Meyer says “It’s the figuring out part that makes a liberal arts education so strong. It’s not just learning the exact thing you think you want to do.”  But just as important, are the relationships built along the way. The heartbeat of story after story about Allegheny alumni is the connectivity they have with each other, across generations, miles and majors. Meyer’s connections read like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. 

 

At some point in his student life, he was asked and accepted the challenge to re-launch the Phi Delta Phi fraternity on campus. The affable Meyer was able to recruit a bunch of guys pretty quickly, and the fraternity was alive once again. Cue more connections.

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An admissions counselor knew he was interested in broadcasting, and was able to connect him to an alumnus at the Pittsburgh ABC affiliate. Meyer wanted to intern there, but the roster was full. Shortly after, Lloyd Segan ‘80, was on campus speaking to students about his own success as a Hollywood producer. Segan wanted to meet the student who resurrected his beloved fraternity. The two clicked, and Segan took a chance on Meyer, offering to show him the ropes on a show he was shooting in Vancouver (a television movie based on the Stephen King novel The Dead Zone.) Meyer went out with a buddy. 

 

It was a pretty cool experience. “He showed us everything pre-production, post-production, casting. And he offered me, this was my junior year, a paid internship in Los Angeles and I turned it down. Lloyd said, ‘are you nuts?’ And I said, I’d be lying to you if I told you I wanted to get into Hollywood. I told him I wanted to be a sports anchor,” says Meyer. Segan told him to at least intern for the summer on another show he was producing. He’d do that half of the week and interned at an ABC station for the other half of the week. Long story short, he ended the summer with a job offer at the CBS station in Erie. 

 

Meyer says, “This is all because I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided I would start this fraternity. I didn’t want to, it wasn’t like I came to Allegheny and said I’m going to start a fraternity with no house, no money, no members. But I always say the reason I got into broadcasting is because I started a fraternity.”

 

He is forever grateful that a real success story like Lloyd Segan took a chance on him and Dr. Roy believed in him. It’s probably what led him to his current chapter in life as the founder and CEO of CompleteU, a software company for higher education focused on recruiting, retaining, and re-enrolling students who have college credits but no degrees. 

 

“People believed in me and that belief meant the world.”