Always the one to be there for friends and family, Kevin McGowan prioritized the things that would ultimately make him happy. A temporary move 3,000 miles east made for a network of friends that have lasted a career; a similar move westward, however, didn't seem to forge the same type of community. Find out how mellowing out and taking yourself less seriously, whether as an individual or a whole city, can help open you to more connections.
Guest Kevin McGowan, Dartmouth ’96, says he was popular on campus because he drove Keg One. But it was more than the deliveries for Stinson’s that made him well-known and well-liked. Whether with his football teammates, classmates, or even his family, he has always prioritized the things that matter—nurturing relationships and doing the things you love. When he left college he hoped he would be happy with a good career and family.
The career came in the form of multiple opportunities in the world of foreign exchange, first in New York and then in London. The adventure of going to London was made all the sweeter by a close-knit community of colleagues who have remained friends to this day The adventure of moving westward to Seattle, however, to try a different type of FX work, hasn’t yet seemed to take shape into the same type of community.
In this episode, find out from Kevin how mellowing out and taking yourself less seriously, whether as an individual or a whole city, can help open you to more connections …on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Kevin McGowan has spent his career in foreign exchange, with time spent in banks in New York and London. Wanting to try something new, this native son of the New Jersey-New York metroplex moved with his wife and two daughters to Seattle, where he is currently Head Of Business Operations at Amazon Currency Converter.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Kevin McGowan: I always joke: We played football in high school and it was always like, you know, it was McGowan, MacIlevey, Conti, Warziniak, all the names were just literally like out of central casting Catholic high school, right. But like, those people are people that I've known my entire life. So like within a couple months, we knew the world. Small town, like everybody. Here, I feel like we've been here three years and he stopped for the fact that I have friends that were here beforehand, harder to know.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Always the one to be there for friends and family, Kevin McGowan prioritized the things that would ultimately make him happy. A temporary move 3,000 miles east made for a network of friends that have lasted a career; a similar move westward, however, didn't seem to forge the same type of community. Find out how mellowing out and taking yourself less seriously, whether as an individual or a whole city, can help open you to more connections…on today's ROADS TAKEN with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
So today I am here with Kevin McGowan and we are going to talk about fit and what that means for different times of our life. So, Kevin, great to have you here.
KM: Thank you. I’m appreciative of your time and happy to be here.
LJR: So I start this the same way every time. And it’s with two questions: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
KM: That’s a good question. When I was in college, I was probably a knuckle head guy that delivered kegs for Stinson’s. I always joke with people that I was popular on campus. And they say, you wish. I'm like, no, really I drove Keg One; everyone knew who I was because of that. You know, and I worked at the weight room—all the real cerebral jobs that I had in college. But, you know, I like to think I was a good friend of my, all the folks that I knew probably was someone that probably could have studied a little harder. I think, you know, most people probably will probably say that. I guess I'm not unique in that one, but I'm amazed at how much more intellectually curious I am in later years than sort of like, ah, just have to get this damn paper done for a class or, you know, I think we…the thing that we spend the most money on is the thing we try to get the least value from. Professor canceled. Sweet; I don't have class. You pay all that money for your schooling. You know, you're like, oh yeah. What gets me through this as little as or as fast as possible. I might've been guilty of that being that guy when I was there.
When I was leaving, you know, I don't, I didn't have grandiose like world conquer plans. I was hoping I would be happy, you know, good career. I didn't have any notion that I was gonna start the next Amazon, where I work. I wasn't that, you know, grandiose in my plans. So in that sense, I think, I like to think I've hit the Mark a little bit on that one, in terms of happily married wife, kids, puppy, the whole nine yards. So got that.
LJR: Exactly. And so I know because I was one, too...economics major?
KM: Yep, yep. Same. The dismal science.
LJR. Right. For those of us who've thought of it that way, like myself, it was, oh my gosh. Can I really use this? Did I learn enough to use this? So what was that first thought for you? Career-wise after we left?
KM: That's right. I think the two things: One, I actually I've been lucky enough or maybe not lucky. I don't know how you would say it, but I've actually had jobs where some level of economic knowledge has been helpful. Like, you know, I've worked in foreign exchange for quite some time and that is at its core sort of your macro, a class you had with Professor Cohn or whoever you had for, for the heck?
