Mary Jo Peed and Joe O'Geen

00:04 Hello. My name is Mary Jo peed. I'm 64 years old. Today is December 8th 2020 and I'm in my house in Ansley Park Atlanta, Georgia. I am with Joe Jean my son and we know each other because we have been around each other for a very long time.

00:30 Hi, my name is Joe G. I am 32 years old today is December 8th 2020 and I am at home in my home in Atlanta Georgia near in Midtown and I am with my mother and I know her because she adopted me. I was 15.

00:52 Here we go.

00:54 So Mom, you're probably wondering why I asked you to do a story for interview, but I think it's storycorps. I think of these unique stories about amazing individuals. The best part is that these people for the most part or what we would consider everyday people and still their story is our highly fascinating story. They showcased unfold or private aspects of someone's life and often times. I would say you get some insight into what a shape someone's died.

01:35 So when I think of your story your career your family and the various levels of your involvement in the Atlantic Community, I think of your amazing accomplishments and if there was there was someone else's story they might not be as humble as humble as you are, but for someone who doesn't Buzz, sometimes you need to be posted about because of their story. There's something we all should take away a life lesson for house. So I have a few different puppet. I want to touch upon but first I wanted to start off with simply Where it All Began

02:18 So, can you share a little bit about where you were born in a little bit up to your parents and your family were?

02:28 I was born in.

02:30 Men 1956 and my mother's name was Marcella whisman peed and my father's name is Herman. Augusta speed we call him God and my father why they were in Louisville. My mother was from Kentucky and she had left the farm where she a grown up and wanted to have a larger life than being on a farm. So she moved to Louisville to attend secretarial school, which is what her parents who were farmers could afford and my father is from Macon Georgia, and he was in Louisville, Kentucky because he graduated from Georgia Tech and his first job was with BF Goodrich in Louisville, Kentucky.

03:30 And they met at a YWCA dance in Louisville, Kentucky. So we were there and my father was working and he

03:43 Met my mother and they married and they had me.

03:47 I have a brother of course who you know Paul and he was born a couple of years after I was born so I know that you have not always stayed Louisville Kentucky. Obviously, you certainly moved around quite a bit, which is something that I think we both happy and you know, if you could time what are some of the places that you lived going to share those with us and what was your favorite place? And and how do you think those places may be shaped you as a person in your being?

04:30 Well, we didn't live in Louisville very long. My father was he also decided to go to business school. So he went to University of Louisville to get his master's degree and MBA. He was a chemical engineer by training but he didn't really like being in the lab. He was more interested in being out with people in managing in the plant and that kind of thing. So he got an MBA. He left BF Goodrich after he got his MBA and went to work for Borden chemical company and they moved him to to Massachusetts and he became the plant manager of a chemical plant in Leominster, Massachusetts, and that's where we lived. He was there and he stayed with

05:30 Borden's for his entire work career after that move from BF Goodrich and like every other Corporation, they move their people around quite a bit to get new experiences. I do remember very fondly our first foray in Massachusetts. We lived on Hilltop Drive and that's really the only address I ever remember and it was because it was kind of like a ranch house on on a Hilltop and we had a good deal of land and it was kind of in a subdivision and I just remember a lot about being in that place we moved from there to Decatur Illinois, which was you know, definitely in the Midwest and my father became the plant manager of a of a plant in illiopolis, Illinois, so which was halfway between Decatur and Springfield, Illinois, and we live there for a very long

06:30 Time since I was in that second grade all the way to the end of my freshman year in high school. So, you know, I went to Elementary School and High School junior high school there. So it was a long time and I remember the Midwest very fondly the people were I remember the people being very nice and we just had a really nice comfortable living living Arrangement and we had a boat and we my father taught us how to water-ski and there was a lake in in Decatur, Illinois. So, you know, we had just a really great life there. My mother was our girl scout leader and

07:17 Typical, you know kind of thing that that families do we used to vacation in Missouri in at Table Rock Lake, you know, when the Ozarks and I remember that very fondly and we would go to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play baseball and the football and we would see we always got to go to big cities when we you know for the weekend and that kind of thing. We also went to Chicago and saw the the the White Sox in the Chicago Cubs and there was a rivalry in our family my father and I were Cubs fans in my mother and my brother were Cardinals fans and I remember their there was one one year that the Cardinals and the Cubs were against each other and they they printed in the newspaper some kind of poem about this famous game or famous series and my mom

