Office Doors: A Day with Ivan Gilreath
President and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale
6 A.M. >> POWERED BY DAILY DISCIPLINE
I work out first thing in the morning, five to six days a week. Getting my blood circulating and clearing my mind is a good thing. I believe in trying to live healthily. I like to spin ride, walk/run on the treadmill and do an outdoor bike ride at least once a week. I catch up on the news and then head into the office.
8:30 A.M. >> A FULL-CIRCLE MISSION
I grew up a Boys Club kid in Omaha, Nebraska. After retiring from a 25-plus-year career in corporate America, I ran the Boys & Girls Club where I grew up for 10 years. My wife and I then followed my two kids and three grandsons to Arizona, where I have led the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale since 2021.
We hire additional part-time staff during the summer. Three-fourths of them are college students who grew up in the Club and want to come back. They realize how impactful the staff was to them and they want to be that person for a kid. A lot of our full-time staff are former members who grew up in the Club as well. They could go somewhere else and make more money, but the gratification they get from their work is admirable.
10 A.M. >> WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE, THEY WILL COME
People think Boys & Girls Clubs are a place that just has gyms, swimming pools and pool tables where kids run and scream and then go home. It’s true; we have all of these because you must have an environment where the kids want to come. But people who visit are amazed to see our various spaces — the art room; Makerspace, a hands-on STEM laboratory where kids work with laser cutters, 3D printers, virtual reality and drones; a coding room filled with iPads, laptops and Chromebooks; and an education room where staff help kids with their homework.
I’ve worked in the Boys & Girls Clubs movement for nearly 15 years. I’ve come to realize you can have a great building with the latest in everything, but if you have people the kids don’t trust and resonate with, they won’t come. Teens, in particular, vote with their feet. There are a lot of reasons why teens can choose to go somewhere else, but our teen programs are thriving because we have great people in the teen centers kids can relate to and an environment where they feel safe.
12:15 P.M. >> EXPANDING A PARTNERSHIP
Good partnerships are the hallmark of Boys & Girls Clubs. We already have a partnership with the Scottsdale Unified School District as several of our Clubs are close to their schools. The superintendent and I struck up a relationship when we were both new in town. He approached me about the Tonalea campus’s transition from kindergarten through eighth grade to a sixth- through eighth-grade campus. After the transition was complete, and even with anticipated future growth, all the buildings on the campus would not be filled. The superintendent asked if we would consider a Boys & Girls Club in this space, given that most of the kids are on free and reduced lunch and need a safe space to go after school.
I had done many school and Club partnerships in Omaha and knew that it worked. We recently launched a $15 million capital campaign to modify the existing space to make it a Club, build a gym, renovate an existing performing arts center and provide a full-service kitchen for more than 250 kids a day. This is a much-needed resource, and we’re happy we can be there for the kids’ safety, academic success and fun.
3 P.M. >> THE BEST KIND OF CHAOS
My day is typically filled with a variety of meetings focused on fundraising, operations and the financial responsibilities of my job. My team of seven direct reports and I meet every Monday to talk about what’s happening in the coming week and how we can work together. I visit our nine Clubs as much as I can. I also take potential donors and board members on tours of the Club and try to time these tours when kids are there. Even though it’s controlled chaos, you see how excellent our staff are at working with the kids, how we keep the kids safe and how they’re having fun.
7 P.M. >> SCHEDULING PRIORITIES
Because of my work calendar, my wife and I have planned activities together every week. We’ve been married 39 years, and I want to make sure I don’t take her for granted. We ride our bikes 14 miles roundtrip on Sunday mornings to get coffee. Tuesday is dinner and a movie night and Friday is officially dinner night, when we try to find new restaurants throughout the Valley. And every Saturday night, we watch our grandsons for our son and daughter-in-law because we know how tough it is to have little kids. I’m kind of a creature of habit!
To learn more, go to bgcs.org.
