Dublin-Worthington News Stories

Membership Spotlight: Doug Southgate

By Sunday, February 20, 2022
Advancing the Leadership Mindset
Finding Success in the Success of Others
Paul Cynkar, January 2022
This is another in a series of member profiles based on discovery interview questions that were designed to get an up-close view of the traits and strengths of the members who provide leadership to this organization.
Membership Spotlight:  Doug Southgate
Authentic, Author, Advisor
 
Tell me about yourself. Give me three facts that include information about your family, your career, and your pastimes.

My parents became my mother and father because of World War Two. Before enlisting in the Army Air Corps, dad had spent his entire life in central Illinois. His pilot’s training took him to Valdosta, Georgia, where he met mom. His love of classical music was a gift from her, a talented pianist.

Soon after marrying in 1949, my parents settled in Portland, Oregon, where I (their first child, of three) was born and raised. While majoring in economics at the University of Oregon, I decided to pursue a doctorate in the subject. I met my wife, Myriam Posso, while studying at the University of Wisconsin. In 1980, two years after our marriage, I completed a Ph.D. and took a job at Ohio State. Both our children, Elizabeth and Richard, were born at the university hospital and graduated from Thomas Worthington High School.

I taught undergraduates in my department (Agricultural Economics), but for most of my career did most of my teaching in the Undergraduate International Studies Program. My scholarly work focused mainly on environmental issues in Latin America, such as tropical deforestation, and the food economy. During my last four years at Ohio State, I was associate director of the Subsurface Energy Resource Center, which the university established in response to shale development in the eastern part of the state.

Myriam and I enjoy traveling. We’ve been to a number of places in Latin America and Europe.  Before COVID, we particularly liked visiting national parks in the United States.

How long have you belonged to Rotary? What’s the best thing about membership?

I joined a Rotary Club in Quito, Ecuador in 1992 – two years after I began a three-year assignment with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which provides assistance in other parts of the world. USAID contracted with Ohio State for me to provide advice on environmental policy in Ecuador, which happens to be my wife’s home country.

When I returned from Ecuador in 1995, I joined the Dublin-Worthington Rotary Club. I’ve made several good friends in the club and am the secretary of the Dublin-Worthington Rotary Foundation.  Also, opportunities to serve the community have come my way thanks to Rotary – joining the board of directors of Worthington Pools, for example.

As you look back on your life and your career, where and when did you have the biggest impact on others? Who was impacted and how?

A career in higher education can be uniquely rewarding. I do not claim to be a mesmerizing lecturer, though I have reason to believe my teaching and advising reached many students over the years. My scholarly work had an impact too from time to time. During the three-year assignment with USAID, my Ecuadorian colleagues and I helped build the case for taxing tourists in the Galápagos Islands and the companies that serve them so that conservation efforts in the archipelago would be adequately funded. The first book I published was another outcome of the USAID assignment.

As you look back, which of the opportunities you’ve had has been the most fulfilling to you personally? Why?

Ten years ago, I went to Germany on sabbatical. My wife and I enjoyed a simple life in a tiny apartment we rented in an 800-year-old village. We never got behind the wheel of a car, traveled all over the place, and made some good friends. We had the time of our lives.

Describe the most challenging project you’ve ever worked on. What was your role? What was the result? What did you learn?

The most challenging project I’ve had as a professor has been book-writing, which I’ve done a half dozen times. The publishers of my books include Oxford University Press (twice), the University of Pennsylvania Press (most recently), Basil Blackwell, and John Wiley. I’m currently working on a manuscript that Stanford University Press has agreed to publish, although I worry that the other author and I may not meet the deadline – a couple months from now.

What are some things you are passionate about? What really excites you? What gets your adrenalin flowing? What makes your heart sing?

I’m serious about Roman Catholicism – the faith of my wife as well as my children and to which I converted in 2017.  Other than that, I like writing books, which requires concentrated effort and thought over an extended period. Holding a volume, I’ve written in my hands once it’s published is a thrill.

What are you especially skilled at? What is something that others often tell you that they think makes you stand out?

Writing, I suppose. A late friend, an Oxford graduate who hailed from the East End of London, used to refer to “the mighty pen of Southgate.”

When you have a moment to sit back and think (dream) about your future, what do you think about? What things would you like to do in your life that you haven’t gotten around to yet? Is there something else you would like to accomplish?

Once the book I’m working on is finished, I will turn to a private writing project, arising out of a 12-hour conversation with my father in 2003. The conversation was taped and subsequently transcribed, though I need to finish editing it. Dad, who passed away in January 2010 at the age of 89, described farming in the days before tractors and being seriously ill before antibiotics were available. Additionally, he talked about serving as a pilot in the Pacific during World War Two and as an intelligence officer during the Korean War.

If you could choose anyone (alive or deceased) to have lunch with, who would it be? Why?

I would appreciate a conversation with Jimmy Lai, like me a convert to Catholicism. A billionaire newspaper publisher from Hong Kong, he could easily have relocated from the city in response to the communist authorities’ thorough suppression of human rights. However, his faith and integrity guided him to stay in the city and to endure what is for all intents and purposes a life sentence in prison. I am inspired by Mr. Lai’s courage. He is my hero.

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