Episode 9: David Seaton, B '83

Brothers, welcome back to The Gentleman's Journey. I'm Ewan Dunn, Alpha Phi Delta graduate of 2024. I'm here today with Brother David Seaton, Alpha Beta class of '83. David, thank you so much for being here today, and thank you for having us in your home. We are in Dallas, Texas, at Brother Stephen's home. Thank you again for having us.

You're welcome. It's very pretty out here. Made the trip in this morning, but we're glad to be here. We're glad to be able to talk with you. How you doing?

Doing great, doing great. Looking forward to the Christmas holidays. They really did sneak up this year.

That's what I've been telling people. You kind of go through it and you're like, okay, the holidays aren't here yet, but then once they get there, they go really, really fast. After you get past Halloween, it's incredible. You always hear when you're coming up that time flies when you get older. It's true. I can't believe it's already December and the end of the year.

What's it like having Christmas as a grandparent? Is it a little different than when you were just doing it as a dad?

It's a lot more fun because you don't have to clean up anything. But you know, they always tell you that having grandchildren is better than having children because you can give them back. But you're also at a point in your life where when you have kids, you get your head down doing your job, trying to create a career, being able to earn for your family, and you miss a lot. You skip over a lot. When you're a grandparent, you've got the time to kind of sit back and watch. It's quite a joy and a privilege.

I'm scared for when it comes time for my dad to do it. Just cleaning up the wrapping paper on gift opening day is kind of his thing, so we'll see how he's able to really pass the baton.

I'm sure I have passed that by time. Oh yeah, I'm sure you're not mad about it.

Not at all. But again, just being in Dallas, I've been here a few times, but I always am seeing new things while I'm here, which I'm really glad about. Of course, you've been here for a very long time. How much of your life have you spent right here?

Well, we've been here since I was six. We moved Fluor Corporation from California to here in '06, and I was living in Houston at the time. But we love Dallas. This is home. Dallas is a unique city in my opinion. I've never seen a city that, when there's an issue or a challenge, comes together like this one does. The business community specifically. I'll give one example: we had the Mayor's Conference here about seven or eight years ago, and none of the money for the Governor's Association can be used for entertaining. So one of the leaders of the city called a bunch of us together and said we need to raise seven million dollars to entertain these people properly. Within two weeks, we had raised all that money to showcase Dallas. I think that's just a microcosm when it comes to philanthropy and other stuff. The community is different than any other city I've ever lived in. Give us a challenge, we'll go get it done. So we really enjoy it. From the arts and sports, obviously the Cowboys, Stars, Mavs, the soccer team, it's a fun place to be.

And that's definitely kept you here, because you said it's been since '06, and obviously you being retired from Fluor right now, which we'll get into a little later, you're still here.

Well, there's an intelligence test there too. There's no state income tax in Texas. That's true. And honestly, better here than Florida or Tennessee. But it is a really cool city, and I feel like there's a lot to offer. It's good that you've been able to stick around here.

Obviously, you've not only had a lot of success in business ventures, but just being able to really enjoy the city and take it all in has been really great. So you spent about 35 years at Fluor before you retired, your last eight as CEO and then your last seven as chairman. What was it like holding a leadership role like that? Obviously being in the company for a long time, I'm sure it had a much different feel, but you had been advancing and been a very big company guy for many years prior to that. What was that like for you?

Well, the engineering construction business is unique in that it's the only business I know of where you hurry up to work yourself out of a job. So there's a cadence to the things you get to do that's probably a little quicker than in a lot of different businesses. In my career, we've lived abroad for many years, got to do a lot of really interesting projects around the globe, and kind of made a difference in people's lives really, because we're building communities and building that economic engine that people need and societies need. But 35 years is a long time with one company, and I was fortunate enough to have a career with one company. I was the kind of guy that was Mr. Fix-It. Give me a challenge and I'd go do it, and that's what kind of led to the top job. I never aspired to be that person, but I was lucky to get there.