LJR: Yes, bad memories, C’mon.
KM: That was a I was a mean, man, no. [LJR: So true.] But you know, it's funny, I give this advice to people I meet now and I have nieces and nephews who are college age now.
And I say like, listen, you know, I thought it would be the thing that would help get me this like high paying money job. Right. It's not that I didn't enjoy it as well, but, and then, you know, a year or two out of college, all my buddies, we did really, really well in history or religion or something that would have been probably far more intriguing and fascinating to me still got the jobs at Lehman Brothers.
I'm showing my age by saying Lehman Brothers, but...And they still got those roles effectively. They demonstrated the ability to think. It didn't matter that they didn't know that the ISLM curve or the Durbin Watson score on my industrial organization class, which I loved actually, I still remember like that class, right. Was like the people there didn't care, as long as they figured you were smart enough to learn what they wanted you to know. So I always tell like my niece and nephew, like, take something that. Do as well as you possibly can, everything else will take care of itself. When you come out of school. I should have had that advice when I was there, you know, but you know, I don't regret taking it. You can't, you don't live your life that way, but yeah, definitely. I, my GPA might've been north, a little further north of that was the mark that it was when I walked out, if that were the case.
LJR: Yeah. I think that is great advice and I wish I had taken it [KM: Yeah, same] myself when I was back then. So I know you've been in exchange for a long time. What was that first step? Was it still, was it financial services?
KM: Yeah, I think I first worked as a money market broker, like old fashioned, like voice broking, people like phones with banks. And that was a, what they call board. Boy, I'm sure they probably have a better, less derisive term these days, but like, you'd stand in front, on a giant whiteboard, the size of like the room and you would write down the prices that they called up very, very analog compared to the technology of the day.
And I think the folks in that business knew that they were going the way of the Dodo sooner rather than later. And that they had made some phenomenal amounts of money back in the eighties when that was sort of standard technology and it was, you know, how things went. But as, as more and more things went electronic, I think they knew the writing was on the wall.
So I was only there temporarily. And from there, I kind of moved into a bank, a Japanese bank, and that's sort of how from there I kind of ended up getting into the world of FX via vis-a-vis my time working there. Yeah, it wasn't like I set out to think like, oh, I want to get in the foreign exchange market, you know, but it kind of found me and worked.
It gave me the opportunity to go to London and kind of live there for a few years and be in that market because they're sort of, it's sort of the focus of the market…given their time zone. They kind of catch Asia in the morning and they catch the United States to their afternoon. So that they're sort of like the head, the world headquarters while most FX banks were in London.
So that was kind of a neat thing. And it's a small little, I don't mean it negatively, incestuous which industry, you know, everybody like, you know, and it was so you knew characters, some of which you love some of what you can live without, but that was just, it was very easy to know a lot of the players quickly. So it was kind of fun that way.
It's still big on entertaining when I was there, I was, that was the other big thing is a lot of, we had people that were called liquidity specialist. Now liquidity meant like to get people to put prices into the market so you could trade. But I think we all joked that it really meant you bought beers for people to get them to do, to do that. So that was really where it came from. Yeah, exactly.
LJR: So one of the things though, I think that's a theme with you and you actually kind of said it: in college, you think you were a good friend to those around you. [Yeah.] That comradery of that industry, you know, being incestuous, but really just knowing everybody is a theme that you continue throughout your life of…You kind of gravitate back, even though you have this time in London, you gravitate back to the New York Metroplex New Jersey area, where you're from…big family, but you know, that being around people that you know, and are compatriots of yours, that seems to be really important to you, yeah?
KM: Yeah, it's a little bit funny to that end. You know, 20 years on, I came back from London and heck, when did I move back in ’03, right? So coming up on 20 years now, I still talk to those people religiously, see them all the time. And it was funny at the time I was sort of the Young Turk. And now like when I go back, like not, I'm not young anymore, Lord knows, at 47. But like, you know, friends of mine who are like, well in their sixties. And I, you know, I think it strikes my daughter. It's funny that like, one of my better friends in London, Mr. Gibbs to them is, you know, Dave is like 65. Like, you know, it's just like an, it seems like they're hanging out, I'm hanging out with their grandfather kind of, but like, that's just the way, but yeah. So I do, I've, I've kept in touch with those people quite a bit.
