Elevate Ep 66: Giving Every Baby A Chance with Freedom Kolb, CEO of The Milk Bank

Jason Ulm (0:02)

Welcome to The Elevate Podcast, where every leader has a story. We bring you conversations with influential leaders who are shaping our local communities. Hear about their path to leadership and experiences that define them, and how they're driving meaningful impact today.

Hey everybody, Jason Ulm here with another episode of The Elevate Powered by Braden Podcast. And these episodes have been an awful lot of fun. We're about six months into the show now. We've had a lot of leaders from all over the state, both for-profit and non-profit. Today is an exciting one. Had an opportunity to actually do a tour of the facility, which was a lot of fun. And so I've got my new friend, Freedom, with me.

Freedom Kolb (0:40)

Hi Jason, how are you?

Jason Ulm (0:41)

Marvelous, good to see you this morning. And so Freedom, before we start on your journey, let's tell people quickly where you're at today.

Freedom Kolb (0:48)

So right now I'm the CEO of The Milk Bank. I've been there about seven years.

The Milk Bank is a wonderful organization, and I hope that we get into it a little bit later. But our job is to make sure all babies get to their first birthday. Yeah. So together we fight infant mortality.

Jason Ulm (1:03)

Love it. Love the mission. It was great to see the facility over there. But that's where you are today.

Let's go back to the beginning. Where are you from originally?

Freedom Kolb (1:10)

I was born, actually, I was born in Tipton, grew up in Kokomo, in Suburbia, Kokomo.

Jason Ulm (1:20)

All right. Got you.

Freedom Kolb (1:21)

All right.

Jason Ulm (1:22)

So which high school?

Freedom Kolb (1:23)

Northwestern. Northwestern Tigers. Okay.

Jason Ulm (1:25)

All right. So what did high school look like for you back then? What were you doing?

Freedom Kolb (1:28)

Yeah, I had actually a pretty charming high school experience. We were quite small. I don't know the exact number, but probably between 100 and 150 in my graduating class. Okay.

There were two elementaries, one junior high, one high school. So the families really got to know each other. And it wasn't what you think of as the typical click, like folks just kind of, you grew up with them and you knew them. You might not have been best friends, but my least experience was folks that along. It also, I think, was pretty unique from living here in Hamilton County. My kids were here and they were exposed to so many great things, but I could try things up to the last possible second. Like if I wanted to try out for the tennis team as a high schooler without having played before, that was an opportunity open to me. So it was a pretty idyllic, nice little experience.

Jason Ulm (2:23)

All right, so as you finish up high school, where do you think you're going to go and what are you going to do next?

Freedom Kolb (2:28)

Okay, I followed a boy to Ball State.

So I don't think that was my parents' favorite choice, that is these tend to work out. Ball State has my heart. Probably if you asked of all the schools I've been to, high school, college, graduate, where my alumni, it would be Ball State because I just think that they have a really caring environment for students to explore.

Jason Ulm (2:53)

I got you.

Freedom Kolb (2:54)

Okay. So what did you study at Ball State? So for three years, I was pre-med.

Jason Ulm (2:57)

Oh, no kidding. So it was the original goal to be a doctor?

Freedom Kolb (3:00)

Yeah. The original goal is to go to med school. I had scholarships to go to pre-med. My junior year, I was like, I can't do school for seven more years. Something must give. The only major I had enough credits for to graduate on time was English because I had a creative writing minor and it was something I enjoyed.

So I did a last-minute hard pivot to English with no plan. I used to have no career path, just a graduation path.

Jason Ulm (3:30)

The idea was to go to school, going to go to med school, be a doctor. You decide to make the change so you can graduate on time, but no plan coming out of school.

What's the first role look like? What do you do coming out of school?

Freedom Kolb (3:44)

Well, there's not a rich job market for bachelors in English. I think there are some of your entrepreneurial and commit, you know, like journalism or writing or some of those. And but also some of that takes time. So I went straight to grad school.