Deeann Griebel: Giving Back

Deeann Griebel with the same 1975 Chevy Caprice Classic that she loaded up with her belongings after graduation from Southwest. She drives it to work daily.

Deeann Griebel ‘80: Details Make the Difference

Details. They’re important in every aspect of your life.

That’s what Deeann Griebel, a 1980 alumna and the Managing Director of Investments for Moors & Cabot, Inc. in Mesa, Ariz., feels. A lifetime of experience reinforces that belief.

Griebel recently committed $1.8 million for the Student Success and Advising Center at SMSU, paving the way for the creation of new tutoring and mentoring programs that will ensure all students have the support they need to become successful graduates.

To honor her generous gift, the Center was renamed the Deeann Griebel Student Success Center.

“The financial commitment really kills four birds with one stone,” she said. “Anyone who teaches a subject learns that subject better, and has a deeper understanding of it. Second, a student that is struggling to understand a subject might figure it out better if a peer teaches them — they speak the same language, and a 19-year-old won’t be afraid to ask another 19-year-old a question. Third, the person doing that teaching will also get paid, and that’s one of the big stumbling blocks today; things are so expensive and students can’t use their teaching talent because they have to earn a paycheck somewhere else. This will allow talented students to teach other students, and get paid. And fourth, the CEO of one of Marshall’s largest employers called me and said they love to hire anyone with any type of teaching experience, and those who have done that, their resume goes to the top of the pile. He said ‘We don’t care if they taught swimming lessons, or Sunday school. If they teach a subject to a peer, we have learned they are better students themselves, and they have more sympathy for the employer when they are asked to learn something new. They are more tolerant and attentive and respectful, because they know how hard teaching can be.’”

Student success is a topic important to Griebel, who began her career as a teacher and understands the challenges facing that profession today. She feels students teaching students, also known as Supplemental Instruction, is a key component for success.

As an educator, you never know what the future holds for, say, a former typing student of hers in Butte, Neb., by the name of Tim Walz, who would years later be elected Minnesota’s governor.

She earned an Education degree from St. Cloud State, and taught at three schools in three years. She decided, however, that she’d look in another direction. “I kept getting laid off,” she explained. “That’s when a huge amount of baby boomers were coming out of high school and many of those schools saw their graduating class of seniors go way down. Business education classes were electives, and the first teachers to get laid off were those teaching electives.”

Reading the tea leaves, she began taking summer Accounting courses at SMSU while living with her late sister Deb. She earned her CPA certification in May of 1980, and graduated the next month with her Accounting degree. From there, it was off to Arizona, where she’s had a decorated career as a financial advisor, having been a six-time selection to the Barron’s Top 100 Women’s Financial Advisor list since 2007.

After Commencement 1980, she was walking to her beloved 1975 Chevy Caprice Classic when it hit her. “I was walking by the library, and the thought came to mind that everything I own could fit in that car. I could go anyplace.”

“I went to the library and grabbed an Atlas. I asked, first, what do I want? Then I asked, what don’t I want? I didn’t want snow, so that eliminated everything east of the Mississippi. Texas had a late blizzard in ’80 so that was eliminated. California was in a recession and there’s no place to go in New Mexico. That left Nevada, Utah and Arizona. I like small college towns like Marshall, so I turned the Atlas to Arizona, and there was a photo of the Gammage Auditorium, a massive performing arts center on the Arizona State University campus. I love the theatre and the performing arts so I said I want to live within five miles of the Gammage Auditorium.”