Interview of Vic Trautwein, October 21, 2020

Sydney: So I am here with Vic Trautwein from Kids Alive International. Vic, would you mind giving me a little bit of background about what Kids Alive International does and what your role is within them? 

Vic: Okay, Kids Alive is a non-denominational Christian nonprofit that rescues kids at risk. We generally run orphanages that we call residential programs, schools, or care centers. We operate in 12 countries.  My role I'm the co-country director for Kids Alive in the Dominican Republic where we run three residential programs and seven schools and serve about 2,200 kids that come from just really hard places. And we just try to stand in the gap and help him grow up well. 

Sydney: That's amazing! And how did you get into this position specifically or first hear about Kids Alive? And then did you go up the ranks or were you first introduced into this position? 

Vic: Well my wife and I are called second career missionary so we had professional careers before we joined Kids Alive and came to move to the DR. I have an engineering degree and a business background so I was running a division of a business for a large company. And my wife's a pediatrician. But we were involved with some-- as late people at our church we knew of some people working with Kids Alive and we just had the opportunity to come down here and help. And we decided we would try it for a few years so we left our suburban comfortable, suburban lifestyle move to the DR with 4 kids about 18 years ago and we've been here ever since. 

Sydney: That's amazing and were you... what was your position then how is it changed over the years?

Vic: I was-- Initially, I came in to run one of the schools but really to help the operations get better. The mission was-- we are much smaller then we helped about 400 kids. Pretty quickly I was director of operations for the country but it was still four projects now we're ten projects back then we had 400 kids now we have 2,200. So mostly my position has stayed the same but the work has grown quite a bit. We have 300 employees, about 20 North Americans on staff. And its the same as for Leslie she started doing medical services right away but her responsibilities have grown as the institution's grown. So our work is more evolved where we manage others more than we used to. Before if there was a crisis at one of the orphanages we often had to go be the drivers. Now we have other people that can drive. We have a bigger group of people working. So that's how our work has evolved.

Sydney: That's amazing! And how, I guess this would be sort of an overtime kind of thing, but how would you characterize your leadership style and how has it changed over the years as the operations have changed? 

Vic: I think people-- I think other people would say that my leadership style is more like a servant leader. I think of my job is to help other people do their jobs well more than it is to do a lot. That's kind of get people in the right places, give them resources they need to succeed in their roles and that's more that's what I think my key role is as. So it's you know I like to lead by example, I don't want to ask people to do something that I wouldn't do myself. Some people have different skills than me, they can do things better than I can but nevertheless kind of the willingness to get your hands dirty, to jump in and do things that are hard. That's what I like to do that as well or I don't like--  just because I think it sets a good example for the organization. 

Sydney: Yeah and what experience, experiences do you think have shaped that leadership style for you and shaped you as a leader in general?

Vic: I think a number of things that the... all the way back to like playing a lot of sports in youth. I played on a lot of teams and I always preferred team sports than individual sports and I kind of realized that the pretty early on that the successive team had a lot more to do with good teamwork and people playing the roles than it did with individuals skills at times. And so that I think that has rolled over into kind of institutional management. I think it's it's important that we're cohesive, we work together, people have different roles. And that's kind of just philosophically I think that's helped to shape me as the way I like to help others do their things well, get people in the right places, more like a team works. And so even having the opportunity to be captains of sports teams it's still that it's not so much what you're doing is but that the whole team does well that's what leads to success. So that's played a role. My first job after college I had the opportunity to work with a pretty fast-paced consulting firm and they did a lot of work to make sure people were getting better at their jobs. So there is a lot of investing in people and that was something else that I learned. Like how do you give feedback in a constructive way and help people get better at your job that happened for me and that's something I would try to do for others. 

Sydney: Thank you for sharing! What are some obstacles or challenges that you faced in your role at the DR and then how have those further shaped you or how have you overcome those?