Leadership of any kind tends to be challenging, and I'm sure you know that. What was holding several different positions, not even just in Fluor but in many organizations, what has that kind of leadership taught you?

I think to be a good leader, you got to be a good follower. That whole empathy, EQ kind of characteristic is really key to leadership, because it's hard to lead unless you've actually been in the shoes of the other people that you're trying to lead. A lot of that came from being a Kappa Alpha Psi, frankly. The way I was raised, obviously my parents had a big deal in that, but you really have to understand your self-awareness and who you are. But I never ask anybody to go someplace around the globe that I hadn't been to. One classic example is I'd never been to Afghanistan, and we ran Bagram and all of North Afghanistan for the U.S. military. In doing that, I'd sent people there, but I hadn't been there. So I got my security guys to make sure I went and spent the weekend there in January, which is not the most fun time to be in Afghanistan. But I think when people see that you're willing to go and do, they see that you're not just putting them out there, and you're part of that organization, you're part of that team. That followership, being a good follower, is part and parcel of being a good leader. But being a leader is sometimes daunting and difficult, because you've got an objective, you've got a goal, and some of the members of your team aren't going to rise to the occasion. You've also got to show your team that you're willing to make the changes necessary, as difficult as they may be sometimes.

What would you say the most challenging part of it actually is? You mentioned what it taught you. What is the toughest part about actually being in the thick of it? Because obviously when you're in a position of leadership, you're not really thinking as much about being liked as you are trying to lead people well and lead your company well and do right by both of those things.

It's all the people. It's the relationships you create and the objectives you give people to do. Clarity and transparency are absolutely keys to that, because people have to see what you're willing to do. The people aspects are the most challenging, because you're not going to have all A players. You think about some of these all-star teams that don't really do so well. There's a B player and maybe a C player every now and again that has a specific skill that you need to have. So being able to form that team, to weave those capabilities into a team that can actually accomplish the goal, is what leadership is all about. You see it in the Alpha that you're in right now. There's folks that are neck deep doing all the hard work for you guys, and then there's some that are kind of cruising. But those brothers are just as important to the overall. Being able to create a relationship that gets them more engaged, you're raising the tide for all ships. I think it's a big part of creating that positive work environment, not just for the people that are directly under you but for everyone as well.

As far as brothers go, what are important aspects of a work environment that brothers should look for when trying to select a job or a career? We've mentioned how we can produce that. What should people, and specifically brothers, look for when entering a new job or a new career, as far as working under someone, working in a certain place, certain environment?

Well, I think the first thing you got to figure out is what do you want to do. What's your passion? Once you find that, everything else is kind of easy, frankly. You're going to work for people you don't like, you're going to work for people you do like, but at the end of the day, it's all about what passion you have for the role you choose. Then I think it's also finding the kind of relationships and people you want to be around. I always want to be around the smartest person in the room, because I wasn't. I always wanted to be around people that shared a common vision or a common characteristic. When you think about the things that make Kappa Alpha Psi, you want to be around people that espouse those kinds of characteristics. So it's finding your place, determining what you want to do and how you want to do it, but then sticking with it until you either find out that is what you want or it isn't what you want, then you make a change. I think a lot of generational change over time. It was not uncommon for somebody to spend 35 years with one company when I was coming up. That's not necessarily the case now. But I think when times get tough, that's when you learn the most. When things go bad, those scars are what you learn from. Sticking with something through those difficult times is as much part of that learning process as the good stuff.

I think all the scenarios you describe are not only exclusive to the workplace, but also you mentioned Alpha as well. Whether you're in a position of leadership or just a brother who is trying to better the culture and better all of his other brothers as men, as we're called to do. So rewinding a bit as far as your own personal story goes, why did you decide to rush a fraternity in South Carolina, and what brought you specifically to Kappa Alpha Psi?

