PPB January 2020

The Height Of Greatness Carl Gerlach, MAS, has accomplished many of the big things in this life but has not lost sight of the importance of small kindnesses. by Tina Berres Filipski Carl Gerlach grew up in Leawood, Kansas, an area he still calls home. “All of my accomplishments in life have been because I was a part of a good team. I learned that you are a lot stronger when you have a good group of people with you.” C arl Gerlach’s life hasn’t followed a straight line of progression; instead it’s been one with unexpected twists and turns that have led to incredible opportunities and successes he couldn’t have imagined. It all started with making the right choices. Not too many people earn a full college scholarship playing basketball while studying engineering and then switch majors to business and marketing, go pro, play for the NBA and European league, work in the oil industry, build and run the marketing department for a major promotional products supplier, serve as board chair for the industry’s trade Association and then win election as mayor of a city ranked one of the best places to live in the U.S. Gerlach has done all of this. He will also be inducted into the PPAI Hall of Fame in January 2020, joining an elite group of 86 individuals who have been honored since the program’s inception in 1977. For a boy growing up in Leawood, Kansas, life was basketball and other sports, but he also dreamed of being an engineer, like his uncle. Gerlach pursued his engineering degree while playing center and forward for the Kansas State University Wildcats. The only problemwas his team was too good. They had gone to two NCAA Elite 8 tournaments and were one shot away from a Final Four when Gerlach realized he had to make a decision. Riding home with the team after a game, the other players slept as Gerlach studied for a test in thermal dynamics. “I realized it wasn’t going to work,” he says. “It was too tough to be an engineering major and a college basketball player.” He switched his major to business with an emphasis in marketing and management, a decision that would eventually bring him into the promotional products industry as vice president of While playing basketball for the Kansas State University Wildcats, Gerlach came to a crossroads about his career. FEATURE | PPAI’s Top Awards 30 | JANUARY 2020 |