08:17 Cut it out of the paper and framed it and I just remember that being there. So we lived there for a long time. And then we my I tell my father that say you no Pride me out of Decatur, Illinois with all my friends and you know my freshman year in high school and brought me back to Massachusetts where I went to high school for sophomore Junior and Senior year and a very small town in Massachusetts called Lunenburg outside of Boston very Rule, and I we live there and I graduate from high school there and Anna went to college in Massachusetts and then

09:10 I taught in I went to school for education and I taught in Pittsfield Massachusetts and then I moved to Florida to teach in Vero Beach Florida and then I went to law school. So we did move around a lot. I think what moving around taught me was to be my own best friend and to be able to entertain myself and be comfortable with myself and with my family and the other thing is taught me was to begin again, you know to take an opportunity to move to another town where you would

10:00 You know if there was something that you didn't like about yourself to to change it tore 222b, you know just to experience and to take advantage of the fact that nobody knows you, you know and to begin again and I've always been comfortable with you know, being new at something. We haven't I haven't moved around much since I moved to Atlanta, but I have moved from you no different jobs, and I've never been afraid of change and I think my upbringing has a lot to do with that. Sometimes. What are they from?

11:00 You you know Kane to us from difficult to difficult situations, but you always had this kind of inner strength that I always say that you know, Joe has an incredible backbone. He came to me with a fantastic backbone and and is able to you know to recover from hardships that he has had. I've always admired that about you.

11:36 So now I tell us what you do is a little bit and jumped into some questions already touched upon a little bit, but I want to jump into some questions about your your career and can I dive into that aspect of your your life and your career as an attorney or we'll talk about it later but other prayers so, you know, I know just from from bits and pieces and you can conversations. I've picked up on that if you've had a few jobs along your life and correct me if I'm wrong, but at one point your server early on in a restaurant you are a governess as well.

12:22 Special ed teacher or a general teacher

12:27 And then ultimately a corporate attorney or thinking back to your your first job. You could share sort of what that was. And what was what was the reason you got your first job Latrobe you to get that first delivered newspapers in Illinois as a little kid and you know, it just I've always I didn't have always not I never really, you know when after I wasn't money-driven but you know my father and mother taught me to do, you know to to work and so I deliver newspapers my brother and I had a paper route and and we at that time you had to like go to the the home and like collect money from the people that you don't have newspapers doing

13:27 Turn the money over to the newspaper office. It was really, you know, it was a pretty interesting job. And then when I was 15, I decided I wanted to go to my high school used to take people abroad and I I wanted to go on the next trip which was to Germany. And so I decided that I wanted to make some money from that and so a girlfriend and I we didn't even drive at the time. We were 15 years old and we applied for a job at a Howard Johnson's on the highway between between luneburg in Leominster and my parents and her parents as she heard her mother and father were divorced. So she lives with her mother and we didn't live close together. But but my mother and father and her mother drove

14:27 To work and it was it was like it probably took like a half an hour to get to the to the Howard Johnson's and we worked at the Howard Johnson's and I remember we had these really really long uniforms and with that bet with went down to our ankles because it was on the highway. So it was the customers were like truck drivers and it was really and we had a soda fountain, you know counter and all and so because we had to reach all the way back in the back to get ice cream and scoop ice cream. We wore these really long uniform so nobody could see, you know, as we were the the house over the counters the other unique thing about that particular place was that it was on a well.

15:26 And from time to time they would run out of water the well and the manager would not close he would switch to paper and we would be serving our customers their meals on paper plates and and Pape and you know, plastic forks and spoons and I just remember it being just like a total mess, you know, all these every single dish in the restaurant had been used so there were dishes everywhere all this paper and usually we would run out of water when there was A Rush of people in the restaurant, but that was my first job. So yes, I was a server and you know Peanut waitress or

16:18 And or a server was a it's a great job. Everyone should have that experience for a little while. Anyway, just to be with the general public, and it did allow me to do, you know work in other settings and always to have a job because, you know to work in places where you know, there were a lot of restaurants. So that was my first experience and then I went off to college and I work for the Harvard Law School for a couple of years when I was going to school could because they were right clothes together and just for extra money and then in the summer time, I wanted to live on Cape Cod, and so I needed to work to to do that. So I worked at Mildred's Chowder House.

17:18 Experience so serving in a serving people had always done me well.

17:26 So I learned a lot from that just patience and kindness and you know being able to put up with weirdos and well that just goes to show always always tip your server right up so fast, I didn't know about some of those some of those jobs, especially the one of Harvard Law which is interesting things that tangentially folds into something else in another part of your career. They had a little newspaper where they distributed to alumni and to the student senate had a little articles and stuff like that and we worked in the again with another friend of mine. We worked in the office and typed up the the the articles in that kind of

18:26 And I might you know, my governess job was pretty cool.