Well, when I went, I didn't know a whole lot about fraternities, but I did have a lot of friends because I grew up mostly in Florence, and then I went to high school in North Augusta, South Carolina. Being a Gamecock was something that I wanted to be, and I'd been following them since the early '70s when we had real basketball teams. But in any case, there was a girl that was in the class ahead of me, and me and another brother, Donnie Cox, were in high school together. They put us in touch with Dennis Way, who was our pledge brother or pledge trainer, the rush chairman. Like we talked earlier, we spent a lot of time together before rush and during rush. I just felt comfortable with the brothers that were there. I felt really welcomed. But I also was looking for something to make the environment smaller. When you go to a big university like South Carolina, when I was there it was 27,000, today it's 42,000. You got to shrink that population to make sure that you feel that you fit in. I also saw in several of them a way to do well in school and help with that process.

I think it's something we appreciate about Kappa Alpha Psi is the fact that we've never been focused on being the biggest fraternity or being filled with the most brothers, but the most quality brothers, which I think is so important. What does brotherhood specifically mean to you? When you hear that, what comes to mind? What do you think of, and why is it significant to you?

That's a great question. Brotherhood is the definition of the word in my mind. But there's a connection. There are some phrases in activation that I still cling to that define the relationships that we've forged. As we talked earlier, we had a pretty big pledge class for Kappa Alpha Psi at the time, both in the fall and in the spring. 40 years later, I can count on those people. I know who to call, and it doesn't matter what it is. There's one brother that's had some health issues and some financial challenges, and it's an easy ask for the brothers to say, okay, what are we going to do to fix this issue or help this brother? There's something special about that, and it's hard to really put your finger on. But those relationships are some of the most dear relationships I've got, including my family. I'm as close to some of my brothers as I am to my family, and that's something pretty special and hard to develop sometimes.

I think it just goes to show that family is not only our blood, but who we choose to be in our family also, which is really important. That's a lot of our brothers, and I think it's definitely something that makes us super special. It's like choosing a spouse.

Right, you're not wrong. It sounds a little bit weird, but these people are as close to me as my spouse is.

I think brotherhood is a very unique type of relationship, so I would absolutely agree with you. I think your definition of it really speaks today. Unique is the best word to use. It is unique. Now, fraternity or not, brother or someone else, who has personally impacted your life the most as a man?

Wow. Obviously my dad was a big influence, absolutely. But I'd say some of the coaches I had coming up. I played a lot of sports coming up. But there was one gentleman that we activated. He was the alumni advisor or the faculty advisor. I actually worked for him before he became the faculty advisor at the University of South Carolina. He was in charge of all the facilities for the university and he was the university architect. He was kind of the first person in my life that told me I could do anything I wanted to do, because there was always a 'but' in a lot of the relationships and mentorships that I'd had prior to that. His name was Dave Rinker. He's no longer with us, but Brother Rinker was somebody that really gave me vision, opened my eyes to what was possible, and put no roadblocks on me achieving any of those things.

Clearly you've had a lot of experience in business life, a lot of success in business life even after retiring from Fluor. You're still very involved with several different things. You serve on the board of directors of The Mosaic Company and the National Association of Manufacturers, and you've been a part of several different groups, ConocoPhillips, still serving there. I know in 2011 you were appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy to serve as a member of the National Petroleum Council. So even after retirement, you still keep very involved in several different areas. What's kept you going? Is it just enjoying it, or is there something else?

