Interview with Robert Egloff
Swiss Family Egloff: A Swiss banker in America
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Robert Egloff, former Swiss banker. Photo courtesy Robert Egloff |
Most of our interviews have been with English-speaking expats who are living or have lived in German Europe. This interview looks at the reverse: a Swiss citizen who has lived in the United States. Sometimes it can be instructive to view things through the other end of telescope.
Former Swiss banker Robert Egloff comes from Baden, Switzerland near Zurich. He did a banking apprenticeship from 1966 to 1969 in Wettingen, Switzerland. Later he studied business administration for three years (1970-1973), and then worked as an in-house teacher at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) between 1973 and 1977.
It was during this period that Robert also came to the United States for the first time. He served as an Amity teaching assistant for German at Reed High School in Sparks, Nevada, at Wooster High School in Reno, and at several other local high schools. After that he spent a second year as a German assistant at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, before returning to Switzerland in August 1979 to work with the Jelmoli department store chain as their manager for employee training.
Almost 20 years later, after working as a consultant for several companies, including the Swiss bank Julius Bär, Robert once again returned to the US to work, this time with his wife Ruth and young daughter Isabelle in Austin, Texas on February 23, 1995. There he worked with the Capital Area Training Foundation (CATF), a non-profit organization in the field of school-to-work, that was one of the first to receive federal money to implement the school-to-work concept in Austin and Central Texas.
In March 1997 the Egloffs left Austin to go back to Switzerland, where Robert and his wife now run the SFK Schule für Förderkurse (Tutoring School for Business Apprentices) in Zurich, specializing in training for business apprentices who are having academic difficulties. They both also make their knowledge in international workforce development available to the public in an international consulting business.
GW: Robert, we’ve known each other a long time, ever since you first came to the US back in the late 1970s. Do you recall any cultural shock from that first visit to the US?
Robert: I didn’t really encounter any cultural shock that I can remember, but let me tell you about an incident that really shows the difference between the two countries at that time. During my stay in Reno I lived with host families. One night my host mom announced to the family that she hadn’t bought any food for dinner and that we therefore would all go to McDonald’s. I asked what that was. They all looked at me in astonishment. How could anyone not know the “golden arches”? (The first McD opened in Switzerland in 1977.)
One thing that I kept telling people after my return from the US was how open, easygoing and friendly Americans are. One of my favorite suggestions to Swiss people going to the US (mostly with the Amity Aide program) was the following: If Americans invite you to a party or to do something fun with them, don’t react in the Swiss way by saying no first, then think about it and maybe regret your answer. Say yes first, and then if you feel you don’t want to go anyway, just let them know. Americans are spontaneous and they like spontaneous people.
GW&M: More recently—almost 20 years later—you spent two years in Austin, Texas with your wife and daughter, working with the Capital Area Training Foundation (CATF). How did that come about?
Robert: Well, after my first stay in the US I wanted to come back sometime. And I told all my American friends about that. One of them read an article about school-to-work in the US that mentioned two names: Bob Glover in Austin and Stephen Hamilton at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He called them both and told them about me and my expertise in apprenticeships in Switzerland and my willingness to come over to the US. Then he told me to get in touch with them, which I did. And finally I got an invitation from Bob Glover to come to Austin and help with their program there.
GW&M: What was your main objective with the CATF in Austin?
Robert: Our goal was to introduce the concept of combining schools with workplaces in workforce development (the dual concept we call it here in Switzerland) and basically get as many young people started into promising occupational careers as possible.
GW&M: I know you had some frustrations. What were some of the cultural or other barriers you encountered?
The major barrier was certainly the fact that in the US everybody talks about going to college and nobody talks about learning an occupation and getting ready to work. I remember the astonished looks I always got when I dared to ask somebody who had just told me that he or she would go to college: What occupational career do you have in mind? What are you going to college for? Too often college in the US is not a means to an end but an end in itself.
In Texas we were amazed when our little daughter Isabelle came home from her first grade class and told us that she was going to go to college when she grew up... when we actually thought that it would be important for her to learn how to read, write and do math, enjoy her elementary school days and do her best to be a good student. College, in our view of things, would come a lot later, if at all!
GW&M: Let’s talk a little about the two different approaches to education: American vs. European. Based on your own experience, what would you say is the best thing about US secondary education?
Robert: What I like most about American high schools is the fact that they offer a lot of subjects that are not only academically challenging but also further other abilities like theater, band, sports, yearbook, film, etc. In my view these schools have a much more holistic approach to education than most of their Swiss counterparts. And since I truly believe in what Pestalozzi said, that education has to always include “head, heart, and hand” (Kopf, Herz und Hand), I like the American approach. We have the hardest time here in Switzerland keeping physical education in the curriculum of our secondary schools; most of the other subjects are “head-oriented.”
GW&M: And the worst thing?
Robert: I don’t think that all secondary students should go to the same schools because for most of them this school is either too demanding or not demanding enough. I think the Swiss system of tracking serves the students a lot better. And then, of course, there is the huge gap between the schools and the business world in the US. This “ivory tower syndrome,” as I call it, is incredible. If you talk to business people about this, they can’t stop complaining about the education level of school leavers they get applying for their jobs. In short, I don’t believe that it's right for all students to have to go to school full-time for twelve years; eight or nine would be plenty. And then there should be possibilities for combining school with learning on the job.
GW&M: What memories stand out from your time in Texas?
Robert: The wonderful hot weather and all the great new people we got to know, especially our neighbors with whom we are still in close contact.
When our little daughter Isabelle, who was about five years old at the time, took a bath with the two neighbor boys who were about five and three at the time, our neighbors and friends got a little nervous because it all happened in the nude. But we have to say to their credit that they learned fast and the three of them took many baths at their house in the nude too afterwards. And on the same line: we had the hardest time to find tops for Isabelle’s bikini swimsuits because in Europe little girls don’t ever use them. (Sometimes even the grownups don’t!)
GW&M: Tell me about the school you and your wife run in Switzerland.
Robert: We were extremely busy this year. Our school specializes in tutoring for business apprentices who have problems in their apprenticeship schools. The main topic we tutor is accounting (not bookkeeping!) which seems to cause the most problems. We were teaching roughly 500-600 students in preparation for their final exams in accounting, German, French, English, commercial law, and business management. It was the largest number of students our school has ever seen since we founded it in 1991.
The bigger part of the teaching is done in regular courses that take place once a week over a period of 10 to 14 weeks. Then we offer intensive two-week classes where the students come in daily as well as weekend seminars, which are full day Saturday-Sunday deals. Those are, by the way, the worst for us! We work full-time (10-12 hours a day) from Monday to Friday, and then we work on the weekends too. However, this is the busy season and we know it will be over by June, when the big exams and tests take place. Then we can go back to regular working hours and a civilized life style, the way we like it.
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Web content ©1997-2010 Hyde Flippo
Date of Interview: March 1999
Related Links
- SFK Zürich, Schule für Förderkurse, the business school run by Robert and Ruth Egloff in Zurich
- Amity Institute - The Amity Program is an educational exchange program which takes place in the United States at schools of all levels, colleges, and universities.
- Berufsbilding - Occupational education in Switzerland (in German)
- Schulweb - links to schools in Austria, Germany and Switzerland - also in English
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- Expats - What expats in Germany, Austria or Switzerland need to know
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