18:34 And that was after I graduated from from college. I didn't have a teaching job right when I graduated. So I looked in the Boston Globe in the want ads and you know, they don't do those kind of things anymore. You don't get an app. You don't get a job from the at 1 at anymore and I found this job ad for a governess in on Cape Cod. And I said, well, I like being on Cape Cod and I don't I don't want to be at home all summer and work at the whole Jose. So I applied and it was this family who lived on a yacht a 58 foot Hatteras in the stage Harbor Inn Chatham on the cape and they needed a governess for the summer time because they were there kids. There was two five-year-old Twins and they were going to kindergarten in the

19:34 In the fall and so they weren't going to need a full-time governess since they weren't since they were going to school. So they just need one for a little while and I applied and I got the job and so I lived on a yacht for four months which was pretty sweet. I had my own room and you know took care of the kids and we had a great time and you know, it taught me a little bit about rich people.

20:11 So fast forwarding just a little bit to your to your job as a special education teacher. I didn't know you were wanted in Boston or and you said Pittsfield which is in Western Massachusetts tonight while I was working as a governess. I was still looking for a teaching job and happened to the to find this one in Pittsfield Massachusetts send it was in a junior high school and you have to remember Joe. I was I was like 21 years old and I look like I was 18 years old. So working in a junior high was quite an experience for me and I lived in Lenox, Massachusetts and I which is where the word Tanglewood is where the the summer home of the Boston Symphony. So it's a beautiful very, you know, rule very very gorgeous town and

21:12 I had in in Massachusetts that just recently passed a law where they didn't want to categorize children as like all this one's retarded. This one has this, you know, they they wanted to group children who needed special education into either mild-to-moderate learning learning needs or moderate to severe. So my my teaching experience was a resource room teacher in a junior high for kids with mild to moderate learning problems. And that what and I had think there was 60 children that I was responsible for that would come in and out of my classroom.

22:01 And they had all kinds of problems I had from kids who were just School phobic who just didn't want to come to school or behavior problems to one of the kids that I have responsibilities for was a mildly autistic boy who the the summer before I started working with him had just discovered he made Footprints, you know, so I mean and these kids were the the the whole goal was to integrate them successfully into some aspect of the regular school population, you know, they might go to gym with it the other students or they might go to a math class if they were good at math, but they couldn't read those kind of things and Irish. My starting salary was $10,000.

22:54 And I had to pay for my health insurance. So it was you know, and we had to eat one of these students had to have a in divide individualized learning plan.

23:09 And it had to be looked at and revised twice a year. So that's a lot. That's a lot of work. These kids are coming in and out of your classroom. There are 60 of them and they each have their own individual plans that have to be looked at at least twice a year. And I remember my classroom was a very small classroom had no windows and it was actually a former storage room that the music teacher used and they had run out of room in this junior high. And so that was my classroom. It was wedged between the music room, which you can imagine has a lot of noise associated with it and the other special education teacher

24:06 It was so horrible. So finally the guy that talked with the other special education teacher. I've been teaching for many years and he agreed to share his room with me and we put a series of old filing cabinet cabinet down the middle of the room and I taught on one side and he taught on the other side and believe me that was like going from a Hubbell to a penthouse apartment. I mean, that's how I felt about it. It was just so much better, even though the head of the English Department walked through my room to get to his office, you know, frequently Savannah and then I

24:59 I moved it to Florida. I went down with a friend of mine another teacher friend for spring break. We went to Vero Beach to have a little vacation and it was really quite lovely, you know, the weather was lovely and it was a small town and it was really it was very idyllic and I called the school district while I was there and said do you need any teachers and they said well, yeah when can you start and so I transferred to Florida the next year so I only Totten Massachusetts for one year and then I moved to Florida and that was a much better situation believe it or not because I I mean you would think that the Northeast as you know, better better better better organization, but actually in Florida, I got a nice raise like I think I made $12,000 and I paid for my health insurance and I

25:59 The only responsible for teaching math to kids who had learning disabilities in in a special education setting now, I did share a room with another special education teacher but it was a much more manners manageable situation and you know, I just a much better situation and but I do remember that my last. Of the day and my last. The day was 8 boys and me and I did look like I was about, you know 18, I used to get stopped in the hallway by other teachers wanting to know where my past was.

