YouSaid · the spoken record

Pete Ricketts

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69
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2022-06-02
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2022-06-02
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1
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  1. “I paid attention to politics. We did talk about it, but it's not like never from the standpoint of, oh, geez, we got to run, you know, that kind of thing. It was really because our then U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel had been touring Ameritrade and thought that we ran a really great operation, which we did. We had great people, and asked if I had actually asked like in February of 2005, had I ever thought about running for office. And I said, no, and I'd be a terrible candidate. But actually, that's having somebody seriously ask you made me start thinking about it. And about three months later, I went back and said, you know what actually I would consider doing this. Ameritrade was going through a transition, so it was a good time for me to step away and it wouldn't be terribly odd. And I kind of felt like I was called to do it. I was interested in it. And I think it's a great lesson of you should ask people. If you want, like for example, in Nebraska, we always want people to come home. We should ask them. We should ask young people. Go away. Go get your education university of Chicago.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Not at all, actually. I really, I'd always paid attention, but I never had really considered running for office seriously.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, we went from a stock price of like $73 and then the dot-com bubble thing happened and we went down to three. And nothing's going to make you think, oh, this wealth could go away.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “It probably changed us in a number of different ways of things. But I will say that we grew up very middle class. I mean, when we were growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. I remember at one point the dishwasher didn't work for years. And we were the dishwasher, the kids. And we had a chair to prop the oven door closed because it wouldn't stay closed by itself until mom and dad could afford to get it fixed. But as the company grew, when I joined, we had about 100 people working at Meritrade. And when I left, we had like 6,000 people. But that was over a period of about almost a dozen years. So it did grow rapidly for a company. But one of the things my dad always made us as people working at the companies, he didn't want to sell any stock. So we really couldn't monetize, even though stock increased greatly in value. We couldn't really monetize it. Now, our salaries went up. And we got paid nicely. But it wasn't like it became like this super wealthy thing all at once. It's really been.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “And so my dad called me up and said, hey, would you, if you want to come back, now's a good time. And frankly, I got to tell you at the time, I really, just like I really didn't intend to apply to the University of Chicago, I really didn't want to go back at that time because I was loving Chicago. But I'd worked for enough companies by that point that I was like, I want to see, I want to have more involvement how decisions are made because I thought companies made poor decisions and I didn't understand why they made those poor decisions. So that's why I went back to Nebraska to work for the family business.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Oh, I love Chicago. It's a great city. Had a great time here, lived here on and off for about 10 years. I had the opportunity. So my dad had asked me to come back to the family business. And he had a rule that you couldn't come back until your age 30 because he wanted you to go off and establish yourself in a field. And he said, whatever title you have in that field, you can come back and have here. If you're a vice president, you'll be a vice president. If you're the administrative assistant, you're the administrative assistant, you're a receptionist, you're receptionist. And whatever you're getting paid, that's what I'll pay you. I had actually just gotten laid off from a job here in Chicago working for an environmental consulting firm. You know, economy was bad. First person that lay off is a sales guy.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So my dad was the one that read about the University of Chicago. My uncle was going to the school here at the art school, I think, somehow associated with the Art Institute. And so my dad saw, like in U.S. News& World Reporter or something, that University of Chicago was ranked the 11th best college in the nation. And so he wanted me to apply. I had no interest. I had never heard of it before. So I was applying to places like Stanford and Rice University and Washington University in St. Louis, right? And I applied to Creighton University and University of Nebraska as well. And I was going to pretend to forget to apply to the University of Chicago. And my dad said Peter, did you get that application? Because he calls me Peter. Peter, did you get that application in? I'm like, oh, geez, Dad. I forgot. Look at the time.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “It's true. So your dad Not quite true. So here's how I ended up at the University of Chicago because it's kind of a fun story. And I don't know that's ever been recorded anywhere before. And maybe after this, you got an exclusive here.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “And the same thing. And here's the other thing nobody ever died wishing they had spent more time at the office. Absolutely. And that's a cliche, but like closely.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “It's certainly true in any profession that there's no substitute for elbow grease, right? You just got to work hard. And that yields results. But you're right. There's a cost to it. I actually think it's one of the things we see in young people today that they aren't willing to do that as much. It's not a bad thing. You know, they want to have more of a balance. And so I actually tell people the same sort of thing. I go, hey, when your kids are young, hug them now. They grow up fast. And it's incredible how fast it goes, he'll buy so fast”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Being more thoughtful or intentional about carving out that time for the family and trying to spend more time. But I also had the same habits my dad did as being a workaholic and going to work at 7 o'clock in the morning, come home at 7 o'clock at night and that sort of thing too. So, you know, Acorn doesn't fall too far from the tree. I hope I've done a little bit better than my dad.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “That's a great question. So I would say that growing up, you don't know any better, right? You assume just everybody's like that. And frankly, we came from an era when dads worked hard and weren't particularly involved in their kids lives anyway, right? My dad talks about his grandfather, my kid's father, my grandfather, was really not involved. Like I remember my uncle Bob saying the only time he got to know his dad is when he was getting ready to go off the Marines. So, and they sat around on the floor and drank a bottle of whiskey. You know, it was just like, it was a different errand. I think it's changed over time. And definitely having seen howard my dad worked, I tried to be more cognizant about spending time with my kids, and I still do. Even as governor and my kids were still in school at the time, we always said Wednesday is family dinner night. So if you want me at an event, don't plan it for Wednesday night because I ain't going to be there. And Sundays for church and family. So I could spend time.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, yeah, it took a long time to get through it, but eventually he got his degree. In fact, the reason he got his degree is because he wanted to go into the brokerage industry. And when he applied to the brokers like Dean Witter at the time, they said they wouldn't hire him unless he had a college degree. So he went back to my mom and said, hey, I need to get my college degree. We're going to have to tighten our belts and all that sort of stuff. Because you were”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, no, my dad's my hero. So he put himself through Creighton University. He was the first person in his family really to go to college. And he did it by working in a bakery to earn money for tuition, worked in the commissary on campus to get food and then clean the, as he said, clean the toilets so he could get room. So he kind of did all those sort of things to be able to pay for it. Wasn't a particularly good student either. Of course, when you're working that much, it's kind of hard to be a good student. But that's how I put himself through college. He was actually, and he wasn't like a four year graduate. It took time, you know, to get through that.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So my dad's family has been actually in America for a long time. We think my dad's family came from Wales, but we can't prove it. But it would really start off in Maryland and then kind of his family moved his way to Ohio, down to New Orleans actually for a while, then to Iowa and then across the river to Nebraska with my great-grandfather, Roscoe Rollin Rickets.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, let's see. We can trace our lineage back to Maryland in the 1710s on my dad's side. Oh my goodness. My mom's side came over from Germany and France in the 1850s.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, so we're well, we're from, well, I mean, my parents grew up in Nebraska, so I'm a fourth generation on my dad's side, fifth generation, my mom's side, Nebraska. So our family's been there a long time. Where'd they come from?”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “The second floor of the bar. Oh, it's way more fun. I get way better seats now. I bet you do. I get to go on the field and nobody tackles me or anything like that. It's awesome. Let me, uh,”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “You know, actually, I used to have an apartment right across the street from Wrigley Field. It was a ton of fun. Actually, my old apartment is now part of the Sports Corner Bar.”

    2022-06-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 492 — Gov. Pete Ricketts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source