I mean, it, it does get easier with technology thankfully. Right? I've been I, I noted this. When I talked about my mother, she had a similar attitude, but like, do you work hard at it? Cause when she grew up. Easy to keep in touch with people. People could easily disappear, right. They would go away and you had to write them, Right? I'd make a phone call, like, you know, kind of things like that. So I think even though it is easier to keep in touch with people, we could work harder at, at doing that. Right. Maybe not just a text; pick up the phone every now and again, and talking to someone it's not as easy as just saying, Hey, how are you doing with the text. That's great. But it's not, it's not necessarily the same kind of interaction that you you get when you're either face to face or kind of hearing someone's voice. It's good to know. But I think that's important. I think people lose sight of that.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And so in the progression of your career, staying within foreign exchange, you came back to New York and you've had, you know, different things, but then there was a move away from that center of gravity for you. So, talk about that. And then I'm going to bring it back to this kind of building a family around it.
KM: Yeah. Absolutely. It’s funny. When I left to come to Seattle, it was, it wasn't. Part of it was you know, after 20, some odd years or more, I mean, hell given you mentioned I lived there, born there like, you know, 40, some odd years of being there. It was just like, well, there's God, there is something else out there. I know I've experienced it in just a short period of time living in London. I just, I thought this was the time to try to do it. My kids were of an age where, yearh it stinks to pull them out of school and move them, but I'm not dragging them out of high school. Right. I have a 13 year old, I have a 10 year old daughter, two daughters. So, you know, 10 and seven was a little easier to kind of make that bold move than 18 and 15, when you're really going to have them hate you for the rest of your life, if you can't drag them away from what they know. So there was that.
And I think it was just an opportunity to do something. Okay. I worked a number of banks and you know, it can be a grind. It can be grind anywhere working, but it's funny when I, you know, Amazon, I think had this reputation for being this really hard place to work and people kind of are kind of ground down and then listen, you work hard. But I think the notion is overplayed. I can…one of the first couple months I was in there and I was talking to one of my friends. Friends and a colleague, he worked at a bank I'm still, and he was like, everyone in banking knows banking sucks. He was like, no, you're just smart enough to get out. He was joking, like, you know, but like, it's like, I think this notion that somehow people in banks are just like the old gen swill in fat cats of yesteryear. It's like those guys work really hard. You become a number, right? Unfortunately when they have wave after wave of layoffs and from JP, like, you know, that's what it was. You're like, oh, you know what? I'm tired of being just like one of X. I was one of many that got hit. They hit with it. It wasn't like, it was just you, will get rid of you.
It was, it was more, you know, you're just a number I've saw a lot of good people that I worked with over the years get, let go. And it was not because they didn't perform. It was just, well, we have numbers. We have to hit and we're going to cut X, thousands of feet. Could Amazon do that in the future? Possibly. It doesn't seem like that's their sort of course of action, but you know, it just seemed like the time to make the move and give it a try.
My wife is from Seattle that wasn't really the over-arching reason to come back. Like her parents were here, so it was good to have my children be near their grandparents. And in particular, my wife's she's born here, but her parents are from Korea. And so it's a great cultural thing for them to see like crazy old Korean grandparents, as we call them. My wife included on that one, but they are like, you know, sometimes there's like stereotypes for a reason. Like they fit in. I know, you know, my, my wife and her brother and sister will laugh about it all the time. Like they are definitely immigrant central casting 101 sometimes, you know, like, you know, they've retired in the last five, six years. And like, we laugh, like their English was getting awful, but all they do is sit around and talk Korean to one another and they go to Korean stores and Korean friends and whatnot.
And I said to Sue it's like (my wife), if I went to Paris, moved to Paris and ate hamburgers, that's sort of what, like they eat Korean all the time. Like maybe we get them to eat pasta every now and again, and it's just kinda funny. But it's, I mean, they're amazing people. They are, I think to me, a Testament to the American dream, still being very much alive and attainable for someone that showed up in the seventies with two nickels to rub together, maybe, and go to school and get their degree. One's an architect, one's a teacher and have done this and raised a family. So I think I want my kids to be around that and see that as well. So it's been good in that sense as well.