Vic: Yeah a lot of our obstacles are outside our organization. That's... there's... It's just a hard place. There's a broken education system in the public schools. There's a broken medical system that doesn't help the poor. There's a lot of poor treatment of people of particularly Haitians in this society. So those are things we have to figure out how do we work within. How do we stand in the gap for things that, in some places work well, but here don't. And so there's an environmental obstacle that you just keep plugging away at. You have to have a lot of patience sometimes. You can't solve every problem. You can't change the way the government works. So sometimes it's just persistence and patience to overcome obstacles. Other times I think and other things we see are when you work in the nonprofit world-- there's a lot of-- you can sometimes get a lot of volunteer help and you have to sort of measure that with how committed are your volunteers.  So you can't-- sometimes you have someone who because they're a volunteer they'll say "Well, I don't feel like doing that today" and they won't and that doesn't really help. And so you have to kind of, you have to sort of get the right people in the right places again and understand who you're working with where who are your stronger workers and get them in the places that are more important. And people that are less committed maybe they can help but not for your key things. So often when we are teaching kids or even teaching kids something like well-- A volunteer, someone that wants to come in and help in a math class, that doesn't speak Spanish is not useful to use. We need a teacher that speaks Spanish and is a good teacher and not some-- Make sure in your key roles you have people that are highly committed.

Sydney: Yeah

Vic: You still there?

Sydney: Yeah, you cut off a little bit at the end but I think I got most of it.

Vic: Yeah the internet is developing world internet.

Sydney: It adds to the character of it. So you were kind of touching on the volunteers and-- so often times you have the core people who live in the DR and working there full-time and you said you had 20 North Americans who are working there full-time?

Vic: Yes.

Sydney: And then you also have-- Is it usually weeklong or sometimes longer than that that volunteer I come in? 

Vic: We have about-- we have many more volunteers. Well not right now because of Covid but in a normal year will have about 40 teams that come down that come for about a week. And the  20 North Americans are really missionary like us and certain Kids Alive Staff. The bulk of our workers on the 300 Dominican nationals that there are teachers-- can play roles that might be an English teacher or work with child sponsor or host a team. Many of them are key people and they're highly committed. But the people that come on teams they sometimes are-- You need to get them in the right place where they are useful. They can work together to build the classroom or they sometimes they're trained teachers that are quite helpful in training but you have to kind of figure out how to get them in the right place. And then we'll get some Dominicans who want to volunteer too and those are the other. But we don't use a lot of local volunteers, mostly because we'd rather have a committed full-time employee.

Sydney: Yeah, that makes sense. So kind of going back more to your leadership style, what would you consider your professional strengths and weaknesses?

Vic: Um-- Well I think probably the thing that has um-- that is going pretty well for us is I have a positive outlook on most things and I and I think a lot about vision and mission and I'm pretty focused that way. So that's helped us recruit people. That and I think that another thing is that generally can over time discern like who-- how to get people on the right place that they'll be successful at their work. And so that's that's let us grow a very stable organization. We have--  One other thing I think, even from my work in the United States, I care a lot about taking care of people, and so, kind of solving personal problems, needs is something I'd spend some time on. Which again I think helps people to work better as well. So whether they need-- Back in the United States it was the dental care for our line workers in a plant, or, but here is more someone has a family emergency and you can help him out cuz they don't have the resources to do something. We tend to step in and help and care for people but I think that also helps them be more committed we do and helps them succeeded in their ability to focus on helping kids. So it's a little bit of a rambling answer but I think those things all play into having good long-term workers helps the succeed in our vision and mission.

Sydney: Do you-- At the schools are you what is your hope for children that go into the schools and are growing up in Kids Alive like what is your hope for them in the future?

Vic: Yeah, that's easy. We bring in kids that are 3 and 4 years old and they come in from horrific situations usually. They're usually hungry. They have broken families like a teenage single mom. But on the back end we've been at this long enough we see a lot of kids leave as trained like licensed teachers from universities, becoming doctors or lawyers. And so it's not so much that they are just high-capacity but they're motivated to help people because they were helped by somebody and they wanted and they leave many leave being able to help themselves, help their families, help their communities, their involved in their churches, and they are what we call impact Christians. So what we're able to see his kids going from hard places, difficult circumstances, kind of outcasts in society, to becoming community leaders, people that have an impact where they live and that's that's super exciting for us. And so when I look at four year olds now I'm like well I don't really necessarily think poor you know, they have hard lives they come from hard places, but I also understand they have this opportunity to to transform in a way that's super exciting because it's happening in front of our eyes. 