26:44 But that teaching eight boys math in the at the end of the day was a an experienced challenge to their attention and you know, you're in Florida and one day all of a sudden you are maybe not one day but you decide to Pivot into the field of law. So what was it that Drew you into law school?

27:23 Well, I knew I didn't really want to teach anymore because I was unhappy with the system. I loved the chills. I loved working with kids but in the especially in the junior high Arena Florida hadn't really solve the problem of what now for these kids after they leave Junior High the high school really didn't have a solid program. They didn't even have a vocational program. So there was you no really it wasn't really any place for those kids to really go after junior high. So that worried me a good bit and I have always been interested in government and the law when I was in college, we had a January a short January session where you could make up some kind of independent study and one year I worked at

28:19 The state house in Boston in my Representatives Office. So the represented the state representative from the area. I work there as an intern so, you know, I had always had a little interest in the law and I when I decided to do something else I decided that I wanted to go back to school and take some more classes of things that I didn't take when I was in college because I was focused on education. So I went back and took like all the algebra classes. I could, you know, algebra calculus all that kind of stuff and I also got a paralegal certificate.

29:06 And so I

29:09 I did that while I was working while I was waitressing and and then I decided after I started working for a lawyer in Fort Pierce and kind of got too familiar with what we he was doing I said, you know, I I think I really could do what he's doing. And so I decided I really wanted to challenge and I thought maybe law school would because I'd seen you know, the whatever that movie was about law school and and I you know, I thought that lawyers were these, you know, incredibly smart and lofty people and so I thought that me going to law school would be a real Challenge and one that I might or might not succeed at so I decided to go ahead and do that and that's when I

30:07 About 10 minutes. So that's when I decided to go to law school and I went and you know, the rest is history.

30:18 So kind of you know obviously lost volume at you meant that you know fast forward beyond that when a dark remember this but once dad was recollecting on one of your work ethics and styles and driving law school, and he wants to use this metaphor about your work ethic or work ethic in general and he said that if you two were presented with a field to plow when you only had a plow horse that you are the type of person that would pick up the plow and get the flock and get that filled done. No matter how long it took you doing res dad on the other hand would try and think about you know how to quickly get

31:09 So and perhaps that was you know, Dad's Sly way of saying that he may be thought of himself as more at a smarter which we can debate another time. Although I think we know I think it goes without saying that you just have had very different upbringing and in that largely has shaped how you you both approached certain things. And so what do you think has shape your work? Ethic? Was it religion? Perhaps was that your parents your friends or you can get somebody that you've always inherently to stop.

31:48 That's an interesting question. I think the

31:53 I think that things are supposed to be kind of hard. You know, I've never really

32:01 Thought that life was supposed to be easy and maybe that's you know, a Northeastern Puritan work ethic kind of thing, you know and being in places where the weather is what it is, you know, sometimes it gets hard because of the weather and and the cold and all that but I've always said, you know, I've never really expected for things to come easily.

32:28 And so I'm always I've always been.

32:31 You know, I like I've always thought that I should work hard at whatever I do and not look for the easy way out and and I'm like, my father was always a hard worker and my mother although she work, you know, she didn't work outside the home she worked in the home and she volunteered for every single shoe did not sit around and eat bon-bons and you know drink coffee. She was volunteering at the hospital or she was volunteering at thrift stores and she volunteered at school and all through her life. She was a volunteer so she also had her and she know she was a farm girl. So she also, you know boo believed in hard work and you know being a part of life.

33:31 So, you know, I think that's where it really comes from.

33:36 So, you know after law school and after you worked really hard and did really well, you know, you're presented with with two Pathways and you ended up taking a path into corporate law. So and it's amazing you spent over 20 years at the same something else out that the time. Hey you. How and I think you know for your generation, I think that they're probably a little bit more, maybe then today's generation. So I think I'm just curious what what led you to say that company for so long

34:20 Well, what are the things was that?

34:24 In the law department at BellSouth there were always going to be many different kinds of opportunities, you know, you didn't just go in for the most part you didn't just go in as a litigator and stay a litigator for your entire career, you know, I started out in the state office where it was much very much like a general practice and you worked on whatever legal problem came in the door. So, you know, I think from there I got to change what I was doing every 5 years or so. So it was like getting a new job and I knew that I didn't want to go into the practice of law in a law firm because that's a whole different ball of wax and you have to you have to find your clients and you have to be responsible for you know, you know, it's like that, you know, you're going to you're going to eat what you kill.