LJR: Yeah. And yet you made those professional and personal roots back east. So talk to me about the part that might not feel so good or, or you wish were different.
MG: Yeah. Sure. If there's anyone from Seattle listening will either be like, yes, dad on preach on man or he's a nut. He's just saying that because he's not from here, but the people are, are friendlier back east. They're warmer. They're it's, you know, they talk about the “Seattle Freeze” here. That's probably a generalization, but they're not quite the same in terms of welcoming as I think the folks that I knew back on the east coast and every time we went to a different area, you seem to make friends faster in the east coast and you do it here. And just, maybe it's me. I don't know. You know, I'm like, I'm not saying I'm not blameless in anything, but like it's just, my wife was from here sees it. You know, she's been, she was 20 years on the east coast and she's like, this is not the same place it was when I left back in 2001, right? So I think that sense I, I do miss that. I miss the relationships with the people that I had there, a greater sense of comradery. Here, people are a little bit more closed, you know, I hate to admit that's a generalization. I don't want to like stereotype or whatever, but like, yeah, people aren't quite so warm. Like, you know as sort of, I feel like there is something to be said for like that first generation, second generation immigrants, family, you know, the Italians, the Irish, the Polish. And I, always joke, we played football in high school. And it was always like, you know, it was McGowan, MacIlevey, Conti, Warziniak, all the names were just literally like out of central casting Catholic high school, right. But like, those people are people that I've known my entire life. So like everyone kind of gravitated real heavily toward one another and quickly, right? So we moved to Glen Ridge, New Jersey, same thing within, you know, within a couple of months we knew the world. Small town, but like everybody. Here, I feel like we've been here three years and—if not for the fact that I have friends that I, they knew that were here beforehand… The gentlemen introducing my wife, right, Dartmouth guy, Brian Knutson ’96. I know him. So I see him, right? But she sees her friends from high school and college. But beyond that, it's not like I have a thousand friends that I've made, coworkers aside. And I work with some great people, but most of them are from the east coast, but most of them are from like the south. (Like, you know, there's not many locals.) Or a lot, a tremendous amount of folks from overseas. I work with you know, my team alone. I manage people from India, people from China, people from Singapore, it's like, you know, wonderful people, but it is kind of funny that like the natives, I'll say native Seattle in the sense that like someone's been there for a while, not maybe born here…Harder to know, a little bit.
LJR: What's the calculus, then, when you have—now they're 10 and 13 approaching that 15 and 18. Right. And, and we've talked about how tech enables a little bit of more flexibility in terms of being able to keep in touch. So where where's the balance and, and how do you go about making decisions that are based on that kind of cultural fit?
KM: Yeah. You know, it's funny, I, you know, you joke about the 15 and 18 and my wife and I do at times, they were like, when Lucy, my little one, when she's 18, we're out of here, I love Amazon. I'll keep working for them, but I could work for, to your point, anywhere. Or I could even, you know, there's not many places in the world that you can't find an office for Atmos. So, so like moving back to the east coast is absolutely sort of something we talked about. Like, I don't, we don't even one of us see us staying here in Seattle when that time comes and it might not be eight years and I don't have a clock on my wall running down, you know, and I don't want it to be all gloom and doom. And there are wonderful things about being here that scenery is magnificent, right? It's people are complaining that it's hot, Leslie; it's 80 degrees outside right now. It's not hot. There's no humidity, right? I guarantee you. You’re living there in Princeton. I grew up, I went to high school, not far from there. It's miserable in the summertime. [LJR: It is miserable today.]
