Recently honored as Rotarian of the Year by the Rotary Club of Fairfax, Robert Sowell makes community service a part of his work as well as his spare time. A vice president at Apple Federal Credit Union in Fairfax, Sowell lives up to Rotary's mission of "service before self." He is this week's People Profile.
What brought you here? I live in Stafford, but I went to George Mason and came to work at the credit union. I’ve been employed at Apple ever since, in July it will be for 21 years. While I don’t live here, I’ve been in Fairfax City for 25-plus years.
Family: I’m married, to my wife Melissa, been married approaching 20 years now. I have two kids. My son, Robert Jr., is 15 and he’s a freshman at Brooke Point High School in Stafford. My daughter, Paris, is 10 and she attends the elementary school.
Where did you grow up? I’m originally from West Virginia, from Martinsburg, about an hour and 45 minutes away. I came to George Mason to play baseball.
Describe your work at Apple. The title is vice president of community relations and what I do is a lot of face time and community work for Apple Federal Credit Union, but within our department we have business development. We recruit companies, select employment groups or SEGs, of 50 employees or more who are interested in providing this perk for their employees. That is a side of it, and then there’s a relationship management part. When you get a company on, you have to make sure you can be their relationship manager throughout the time. Then the neat side of it is that we have a student branch program. We’re heavily involved in the financial education and financial literacy of our students. The main thing I would emphasize about Apple is that we are an educator-first credit union. We were established by Fairfax County Public Schools in 1956.
How did you become involved with the Rotary Club? Part of the mission and focus of Apple is to be involved in the community we serve. Because we have the students of Fairfax County, we consider the entire county part of our community. A lot of it is giving back. Our CEO, Larry Kelly, is past president of Rotary. He has been involved for 12 years now and I am in my second year of Rotary service. It’s not a business networking group. There are business and networking opportunities that come by, but it really is a service organization. We go out and volunteer our time. We just completed something called Christmas in April, where we select an individual homeowner, go out and do some yard work and fixing up around the house … one thing we’re doing locally with Rotary, thanks to our education committee and [Principal] Scott Brabrand at Fairfax High School, is deliver dictionaries to every third-grade student in Fairfax City.
Activities/interests/hobbies: I’m a very avid sports fan, NFL in particular. I’m a big Eagles fan. I’ve been a fan for about 24 years now, we haven’t won anything and I’m still there, so I enjoy football. Right now I enjoy golf. I play a lot of golf, picked it up about six years ago. I do a lot of fund raising for golf.
Are there any community "hidden treasures" you think more people should know about? The hidden treasure are the kids in this community. We’re mentoring at Providence Elementary School, we started a pilot program this year. I’ve heard about it and I’m on the Partners in Education Committee of Fairfax County, but we’ve finally come around as an organization to do it and it is incredible. The response that we got from the employees, the amount of employees who wanted to come back and be involved. Next year we’re going to be reading to the third graders, and they’re going to read to us. If I can think of a hidden treasure that would be it.
What is the value of service to you? My father was my mentor, as I hope most are. One thing he always told me was, "You’re never going to be rich, but you’ll always have a lot more time than you have money, so you always need to try to give back." I’m in that position now, where Apple affords me the opportunity to go out into the community and give back. It’s very gratifying.
How does it feel to be Rotarian of the Year? I was absolutely floored. Our executive assistant had asked me a couple times that day if I was going to Rotary. I go every Monday so it wasn’t as if I wasn’t going to be there, but she wanted to make sure I was there … when I got there, they asked me to come up and I thought, I had just completed the Rotary leadership course, they’re going to give me a certificate, no problem. Then they asked my CEO Larry Kelly to get up and made the presentation, and I really, 100 percent, was shocked. I was very, very pleased, knowing the impact Rotary has in Fairfax City and Rotary International worldwide, it’s an honor and something I will cherish for life.
Last book you read or last movie you watched: "It’s Your Ship" [by Capt. D. Michael Abrashoff], which is a management techniques book. I think there was a hint involved, that was given to us by our CEO … the last movie we saw was "Are We There Yet?" with Ice Cube. We went as a family, so it was kind of cool to take the kids.
What did you want to be when you "grew up?" When I was younger, I wanted to emulate my dad, because he was a computer guy in software development. Then I quickly realized I didn’t have that knack to be able to pull it off. So I went to Mason and started as a business major, and just though a business course I had taken ran into a professor who said, "Listen, I think you’d be good at speech." So I went into communications and that really was the match.
Personal goals: I want to continue to develop and enhance the student-branch program and continue that model. There is some work yet to be done. Apple has established an education foundation, so we’re very much looking forward to getting that off the ground. Those are some unfinished business pieces. But in all honesty, I’m looking forward to retirement and spending some time with the kids. I’ve been commuting for 20 years now. I actually have 20 years in at Apple but I need to give a few more years back. So I’m looking forward to probably retiring in five to seven years, 10 years maybe, working part time and playing some golf. And hanging out at the beach. My wife and kids go to the beach twice a year, every year.
— Lea Mae Rice