Meet Your Neighbor: David Ayars Strengthens HSE Community

DSC_1250 Anyone involved with Hamilton Southeastern Schools knows the name David Ayars. As president-elect of the Hamilton Southeastern Schools Foundation (HSEF), Ayars donates countless hours to improving opportunities for our local kids and our community.

I caught up with Ayars as he was training a group of students in telemarketing. Ayars co-chairs the Dollars for Scholars campaign with Lisa Wissman (our October 2008 Meet Your Neighbor), helping seniors raise their own scholarship money. For three weeks in February, students call HSE homes asking for donations, then split the pot among all participants.

Last year, students raised $50,000 and took home $400 each. This year’s seniors were trying to do the same in a suffering economy.

“Attitude is everything,” Ayars told them. “Do not get discouraged. Don’t take it personally. Just move on.”

DSC_1253 It’s a philosophy Ayars himself embodies. He’s adapted to several life changes throughout the years, among the most notable, becoming a stay-at-home dad. After working in corporate America for 15 years, first at Monsanto and then Unilever, Ayars would spend the next 15 years raising his kids and building community. At the time, he never would’ve believed he’d be an at-home dad for so long.

The kids, C.J. and John, were just 3 and 1 years old, and having dual-career parents wasn’t working. Both David and Patti made the same salary to the dollar, but Patti had been offered a promotion and Ayars was ready for a change. He made the decision to stay home and approached the role with as much ambition as he would his career.

He’s probably the only man you’ll ever meet who’s been PTO president of two different schools, the first in St. Louis and the second — after moving to Geist eight years ago — at Hamilton Southeastern Junior High.

“You are a duck out of water for sure,” he says of his PTO days. “But be it male or female, they appreciate someone with reasonable leadership who is willing to put in the time.”

Working with the Foundation offers a different climate where Ayars gets to interact with business professionals more regularly. His kids are now both in college and he’s a real estate investor, but Ayars is still knee-deep in the betterment of HSE schools.

A Cambridge resident, Ayars served as the HSE Schools liaison to the inaugural Geist Half Marathon last May and will assume the role again with co-chair Tom Schnefke this year.

“We could not have done the race without him last year,” said Tom Britt, president of the Geist Half Marathon board. “He worked with Jim White, the transportation director at HSE, to come up with the shuttle system that worked flawlessly last year.”

Ayars also volunteers at his church, New Hope Presbyterian, as its building fund manager. When he’s not volunteering, he and Patti like to travel with the kids. C.J. is studying in the Netherlands right now and talks with her parents daily on Skype via the internet.

Schnefke, who has four kids in the HSE school system, sums it up this way: “Dave is definitely an asset to the Foundation and to the community.”

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