Like we used to come here in the summer. My wife would come with the girls for a month and change into camp at my in-laws because it wasn't scalding, wasn't hot and sticky. Right. So like, yeah. So, you know, there's definitely a, you know, in the winter time, the skiing's amazing and had an assets to it. So like, yeah, just to be clear before I, everyone, I'm not just beating up on Seattle, but like yeah. But from a cultural standpoint, yeah. I don't think we, we feel like there are, we're a little bit square pegs in round holes out here a little bit, like. We’re not…People might laugh when I say this because I did write for the review when I was in college, but I'm not really a political person. I could care less people live it here. It's a thing. Like it's everything like, you know, you're judged by the sign and how much you care on the lawn of what the cause is like, you know, I just, I don't have time for it. I kinda like everybody. I don't, you know, I really don't care about what believe or vote and it's we think that might be part of it. They can sense that we're not sort of like, you know, I joked that, you know, it's an open-minded city, as long as you agree with what the prevailing thought is, right? So maybe that's a stretch, but like, I think there is some of that, like, you know, I'm just, I don't have a lot of time. I can't be bothered to worry about that. Worry about like my family worry about yeah. Working hard, making sure my daughters are raised right. Whatever the thing is. I don't care about like the guy that's in office right now, or the guy before. Like, it's like, they're both just politicians at the end of the day, right? You know, it's I think that part of it, people seem to feel it really deeply here. Like the I've never been in a place where you see more like stickers and signs for insert politician here. Really kind of odd to me. I think people in the east coast, like, you know, I don't know what my neighbors voted for in Jersey. Cause I don't care. Like we just went about our lives here. It's like a thing that people kind of fix it on a little bit, which is, I just find a load.
It's interesting. You know, that's, that's really all it is. I wouldn't say apathetic. I, I care about our, our country, right. I, I don't obsess over it. I find that like, I go to the gym, the Planet Fitness here, and like they have on the wall, they have like all the TVs and you have your sports and then they have like, you have all these different MSNBC and Fox News, and they're all just talking heads like, ah, you know, like it's not helping the country, I don't think. You know, me personally. When I say that, I just, so I think that is something here that we, we find that people just kind of like. Just want to talk about social issues all the time, every day, all the time. I think we should, we're all work better to be nicer to people broadly. It seems to be where I'm at, but who knows I could be crazy.
LJR: Well, I mean, that ties really nicely back to that idea of it wasn't about getting the job that made you lots of money. It wasn't about using this degree per se. It was about what's my life going to be. In totality that makes me happy. And it's the, it's the family, it's the values I have. All of those things. So that seems like it's worked out.
So when we're thinking about that younger Kevin, and you think back to him, what pieces of him have demonstrably changed and what pieces are you like Yep, Same Kevin.
KM: Yeah, that's that's a great question. I think I probably touched on it before, like I said, people will laugh on, but yeah, I did write for the review, but like, you know, I think sort, I was full of a lot more piss and vinegar back then. Like, you know, I was going to fight the world. I'm like, ah, I think even I, towards the end, I didn't anymore. And it wasn't that part of it was a time part. It was just like, ah, just, you know, it got tiresome, like, you know, Idealism on either side. Quite frankly, it's just seemed like it's a lot of work.
So I think that part, I think has changed while I still believe in certain things, I'm not one to like, argue with people about those things where you might have when you were college and you're full of beans on, you know, selling your world vision. Right. So I think that part, you realize that no one cares when you get out of college, ultimately, at least not when it comes to like your career and, you know, the, the woman or the man that you meet in your life kind of thing.
Right. That's um…No one, no one cares about that, that sort of stuff. That's not what people define you as, right? So I think there's that. I think, you know, my enjoyment of wine is spend time with my friends and I, you know, it's funny, as it says, I didn't go to Dartmouth to play football, but I did, but I still do enjoy football. My daughters make fun of me all the time. About how much I love football, you know, on a Saturday college football in particular, on a Saturday, not forced or dragooned into doing something, I would watch college football for me. Yeah. If I could get away with it, I never get away with it. That hasn't happened in quite some time. There's always something that comes up like swim meets or gymnastics or this, that, and the other thing. And I my parents did it. And there's no reason why I shouldn't, right? So I think…five years younger than my closest siblings. So I spent my life in the back of like a Ford Pinto driving around the soccer practices with my mother who was taking them very different places. So like, I can't complain when I have to go to a swim meet all day on a Saturday. I was just talking to a colleague about that. And I didn't want to get into you have a kid, wants to get into swimming, try to talk them out of it. The only other sport I hear is worse than swimming is friends of mine who played hockey growing up. Ice time at like five in the morning or 10 o'clock at night. Like yeah,
LJR: Exactly. The swimming is just a long day for everyone for a really short swim, right?