Sydney: And does that encourage you in your work that you do to continue to be better?

Vic: When I have a really hard day, which we all do, I just think about some of the lives that have changed. I just feel super privileged that way and I think a lot of our donors, supporters don't get to see what we see. We see lives change in front of us to be where some of the people that we used to be helping are now our colleagues at work. They're they're the ones that are are young workers at our sites, they're the kids that we used to try to be getting food to their families you know. And they're, now they're highly capable young people helping others with their lives so that's super encouraging.

Sydney: Yeah, and is that, would you say that the like the people and the work that you're doing is what made you stay cuz it sounded like at first you were too a few months or a year or something and then here you are 18 years later still in the DR.

Vic: Yeah, um, you know I think that yes that's very true we stay because we feel it's where God wants us to be, but we came because we thought God wanted us to come here and it's just hasn't changed. And the lesson from that is I think that our plans aren't necessarily God's plans and his plans are better than ours so what I envisioned for my life when I was 18 is way different than what it is. But but in a bigger picture at this point I just want to do what God wants me to do. And and so you know every once in a while we think about it but we just keep coming back to well we think he wants us here. And even when our kids grew up and went off to University and are all in the United States we still felt well this is where he wants us to be and so Leslie and I are still here. But but I wouldn't, you know... I didn't have that clarity of vision as an 18 year old or 26 year old or 36 year old even but here we are. And you know maybe two years from now that's different. Trying to know what God wants, but we see how we're useful we see how are backgrounds and our skills how God uses them in this place and and we're we're excited about the next chunk of time here too so it's that's why we stay.

Sydney: Amazing and how have you seen how is living in the DR and working for Kids Alive shaped your family like did you see a shift in your family dynamics or you and Leslie or you and your kids when you move from the United States to the DR.

Vic: Well our kids were 6, 4, 2, and 1 when we came here and to them it was they didn't know any different. And it was you know I think growing up was a bit of an adventure for them. They've benefited because they're all bilingual. They also see, they have an awareness of things that a lot of young adults don't have because they grew up with friends that lived in extreme poverty and they saw a lot of hard things too. So some of the things are, make their lives, give them different tools and different world views. Other things I think are hard but it-- They don't fit into US culture as easily because they didn't grow up there. But the hard thing about that question is that we all travel one path so we don't really have a way of saying "Well, how would our kids be if we didn't come to the DR.

Sydney: Yeah

Vic: They're all really special people and they have great blessings in their lives and there you know our hope is that they use those to help other people and serve God.

Sydney: And I'm sure you hope the same things for all the kids that go through your program as well.

Vic: Well it's true and you know, I look back on my own life and I'm like well it's just one path and and there's things that are hard and there's things that were great blessings and that's just true for all of us. We don't really question whether we were supposed to come here or we don't think a lot about what life would have been like if we'd. Like that's what Gad wants us to do and he wanted our kids here as well and there's a lot of things that they that they love about having grown up here and that they you know that they benefited from. Particularly like language skills and sort of a world perspective on what are needs or what are really just wants and they've seen a lot of different things in life.

Sydney: Yep. That's a wonderful experience that you've provided them with. Who has, who would you say your greatest influence has been in your life?

Vic: I mean this may not be very exciting answer for you but probably my mom and dad. My mom taught me, she was super humble but just taught me about selfless love. And and my dad was just very family oriented and disciplined and caring and and also pretty humble and so it's those things I think-- The things that were great about my parents I try to emulate but I learned a lot from them. So that's what jumps out at me. But certainly other people have impacted me as well but I try to learn a little bit from everybody.

Sydney: That's a great way to live life.

Vic: Thanks.

Sydney: Do you feel that.. You kind of talked about how you were captain of your sports teams, and do you feel like in your life you've been called into leadership roles often and that like that's where God intended you to be in a leadership position or you also talked about being like more participatory and having everyone involved in something so how do you see that?

