … They kept their jobs, and they got a payout as owners. You're always proud of the 'family business,' but if it's gotta go, what a great legacy to leave in all these small towns along the way."

Finding a place at Northwest

As Ted thought about attending college, no other college or university compared to what Northwest had to offer. He earned his bachelor's degree in journalism with a broadcasting minor.

"Northwest would allow me experiences that I wasn't going to get at other places," Ted said. "It's also a place where you don't have to be fully formed on day one. You can walk in and you can raise your hand and be like, 'Hey, is anyone writing about intramural sports? That's something I might be able to do. Can I give it a try?'"

Ted says he was a guy who liked "to do absolutely everything." He enjoyed life in the residence halls and remains connected with his hallmates from the third floor of Richardson Hall. He also was active with Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, serving as its philanthropy chair, treasurer and president.

Similarly, Ted's wife, Kate Carrel Place '99, '00, '08, grew up in the rural community of Clarksdale, Missouri, learning about responsibility and service to others in her parents' hardware store. The couple has known each other since childhood and Kate has enjoyed a successful career in education, working currently as the principal of gifted programs in North Kansas City Schools.In 2017, she returned to Northwest to present its Ploghoft Diversity Lecture, then as the principal of Briarcliff Elementary, a richly diverse school within a district focused on strengthening inclusion.

"A student, if they get involved at Northwest, they are in a prime position to do well no matter what path they take," Linda said. "Ted went in with the attitude of 'When I see someone on the sidewalk, I'm going to say hi. I'm going to know everybody by the time I graduate.' Now I look back and having that attitude and having that culture to be able to do that has helped him be really successful in the path he's taken. And Kate's taken great advantage of Northwest education, and I would put her up against any educator from any school."

A passion for community building

Ted began his professional career with a stint in marketing and group relations at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, Missouri, and then went to work for Hillcrest Ministries, a not-for-profit in Liberty. Next, he worked in development roles at Kansas City University, an osteopathic medical school, for about 10 years. In 2013, he began a nine-year stretch in development roles at KCPT, Kansas City's PBS station, where he facilitated a campaign that included a remodel to modernize its newsroom for the digital age.

In 2022, the time was right for him to try something different when he accepted the role of chief development officer at the National World War I Museum and Memorial. There, he manages a development team in the midst of a fundraising effort to improve the museum's galleries, digitize its collection and build education programs, in addition to maintaining the building's exterior. It's an important next step for the museum, which draws international interest and attracted more than 1 million visitors in 2023.

"It's been a wonderful move," he said. "Every day I drive up the driveway, and I get out and I look out over Kansas City. It doesn't get better than that."

One might think Ted must have a sizable interest in history to take on a role with the museum. While that is partly true, his satisfaction is linked more deeply to his passion for community-building - something instilled in him by his parents, through their interactions with friends, neighbors and store customers, and honed throughout his professional career.

"It's like this in any line of work," Ted said. "It's just connecting people with something that they are passionate about. A lot of times people think that we are a war museum. I want to show them that we're something different, and that's a really fun way to spend my days."

Back to the place he started

As Ted's career advanced, he never strayed far from Northwest, in large part because of his parents' involvement with the University.

After he retired from Place's, Chuck volunteered his time and efforts with a plethora of organizations in Albany and elsewhere, including as president of the Northwest Foundation Board of Directors from 2004 to 2006. He was a key figure in the success of Northwest's first-ever campaign, which centered on increasing scholarship amounts and raising funds to renovate and expand Bearcat Stadium. That campaign, with its slogan "$21 million for the 21st century," exceeded expectations and raised more than $40 million. In 2003, Chuck received the Northwest Alumni Association's Turret Service Award.

In 2009, though, Chuck lost a battle with cancer and died at the age of 59. The Place family established the Charles M. Place Memorial Scholarship through the Northwest Foundation in his honor.

"I feel like someone was taking good care of him because he did an awful lot of really great work between 49 and 59 that he would not have had a chance to do if he were running a company," Ted said.

Ted's mother, Linda, is retired from a career in teaching and education consulting. In recent years, she also has actively engaged with Northwest as a member of the Alumni Association Board of Directors from 2012 to 2019, including serving as its president from 2015 to 2017. Linda received the Alumni Association's Turret Service Award in 2021.

"I felt like I had just kind of always been around," Ted said. "When my father got engaged (with the Northwest Foundation), you start to hear what's going on at the University, and then my mom was involved as well."

In 2018, Mike Johnson '85 connected with Ted and the two met over coffee. Johnson didn't have to do a lot of talking. Ted is driven by an instinct to "show up," and Johnson's invitation to advocate for Northwest at a deeper level appealed to him.

"I can certainly advocate and help make connections and just be someone that understands both sides of the alumni perspective and the board perspective," Ted said. "I also understand what the development team is going through, what staff is going through - things like that because I watch it. I know what some of the challenges are."

But Ted admits he needed some help finding his voice after he took his seat with the Foundation Board of Directors. He credits Carl Hughes '76, a member of the Board from 2014 to 2023, for doing that.

"When you show up to something like the Foundation, I'm pretty sure everybody there was smarter than I was, and it takes someone to just give you a little bit of a nudge," Place said. "So I'd be sitting next to him and I'd jot something down, and he'd be like, 'Well, say it.' I just remember being very empowered because, if Carl Hughes tells you that, he's just got that voice that everybody listens to."

Ted joined the Foundation Board of Directors in time to help see it through the University's "Forever Green" campaign, which concluded in 2021 with more than $55 million raised for initiatives related to scholarships, student life and academic excellence. That campaign resulted in the completion of two major capital fundraising projects - the Carl and Cheryl Hughes Fieldhouse and the Agricultural Learning Center.

Now, as seeds of Northwest's third-ever campaign are being planted, Ted looks forward to bundling initiatives people care about into a campaign agenda that makes sense for the University. He's excited to facilitate those conversations with Johnson, who returned this year as the vice president of university advancement and executive director of the Northwest Foundation, and others.

So much of Ted's thinking connects to his place as a Bearcat and an appreciation for moments at Northwest to which other alumni can easily relate - the majesty of the Administration Building, the chimes sounding from the Memorial Bell Tower, the smell of a residence hall. He also understands the University is facing societal headwinds related to doubts about the value of higher education and students' changing needs and desires. Today's Northwest students are very different from those who occupied the campus during prior decades.

"It's about remembering yourself as that first-generation college student and how it helped you, while at the same time recognizing that the experience is very, very different," Ted said. Despite the differences, he adds, "There's these amazing threads that I think really speak to the initiatives that have been put together and that will be put together in the future."

Ted also thinks a lot about what his father might say if he were still living. Ted began his tenure as president of the Foundation Board of Directors in July, almost 20 years to the day after Chuck did the same in 2004.

"Knowing the people who have filled that role is very, very humbling to think that my name is there, so I feel a weight to get it right," Ted said. "Certainly, when you're sitting there and you're in a meeting and you're the vice chair, it starts to sink in. … I also know that this entire line of people has been driven by a passion for this little, impactful place."