KM: It is. Yeah. Correct. You wait two hours for two minute swim where I'm like, Hey, you came in, you came in 17, out of 4,000. That's great. I didn't mean that I legitimately had a better, but like, yeah. It's like, I'm watching Katie Ledeckie swim up and down, but, but they, they enjoy it. So you do it like, you know, I'm sure my mother didn’t love sitting there watching football or soccer. And I don't think she ever did really grasp the concept of football. Like she knew basically what it was and she knew that her baby was not hurt or at the game over right now.
That's pretty much it, that part of me is not changed. I still just enjoy it. I love being around with my friends. I love, I'd like to get a beer and watch some football. I'd mentioned Brian keynotes in the other day, him and I did that. We didn't watch football. We watched a hockey and we had a beer and, you know, just a chat a little bit and complain about the government or whatever it is you do when you're in a bunch of old men getting grumpy and being, you know, they're now at 47, but you know, so I do enjoy that. So that, that part of me, I don't think has, has changed. I think I like I, if I'm infamous or famous for my emails at work I'm I try to like keep people on their toes in terms of like, we're not curing cancer, right? All at the end of the day, I help people sell things on Amazon. Right. So like, that's my, in a nutshell what my, my job is part of. And like, so it's not like I am doing something that's innately noble or anything like that, right? So I think people take themselves too seriously. I try to like, make sure that I will kind of pin pop that pomposity. So that, that probably is the same person that I was when I was younger as well. But yeah, I think those are those. I'm thinking those, these jump out. I think, you know, I think most people I know, would say I'm not too too changed since I was in college. I really hope not. And if they do, then they're lying to me behind my back or something like that.
LJR: No, I'm sure they don't because it really does sound as though it's those core things that, you know, you had your head on straight as a 22 year old where maybe some others didn't and had to find their way, but you you've had it there all along. And it sounds like you're reaping the benefits now. So thank you so much for kind of taking us through the road.
Oh, appreciate it. Thank you for setting this up. This is great. I think I listened to a couple of it. I'm never like, I'm not Luddite, but I've never done podcasts before, but I did. I've listened to a couple of the ones you've done. Like it's you know, it was interesting to hear people's stories. It's amazing how, you know, it's a thousand people in class. Like you don't like, you don't know a tremendous number of them, right? It's I could name 50 that I could say I know well enough to like know their parents, were where they're from, right? The rest of the people were just kind of like, you knew him, you were friendly with them and you had chit chat it over a beer out of the basement of fraternity X or whatever the hell you were on campus. But like you know, it's good to hear these stories of people that, you know, have done amazing things or do amazing things and amazing, not even like, on a scale. I think having a family and the being happy is amazing, right? I don't think there's you know, there's also the people that have, you know, retired early and I have already donated millions of dollars to like their college – like God Bless them, too. I think, you know, I think there's always going to be someone more successful than you out there. So I'm thrilled whenever I see someone that with Dartmouth in the class that are killing it. Good for them. Amen. I think that's great.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. But what's the, you know, success is a lot of those things [KM: Agreed.] and all of those things. And so we don't all have to do all it, but as as a collective we’re doing pretty great.
KM: I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and hopefully folks get a couple minutes worth of entertainment out of it. You know, If they I want to look me up to argue with me about the loving kindness of the Seattle people…
LJR: That was Kevin McGowan, who has spent his career in foreign exchange and is currently the Head of Business Operations at Amazon Currency Converter. Originally from the New Jersey-New York metroplex, he currently lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters. If you have a friend in Seattle whose warmth and hospitality can prove Kevin wrong, by all means be in touch. And if you have any friends who would enjoy hearing the thoughtful stories of people's roads taken from college to adulthood, please recommend our show, which can be found on all the podcast platforms and at RoadsTakenShow DotCom. We so appreciate that you listen and we'd love to welcome new listeners to the next episodes with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, of Roads Taken.