Vic: I don't really, I just think we are all cogs in God's giant wheel and sometimes you get to lead and other times you're a role player and I've been both. And I'm not sure one's really more important or better than another. I think the things I've gotten to lead in I think it's often because I've gained experience or you know it's usually, like with sports teams, when I was captain we were elected and it was because other people trusted you and thought you could do a good job at something or even a coach. So that's sorta how I've been in different roles or responsibilities was because I was asked to be in them. But again I'm not really-- I don't think-- I don't think I've aspired to be, like "Oh, I want to be the captain" or  "I want to be the president." I kind of don't like to be in the limelight so I more-- I really don't-- so I think it's more that at that stage of whatever it was I was in a position to be helpful to other people so I got asked to play a certain role which involved leading persay. And you know I think whatever I've been doing I am, I don't like to be involved in something that I don't believe in and so if it's a team then it's well we are going to try and win as a team and we're going to try and help each other. If its an institution like Kids Alive, I'm in it because I believe in the vision and mission and that's also a good characteristic for somebody who has a lot of responsibility in an organization, that they really believe in what they're doing. So I think that's probably helped as well.

Sydney: Yeah. How-- So you've talked about trying to get people in those positions that you feel like they would be best, best serving others but what are other ways.. It sounds like you try and raise a lot of people up around you and you yourself don't love to be in the limelight. So how-- What are some ways that you just kind of bring other people into those leadership positions and how do you delegate and--?

Vic: Yeah, that's a good question I think you know what you're what I'm looking for what we look for institutionally is people that have the right capacity to do something well, they're well-trained or they can be trained to do something, they're committed to the vision and mission. And and then what, you know, the thing is to give people like that more responsibility and then put resources behind them and then they get excited because they if you're a social worker and you get more and you're doing a good job and you get more resources to help the families that you're trying to help that's a great thing that's what you want somebody that works because they love the work not because they've been told to do something and those kind people don't even need to be managed. They just need to be given a direction to go and some and some resources to help with and they and that's largely what we have, our school directors, our residential directors, key teachers and they're people that they love what they're doing and they've built the skills to do it well we just have to get the resources in their hands. And that's what I think works and it also lets you not have to tightly manage a lot of people. Now you asked about delegation, I think it's super important you can't do a lot on a large scale without delegating to a lot of people but there's some things you don't want to delegate. Like in our case I stay very involved in what are our child protection policies and how do we teach that to people. There's things that that you want to even things like how do we handle money I stay pretty involved in because you just don't want it to be so loose that it could lead to misuse, start stealing and so it's you have to have sort of this ability to understand where things are going and why and how they are used and so some things you don't delegate as much if that makes sense.

Sydney: Yes that totally makes sense. How with Kids Alive, cuz there's not something always super tangible to hold onto to kind of measure success or failure in that, what are some things that you like hold on to or use to measure your successes or failures?

Vic: Yeah, that's a really good question too and it's actually becomes more  and more important because you you can believe you're doing something well but unless you can measure it against something it's hard to know. So something like a company its a lot of managers like to have a bottom line they like to know how much money they make because they're being measured and that it's an easy for that is very tangible. But with what we do we've actually figurde out some things that actually give us a pretty good idea. So we we've thought about it some, for instance the school system is broken here and in the public schools but we figure it out by just measuring and interviewing that a kid that comes in one of our schools is probably five times more likely to graduate high school than a normal Dominican kid. Now that's an astounding number really but that's because less than 20% of Dominicans graduate from the graduate from high school but when we get a kid into one our schools they start to like to learn, they get abilities that keep them going and generally like four out of five of them will graduate from high school now. But that's same thing with we can look at older kids and say well ten years after the eighth grade where are they. There's less kids that are single parents, there's more kids now they're like five times more being a church which is not as important to a secular society but for us it means that they care about pleasing god with their lives and that they're they its um and so it's those are things to do measure and we can see statistically that that the programs have a big impact. And that's important for us because we don't want to do things that aren't working, you know. We want to be good at teaching if we're going to teach. If we're teaching about family values we want to not have kids grow up and just move from one family to another, divorce after divorce we need to teach that it's important to be committed to a marriage and so those are things we work on and measure in a sense.