I mean, I'm 60. It's not like I'm old. I feel like 60 is the new 40. You got to keep your mind growing. That's part of being a Kappa Alpha Psi, keeping your mind and body right. Being a Boy Scout, those kinds of things were instilled in me. You still have to provide. As you said, I had a pretty long and successful career. It came with the good and the bad, and those scars are worth passing on to others so that people don't make those mistakes. One of the things I've found in being a leader is that when you're in a leadership position, much is expected in terms of the outside world, particularly the philanthropy world. I've done a lot of fundraising. I'm at 1.375 billion dollars in fundraising. A billion of it was at the university, I did the capital campaign there. But United Way, Boys & Girls Clubs, all those things. When you really get involved with the philanthropy world, you find how to make a difference. I'm the recent past chair of the national Boys & Girls Clubs. When you see things like that and you see these people that are less fortunate than you are, that have the intelligence, the drive, the personalities to do well, they just need a hand up, not a hand out. That's something I've always kind of followed. One of the statistics that got me involved at the local level almost 17 years ago was that 80% of the people incarcerated in America, federal, state, local, read at less than the third grade level. So when you think about those first kids coming into those Boys & Girls Clubs, they're in that first or second grade age. If we can affect half of those kids to where they're reading on grade level, look at the money that's going to be available from the federal government, the state government, to do the things that need to be done around education, because you're going to keep somebody out of prison. It's very simple things that create that passion or that linkage to what you do in your business life and what you do in your personal life and the things that you give back to the community. I have just found such fulfillment. I'll give you one example. The national Youth of the Year six years ago was a National Merit Scholar, not a finalist, a scholar. She's just finishing her specialization work at Johns Hopkins. As a high school kid, she and her mother and two siblings lived in a car under a bridge in LA. The club was her second home. The club provided the kind of opportunities that led to her being able to go to college, and now she's going to save lives as a doctor. Those little things matter in life. That's part of that service gene that we're all given as Kappa Alpha Psi.

So I think you just covered your philanthropy and your previous business experience. Obviously we talked about how it's integrated, it's filled with success, but I think a lot of people misunderstand that success isn't really linear. You have to experience a great deal of failure often to get to where you want to be. What is some failure that you encountered earlier or later in your career, and how did that bring you to where you are today? What did that teach you? How did it define you?

As I said, the difficulties in life create the scars that you learn from. You learn more from failures than success. In my business career, I had some jobs that did not go well, had some projects that did not go well. I was in circumstances where I was being held back by certain individuals because I was doing their jobs and they didn't want that. Those kind of things form your character and make you better than you would have been had you not had that challenge. If you just go through life with successes, you've got a skewed life. One of the things that really stopped me in my tracks was when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She's a breast cancer survivor. Those kinds of things stop you in your tracks. You have kids, kids go to school, kids go to college, there's a normal cadence to it. But when something like that happens, it snaps everything back into focus of what's really valuable in life. On a more humorous or lighter note, we moved—I took three blond-headed daughters and my wife to Saudi Arabia to live. We lived there for almost five years. Twenty days after they got there, the Khobar Towers bomb went off and killed 17 U.S. servicemen and 200 other people. Working through that, when your mother-in-law is asking when are my grandchildren and my daughter coming home, working through that took some challenge and skill to do well. So there are things in life, there are challenges, but I think you learn more from the challenges than you do from the successes.

And obviously failure doesn't exclusively come in the workplace or the business place. It can come in the home. Previous interviews we've really gotten good touches on what that's like, and I think like you said, if life was nothing but success, that's not really a life worth living. I really like that note. But keeping it within the business world, we have a lot of graduating brothers this year, brothers that are about to enter the workforce. As far as trying to start off on a good note, because that's really important for success, what's a business tactic that you think everyone should try to emulate in any field?

Work harder than anybody else. It's real simple. Every door that opens, you got to walk through and perform. You got to be there long enough to show that performance is sustainable, and then the next door opens, and then you do it all over again. I think the tenacity and the absolute focus on flawless performance—which you're never going to get, but seeking that flawless performance—is what gives you the opportunity. Any successful business person or athlete, when you ask them that question, they're going to say I worked harder than anybody else. That's certainly what I did. Making sure that you're committed to whatever you're doing, it's just like Tiger Woods. He'll tell you that his success is he commits to that shot, and that's the only thing he's focused on. That shot might be a good shot or a bad shot, but he's got focus and tenacity towards that focus. I think that's what makes the difference between being successful and maybe not. That work ethic and that willingness to do what's necessary and tenacity is something everyone should do and aspire to be.

I think being a 'yes man' kind of sums up what you said. A lot of people...

