Roger Davis is the newest member of the Rotary Club of Montecito. Read the interview below to learn more about Roger.
Please share with Club members a little bit about your life: where you were born and grew up, how you met Julie, etc.
Born in East St Louis, IL, I grew up in St Louis, MO as an only child. My parents divorced when I was 10. I was fortunate to have a capable and supportive mom. I benefited from excellent sports team coaches in “little leagues” and in high school and also from lots of support at the neighborhood Presbyterian Church.
Julie and I met when we both worked for Touche Ross (now Deloitte and Touche) in Kansas City – she’s a Kansas State University grad and I am a University of Kansas grad. We married in Kansas City nine years after we had met.
When we married, I was employed in Chicago. Julie began an all-new life in Chicago – new employer, new church, etc., etc. Chicago employment and life overall worked out very well for both of us. For the past 35 years of marriage Julie has made me a better person everyday.
Tell us about your work - what you do, how long you've been doing it, and what you find interesting and satisfying about it.
The final chapter of my career was from 2004 through March of this year when Julie and I closed on the sale of Paxton/Patterson (PP). I moved to Chicago in 1980 to become General Manager of PP and was later promoted to be an officer and director of the public company which owned PP. Between 1980 and 2004 PP changed a lot as did I. That all said, what is most important is that as the owner of PP I had a thoroughly rewarding 18-year experience.
To do justice to the PP business and why it was so rewarding is best done via a live conversation, which I am very eager to have with club members. In a “nutshell” the business enabled students to learn about their interests and aptitudes by introducing students to lots of careers via “real life” career experiences. The business operates in all 50 states, and it has changed the lives of many hundreds of 1,000s of students and improved the career satisfaction of a very significant number of K-12 educators.
Please share a couple of other things about yourself that you think we would find interesting and may not know about you.
I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had exceptionally talented bosses throughout my career – who were also very personable and ethical as they invested a lot to advance my career. All of them “just naturally” lived by The Four-Way Test.
For several years, my boss was listed on the Forbes Magazine 400 Richest People in America – as you would expect I learned A LOT from him. However, different from some of the richest Americans he was completely ethical, unfailingly courteous, unassuming, and consistently thoughtful.
In addition to great bosses I’ve benefited from many colleagues who were both highly talented and very fine people.
We meet the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of the month at 12:00 PM 