Sydney: What would be like your dream goal for the future for the area that you're working with, for Kids Alive, for the DR what like--? 

Vic: Yeah that's a good question. I think more that what we develop here that in a way it can just one, one really important thing is that in this maybe is a is that we develop a system to to train people and organizationally that less is work going on for decades with or without us you know it's like we we've been around for a while but we won't be here forever. And some of our leaders are older and so we need to kind of keep working to have a system of getting the right people in the right places and then in that it's sustaining so the working what we're doing continues well for 10 and 20 years that's a that's something I'll so I think that we'd like to have more influence on the government and the policies for our sites where we have views about what's the right way to care for kids in a residential system what's important in schools and and in schools so we don't necessarily have to do the work ourselves but we would like to be able to influence the public school system, influenced the Dominican government for the child protective services in a really positive way. Even the point that there could be some foster care around a school for instance instead of having kids on a campus and so there's things that we think could happen the next 5 or 10 years that will be really positive in the society in the sense. Kind of keep transformation going on a larger scale so the communities we work in better places to live and and the and the country as a whole is kind of, is improving because of the the the kids that are coming out of our system to be leaders in their communities in their in their the Dominican Society. 

Sydney: If you could would you want all of the kids in the DR to go to one of the Kids Alive schools rather than the public?

Vic: Well, yeah that would be wonderful I mean that's that's just true of any when you have something that's-- I mean to put this in context, the DR has the worst public school system of any Spanish-speaking country in the world. I mean statistically off-the-charts bad, so it's not our schools are better on a whole bunch of levels they, academically they're fare superior but they're also teach kind of Christian values. They teach people to be honest and kind and compassionate toward others and so it's there's a there's a all those things are you know they're just important to a society as well so it's-- I mean there's other good schools besides ours but the public school system is really in bad state so that's almost even from like a United Nations perspective it's almost criminal the amount of dropouts that come out of the public school system. In our town, for instance, only about 7%, like less than 1 and 10 kids will graduate high school in the public school system. That's basic education and so when you asked would I like every kid to go to our school? Our school or something like that we wouldn't have to run it but something that where they're cared about as people, where they're told they are important and where they're given role models and hope and a capacity to care for themselves and help their families and their community. That's what a school should be and that's what we try to do.

Sydney: Um you talked about this a little bit but would you like would your goal be for Kids Alive to continue to live past you and past your work upon it and like what would you want your legacy to have been at Kids Alive?

Vic: I mean yeah that's if that doesn't happen then I don't think that we've done a very good job because it's not really about us. It's about it's about helping kids and glorifying God and if we can't-- if if everything depends on me and my wife or something else and then it falls apart because we're not part of it and we're all replaceable we just we need to think about having things the things in place that let kids continue to get the kind of help that they get right now for as I said for decades. So in a way the best legacy would be to become smaller in a sense like it doesn't depend on us it's all about God when it's our time to be somewhere else practically nobody really notices you know so because it's things are just continue to flourish and we were privileged to be a part of it for a while.

Sydney: Beautifully put. Thank you so much for sharing that. 

Vic: Sure.

Sydney: What advice would you give to others who maybe feel some sort of like you did to go somewhere and do something about their lives, like what advice would you give to someone who is desiring to help people more or go into some sort of work similar to yours?

