Apart from my own father (“Hey, Dad”) and my father-in-law (“Hi, Don”) the man who has had the greatest impact in my life has been Mike Kruse. Mike passed away last week.
I first met Mike twenty years ago. I was a far-too-young and far-too-inexperienced CFO for a construction company that was a client of the CPA firm that bore Mike’s name, Kruse & Associates. Five years later, I went to work for Kruse & Associates and Mike became my boss.
Mike was more than just a boss. He was a leader. I never felt like I worked FOR Mike. It always felt like I worked WITH Mike. For a young whipper-snapper (whatever that is) who is looking to learn and grow, there is a tremendous difference between the two.
Mike was more than just a leader. He built more than a successful business, he built people. He helped build me. Like so many that worked with Mike, he believed not only in my ability and my potential, but more importantly, he believed in me. That helped me start believing in myself at a whole new level.
After working with Mike and Kruse & Associates in Nashville for three years, I was part of a small team that moved to Knoxville to start an office there. That’s a much thinner, younger and clean-shaven me on the left. Then, moving to the right, you’ll see Marc, Mike, Donna and Phillip. The three years we worked together in Knoxville was amazing. Even though Mike still lived in Nashville, he spent a lot of time with us in Knoxville. Getting time to work that closely with Mike was a career opportunity of a lifetime on top of being remarkably rewarding personally. Working with Mike blurred the lines between personal growth and professional development.
Mike was a humble man. He often said “if you are really good, you don’t have to waste time telling people how good you are”. Those of us who worked for Mike called comments like that “Kruse-isms”: quips and quotes he said frequently. Sometimes they were funny. Sometimes they were profound. All of them were quickly identified with Mike being Mike.
I’ll finish with a story that shows the servant-mentality that was Mike Kruse. Shortly after going to work with Kruse & Associates, I was at a new client’s office in Kingsport, Tennessee. I had driven up in the morning and Mike was going to drive up later and meet me for dinner that night. This was the first chance I had to work one-on-one with Mike since I joined the firm.
It turned out that it was cold and snowy that entire day, but Mike made it up anyway through the tough weather. After dinner, we decided to meet for breakfast at 7:00 at a Perkins next door to the hotel. I was determined to be early for breakfast and make a good impression on “the big man” so I planned to be at the restaurant by 6:30. Not only did Mike beat me to breakfast, he got up early enough to scrape the snow and ice off of my car….MY car. The car of the new guy. The car of the employee that had not yet done a thing for him or his firm. Did I mention that he was the boss and that it was his name on the letterhead? That spoke more to me about his values and the values of his firm than anything he could have said.
I told that story to Mike several years later. He, of course, had no recollection of it. It was just Mike being Mike. Everyone that knew him has memories like that of “Mike being Mike”.
Most every great thing that has happened to me in my career has Mike Kruse’s fingerprints all over it. I can’t begin to think what my career (or life) would be like without his influence. He was not only very good to me, but he was very good to my family, too. He always asked about Cindy and the boys and was genuinely concerned how they dealt with the moves we made for the firm. I hope some day that Will and Sam are blessed to work with a man like Mike.
Now our family prays for Mike’s: Mary Jean, his wife of 48 years, their children and their grandchildren. We pray for their peace in this time and that somehow they’ll be comforted by knowing the tremendous impact that Mike had on so many lives. We miss you, Mike.