No, I didn't say 'yes man.' Not exactly.

But like if you have someone who's over you and you're trying to advance, and they ask you to do something, never be afraid to take up a project, take advantage of an opportunity. That's probably what saying yes to opportunities is.

If that's how you do that, I'm okay with that. But nobody likes a yes man telling you what you want to hear. When Harris Pastides became the president of the University of South Carolina, he came and visited a lot of folks, a lot of alums. I was one of them. I told him a bad story, one that as a new president he shouldn't have heard. I told him, 'Based on that story, why do you think I would ever give you any money?' He called me the next week and said, 'David, I really enjoyed our conversation.' I said, 'Harris, were we in the same room?' He said, 'Yeah, I think I found somebody who'll tell me what I need to know, not what everybody wants me to hear.' Telling people what they need to know is not being a yes man. Separating the wheat from the chaff is what separates the leaders from the folks that are just getting along in life. Being willing to tell someone politely you're wrong and here's why you're wrong, but never tell anybody they're wrong unless you've got an answer for them. Never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. You said you did some study on me. Well, that's part of that simple act of knowing what questions you're going to ask me. Same thing in business.

There's a couple more finishing ups. Taking it back to your undergrad experience, we have thousands of undergrads currently right now who are going through experiences that you did back in '79 through '83. What is something that you wish you would have known when you were at that age, specifically within that undergrad experience? What's something you'd like to pass along to current undergrads right now?

Well, I think it goes back to what I was saying about business life. You're at a point in your life where you're starting and trying to find your way. There's lots of different paths. Not everybody's going to be a CEO, not everybody wants to be a CEO. But whether you're a fireman or running a Boys & Girls Club or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, that focus on purpose and that focus on performance is key. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do. I'm not an engineer, and I ran the biggest engineering company in the world. So there was a learning curve. I had to teach myself how to be a civil engineer after school. So I think the one thing I wish I had really paid a little more attention to was performance in the classroom, and maybe been a better citizen earlier in life. We've talked a lot about philanthropy and the things I've been fortunate enough to be a participant in. I wish I'd done it earlier, because there's such joy in giving back and seeing some of these young people, in my case with the Boys & Girls Club, perform and succeed and become great citizens. Right now there's a lot of strife in the world, a lot of strife in the United States. Good citizenship, good performance, good attitudes is really what this world needs. I think that's something Kappa Alpha Psi teaches in spades. That's part of who we are, and I learned that early in life.

Transitioning to the last part. Again, we talked about we have a lot of brothers entering the workforce. We also have a lot of brothers who are about to become fathers. Obviously we spoke at the beginning about what it's been like for you being a grandfather around Christmas time, having your grandkids here. Just talk to me a little bit about fatherhood, especially starting out. What's something that our brothers should know that are about to become dads?

You got to show up. You got to be there. I've got three daughters. I'm a girl dad. Girl dads rule. I've always said if you have a diversity issue to deal with, give it to a girl dad, because they've got a little bit different perspective on life. But you got to be there. I traveled the world for 30 something years, but I never missed a dance competition, I never missed a basketball game, I never missed a play. I just worked my schedule around it. I think most of parenting is just showing up and being there, and showing those children how they should behave. I had a thing where my daughters and I, once they got to be like 12 or 13 years old, I would take them out on a date to show them how they should be treated, as a person first, as a woman second. We're two for two on son-in-laws because they've chosen young men that I have great respect for. I think that comes from me being there. Lynette, my wife, gets all the credit for the rest of stuff, of course. But I think fatherhood is probably one of the best gifts of all time.

That's the right way to put it. I think a lot of our brothers are going to be able to realize that when they come into that situation soon. So thank you so much for being here with us today, Brother Stephen. I really do appreciate you sitting down with us. Thank you for hosting us. It's been a great interview. I hope you enjoyed it. We thank you guys for listening to this episode or watching, whatever source you're on. We'll be back with more segments following this. Have a great week.