Vic: Yeah that's a good question too. But I don't know I think the what's most important is to do what God wants and that doesn't necessarily mean everybody should pick up and go to the developing world and help kids that it's kind of romantic anyway I guess but you shouldn't do that if that's not what God wants. God might want you to be a postal letter carrier and make people happy by delivering their mail and that's a noble thing you know if you do that well and get a smile on people's face that's great but but it's so I think that that's the first thing is try to discern what does God want. But I think it's do that sometimes you have to look well what did God prepare me for, what is my background, what are my passions, what are my abilities, where where where can that be best used by God, and so for some people you know that it might look like that. But what I would encourage someone is to just not be afraid to live a little bit differently don't look for someone to somebody else to find what God wants you to do. Take some time think about it and then don't be afraid to try something it's I think most--. Sorry that's our dog she's... I think most people have a little bit more of a safety net than they realize particular like a university student in the United States that they're there and they can take some chances that maybe look a little different and really not you know and if it doesn't work out we'll try something else but I think it's what's dangerous is just the kind of plot along on a path that somebody else defines for you and then look back at life and say oh that wasn't what I really should have been doing. So I let you know I guess I would encourage somebody to if you feel like a passion and you see how that fits into what God's plan might be for you then to pursue that and see where it goes. I think that in a sense that what we did to come here was to just understand that and come to the belief that's what God wanted us to do and then just be obedient. But I also realize it's not--I don't think our life is any better than somebody else's because of that it's just that what we did was we tried to follow God wanted and that was that was a good choice for us and for anybody really.

Sydney: Yep definitely. Was there any point after you had moved that you were like "Oh my goodness, we did we do this?" like that you ever questioned it or were freaked out by it all?

Vic: About about six months, well actually less than that. A few months into when we got the DR the only people we knew told us they were leaving and there was a kind of a a big blowup internally in the organization and we were like "Oh, what's going to happen now?" And but you know but even then we thought well these projects belong to god let's just try to figure out what what does God want us to do and we figured out what to do to try to sustain things and things started to better right away and the people, national saw we were committed to it and we weren't going to and and then just kind of went from there. But there's been really very few times  where I've questioned "Was this a good decision or not?" Mostly because a little bit like I was referring to before it's not really my personality I don't I don't I kind of have recognized you might believe that another path might be better, if the grass might look greener somewhere else but when you get there that might be the case and also you can't really you know you could we could have stayed in the suburbs with comfortable lifestyles and been run over by a bus on the street and died. So just because this might be a riskier place generally from a house standpoint or something doesn't actually-- the safest place it just to be where God wants you to be. Not so it's not a I don't know so I don't spend a lot of time second guessing about big life questions in a way. But I mean I think you can learn from the past but there hasn't been a lot of instances in fact I can't even remember a time in my life where I thought "Well that was a bad decision to come here." There's been hard things for sure like but who doesn't have hard things that happen in their lives, you know? Our lives have been more comfortable than most almost for sure.

Sydney: Oh goodness, I've forgotten what I was going to say. I was wondering about is there anyone there right now who you could see taking over your position or are you kind of trying to figure out how the transition would look like? Cuz it sounded like the previous people who left when you had just gotten there was sudden was how are you going to try and you said you wanted to make yourself seem smaller and be able to transition seamlessly out of that but what is some steps that you are taking to accomplish that?

Vic: Well every year our jobs change somewhat. We get somebody that can do some aspect. Like right now if it wasn't for Covid I would spend more time traveling and doing things out of the country more to create awareness or raise funds. And that 10 years ago was impossible to much it was there was too many day to day responsibilities so part of it is just trying to be able to work on things that are longer term and get people in places to do day to day things and that's a that's a constant sort of process. Like last year we hired somebody to be the residential coordinator which was so I don't basically the three orphanage directors don't report to me right now which is great. We'd like to do the same thing for the schools. Not that it's, I'm involved but its more it frees me up and it let's somebody else who has more focussed time to focus on providing for them versus me trying to do it really quickly. So that's just you know I don't have like a assistant that's ready to take over yet or something like that but but we're always looking for, both Leslie and myself find people that can can do things long-term that free us up to do other things or-- And ultimately I think when it's time I think there will be somebody that can kind of step into the national leader role. But it's an ongoing process. But really our jobs change every year to the point that there's less day to day and more longer-term things to the point that at some point I think we'll be able to just step out.

Sydney: Yeah. Well that's all my questions for now is there anything else that you want to say or want to talk about or speak on?

Vic: No, I'm honored that you wanted to talk to me.

Sydney Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

Vic: Sure. I hope your project goes well.