Associated Student Government’s newest executive board members were outsiders to the student government two weeks ago; but for Bill Pulte and Tommy Smithburg, their unconventional backgrounds as an entrepreneur and a former president of a fraternity involved in a scandal have shaped their goals for the road ahead.
Pulte, a Medill junior, and Smithburg, a Weinberg junior, were sworn in as Vice President and Human Resources and Operations Director respectively during Wednesday’s ASG Senate session. These two positions were created this year by ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin and his executive board to help redistribute the responsibilities of the president and executive vice-president, as well as to help restructure ASG and make the organization more efficient.
Pulte and Smithburg have only had limited experience with student government prior to their appointments as members of the executive board. Pulte was the campaign manager for Blake Yocom’s ASG presidential campaign last spring, but had maintained good relations with Neal Sales-Griffin.
Smithburg was a senator during Fall Quarter of his freshman year, but quickly became disillusioned.
“I didn’t like the way it was working,” he said. “I saw a lot of room for improvements, but I didn’t really see an outlet for those ideas, so it was kind of discouraging”
But for Pulte and Smithburg, their status as ASG outsiders was more of an advantage than a hurdle.
“Being an outsider gives you a fresh perspective, kind of a clean slate to really write down those problems and think about them in a new way,” Smithburg said.
Pulte shared this opinion: “During my Northwestern career I’ve been able to accomplish things outside of the organization,” he said. “Because I’ve had the success of achieving those different things, I believe that’s going to translate into success in the objectives I set for myself as I strive on.”
Pulte is the current president of Pi Kappa Alpha (or “Pike”), while Smithburg is the former president of Delta Upsilon. While both have had similar responsibilities, their experiences were drastically different.
Pulte was able during his presidency to get his fraternity a house on-campus after 13 years of being off-campus
“[Pike] takes a great deal of my time,” he said, adding that the fraternity, along with his aerial photography company, Great Lakes Helicopters LLC., were “pretty self-functioning bodies,” leaving him ample time to fulfill his duty in ASG.
Smithburg was president of Delta Upsilon last year when the fraternity organized a controversial pledge event involving a midget wrestling group. But for Smithburg, the ordeal was an important learning opportunity.
“I wouldn’t call it a failure, so to say. Learning from your experiences and learning from especially challenging experiences like this, that’s where you can find future success,” he said. “Reflecting on my experiences as DU president, seeing what I could have done better, I think makes me a better person overall because I can use a lot of those lessons in the future.”
Both students saw an opportunity for change with the Sales-Griffin presidency.
“I really saw this exec board as being open to change, and I saw this position as a great way to express that,” Smithburg said.
“What I’m hoping to do is get actual results and actual services for the students,” Pulte said. “We’ve got the right people there, so now it’s just a matter of making sure things get through.”
For Smithburg, his new situation as Human Resources Director gives him an occasion to talk individually with other exec board members and puts him in an interesting position to see what things could be changed.
“Even just letting them vent, and letting them spew all the ideas they want, it’s been really interesting, because they’re giving me gold on things that we can help with ASG,” he said. “I think the benefit of my position is that I can help people individually improve. I can think about it and work through problems they have, and I can also sit back and say, ‘There’s a common problem here.”"
After slightly more than two weeks to adjust to their new responsibilities, Pulte and Smithburg are already in the full swing of things, focusing notably on establishing airport shuttles and a Northwestern equivalent of Craigslist.
“Bill Pulte and I, I’ve been texting him, calling him, e-mailing him every hour in the last two weeks,” Smithburg said. “We’re really excited to be here.”