35:24 You know, it's a very hard life and I saw your father, you know, struggling with, you know, Finding fulfillment in a law firm. So I knew that I didn't have that kind of personality. I was at work or I wasn't a help LOL match and you know, I wasn't going to be able to specially having children if I wanted to have children. I wasn't going to be able to devote a lot of time to devote to getting business for myself. So I knew those are Corporation was the right place for me and also like you said, you know, like your father said, oh once I get started on something I'm going to do it, you know, and I just don't I don't really think about the other possibilities out there. So that's why I stayed for so long no ice in gum.

36:14 Yeah, I think that goes to show that hard work really does and I'll pay off and for you it often fold. And you know, I know you weren't very much for for flaunting title in a revering one person over the other based on their position. You've always said you treat everyone, you know a bully and kind of essay should be treated and how they deserve to be treated the boys value. But I think it needs to be said and celebrated that you know, you worked your way up to become, you know, the associate vice president of the general counsel for one of the world's largest.

36:52 Night when I left I was the highest ranking woman in the Southeast in you know in BellSouth. So, you know, it just happened naturally in there. There were I wait I was patient. I had to wait for a long time for the right for the right people to come along to promote a woman and you know, we have that we had a terrible.

37:23 General counsel of BellSouth at 1. He was he was like the worst he was an awful person and he will go down in history as being the worst person and but one of the things that he did was that he helped me tremendously. He hired a associate general counsel who was forward-thinking and looked at women the same way. He looked at men and didn't know anything about the telephone business might my business and when that guy became the general counsel, you know, he asked me to talk to him about what the business was cuz he didn't know and so I got to know him very well and when it came time to fill a position on his staff, I got to be considered and and I got to be considered with two guys, you know along with two other guys who I work with for a long time and

38:23 Who are highly qualified and Mark Gary? You know, he chose me and that would have never happened had it not have been for this horrible corporate counsel that we had it BellSouth. And so I have to have to give them that but I had to wait around for a long time for that job because of who I was and that I was a woman, you know, if you are a man of probably would have been

38:57 I'm sure it was but you know, I never when I became the associate general counsel those two guys that I was in competition with they became my lieutenants and the three of us work so well together and we had such a successful partnership among the three of us that I never could have done my job the way I did without those two guys.

39:24 It pays to beat, you know, it pays to keep my model close to you, which is do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

39:33 That works all the time. Did Golden Rule the power? I've got one last question by mistake, but I'm going to have to because your other child more and ask this question. So I will make sure I ask it be there so, you know, you were lucky but also your card work right to you. You're able to retire at 67 which is pretty young for retirement some might say and someone argue that you are the busiest retired person, you know balancing travel your friends. I'm including caring for Friends in Need You need a helping hand volunteering across multiple organizations in Atlanta, including you are a ballot counter this past election cycle, which is pretty fascinating and of itself.

40:29 Family says crazy you've got

40:33 And I've got to get you into it on your calendar, which is a good problem for you to have but Lauren asked she said I think that she goes I think that some travel has always been such a big part of your retired life. She want me to ask how you manage all your day-to-day stuff and how you stay interested in seeing other countries and cultures and how you're doing. Now that travel isn't really an option anymore.

41:04 Well when my mother when my mother passed away before she passed away, I told her that I would take her place in the world and that meant that I needed to be a volunteer and that I needed to be curious about the world in general cuz those are the two things. My mother was she was very open to new experiences on you places, and she was also an incredible volunteer as I have mentioned so

41:37 As far as managing at all what I do I make sure that most of my volunteer opportunities are things that I can do remotely as well as

41:49 As being in Atlanta, so, you know I can take my

41:55 Neighborhood association work down to Florida to be with Grandpa or I can you know do the the voter protection stuff sitting in my own home and also doing that someplace else, you know, I did a lot of that when I was in Florida and even I've done things even when I've been in India, you know that were volunteer oriented as long as the internet and you know Mobility gives you an opportunity to do those kind of things and I think that I have this lost in this need for travel because one it informs me about

42:33 You know our place in the world and how fortunate we are in our kind of living arrangements in our kind of government and our kinds of experiences that we have in the United States and it always opens my eyes to how other people live and how other people experience life and I think that is so important. It makes you a I believe it makes you a more rounded open person when you come back home because you because you know that about other people's experiences in in this world and you can appreciate what you have and it it fulfills me.

43:19 Hopefully hopefully 2021 will result in some some great travels for us and for you.

43:33 Well, thank you for thank you. It was fun.

43:38 Yeah, I had more questions. Thank you.