Get to know me…

Michael Leppert

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Vincennes, Indiana, a city about half way from Terre Haute to Evansville. We moved away shortly after to South West, Virginia. On the Virginia and Tennessee border, in a small town called Abingdon. I lived there until 8th grade, and my family moved back to Vincennes. So for the entire decade of the 70’s I was in Virginia, and then in the 1980’s we went back to Indiana, and I’ve been in Indiana ever since. When I got done with IU, I came to Indianapolis in 1989.

Where did you attend school?

l went to Vincennes University my first two years, I was there on a golf scholarship. Then I transferred to IU, and finished at IU.

what keeps you in Indiana?

Ya know, what kept me in Indiana to begin with was my first wife had a job here, and I didn’t. I didn’t really plan on, or want to, stay in Indiana when I was a young person, but then I went to work for the government and built my brand here and my knowledge base on Indiana government. That has probably kept me here more than anything else. Now that I do what I do as a college faculty member, I could probably teach in a lot of places. My network was here, so I couldn't really just take that and go to…California, so that’s the primary reason. Now, my wife is in that same boat, so she’s going to stay. If I get a teaching job at Pepperdine or Harvard she’s still going to stay here, so, haha, I got that challenge now.

When did your interest in advocacy start?

When I was a teenager. I was a bit of a trouble maker as a teenager, and I was also a good student and an athlete. I was not just a trouble maker, I was into studying and doing well in school, so all of those things kind of came together in a situation for me where I wanted to talk and I was in a spot where people were inclined to listen. That’s how it started. When I had opinions or ideas, I shared them, and that got encouraged at an early age, so I never stopped doing it.

What drew you towards Women4Change?

Rima, haha. Ya know, I was around when the original organization was being formed. My wife is a feminist, I’m a feminist. When things were turning out the way they did in 2016, the beginning of 2017, when the group was beginning to form here, I was at a lot of those original meetings just because of the generic concern that the group had. We lined up right out of the gate, the concerns of the group were the same concerns that I had, so it wasn’t really a stretch or any tone of persuasion that needed to get me involved. Ya know the phone rang, Rima said “I need you to do this.” and I said “What time?” ya know? So that was easy. My wife is the contract lobbyist for the group. She runs a group called Hoosier Women Forward. Ya know I’ve always been an advocate for someone who encourages or supports women’s issues. All that stuff was very easy for me. I know it seems a little weird as the first man on the board, but it was a bigger stretch for the organization than it was for me. When the phone rang for me it was like “Okay, tell me when to show up, I’m a yes.” It was easy for me.

What are some causes you really stand behind right now?

Well I write a lot. I’ve been writing in my column for 17 years now, so I write about a lot of things. Women’s issues being one of them, gun safety, any group that is not being considered properly, and probably the thing that’s unique to me is a I have really burning problem with Indiana’s budget surplus. Although, that hasn’t caught on yet, so I’m still working on that one, haha.

What are some things you do outside of being on the board at women4change?

I put out my first novel in November, and I’m writing another one now. The writing part of my life takes up a lot of time. I’m a new full-time faculty member, I just finished my first year at IU as a teacher at the Kelley School of Business. That is something I knew I would like, but I didn’t know how much I’d love it. I wake up and I think of myself as a teacher, that is just something that will be apart of me until I die. So those are the two big things, but as we’re talking right now I’m on the way to a golf tournament. So I still play golf, I still compete in that regard. The other thing is Amy and I are pretty avid fitness people, so I workout everyday, I go to yoga three times a week. The last thing is live performances. We go to a lot of concerts, I do a lot of stand-up comedy shows, I go to a lot of stand-up comedy shows, theatre, those kinds of things. So, that covers about 90% of me right there.