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Indiana lost a great Hoosier last week. Bill Oesterle, founder of Angie’s List and the inspiration behind former Gov. Mitch Daniels’ successful campaign for governor, lost his battle with ALS. Bill was a good friend, mentor and inspiration to so many. Bill’s entrepreneurial spirit, smarts, tenacity and courage were legendary.
Bill had a passion for Indiana and making Indiana better. That passion was infused in him early by Daniels, who told Bill that he must return to Indiana after completing his MBA.
Last year, the Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation honored Bill with its Daniels Prize Award. What follows is an edited summary of Bill’s address:
For over 30 years, I have had the remarkable experience of living in the orbit of Mitch Daniels. Even though I was just a tiny asteroid caught in the giant gravitational pull of his presence, the experience was extraordinary.
Mitch Daniels has a powerful sense of adventure. Adventure involves big ideas. It involves real risk. As a result, it demands courage. By definition, the outcome of an adventure is uncertain, and there is a meaningful cost of failure. In my mind, adventures involve and impact many.
In 2004, Mitch took an ordinary contest for governor and turned it into an adventure. For him, the election was about much more than just winning office. No, he set out to change the very idea of what it means to be a Hoosier. You see, in 2004, the zeitgeist of the previous 150 years was that Hoosiers dislike change. Our alleged narrow-mindedness was the stuff of historians’ entire books.
Mitch rejected this view. Instead of simply running for office, he undertook an adventure to destroy this conventional wisdom. When it was over, he quite literally rewrote Indiana history.
It is one of the highlights of my life that I was a bit player in that grand drama. Mitch is directly or indirectly responsible for all of my own big adventures. They have defined me, and I have loved them all, but my time for adventure is nearly over. So, I am here to ask: What are your plans?
If you are looking for projects, let me suggest a few. Indiana’s public health ranks 41st in the country. Our civic health is 42nd. We are 40th in average educational attainment, and the average is declining. For the first time in history, we will have fewer able-bodied workers than in the years before.
These problems are enormous. If you don’t have solutions today, so what? Adventures don’t begin with solutions. They begin with big problems and a bunch of courage. The courage to combat problems armed only with the belief that you can solve them. The courage to marshal the people and the resources. The courage to believe you can win.
As John Adams wrote: “Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.”
If not you, then who? Mitch ignited all the great adventures in my life. What adventure will he inspire for you?
Bill built businesses and courageously fought for a more prosperous Indiana. His leadership and public opposition to the 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act led legislators to amend the law. In honor and remembrance of Bill, the IBJ is creating the Bill Oesterle Courage in Business Award to honor those that follow Bill’s example.•
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Feltman is publisher of IBJ and CEO of IBJ Media. Send comments to nfeltman@ibj.com.
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