“We are a close family,” Kettering said. “Loving and supporting each other in good times and bad.”
She remembers people in her life reaching out to help her along the way, starting with her mother who encouraged her to take baton lessons, and most importantly, offering to help her. Older sister Cindy helped her secure her first job at the same place she worked.
Kettering decided to attend college at Tennessee Temple in Chattanooga. It turned out to be fate because it was where she met her husband to be, Ken Kettering.
“We got married in 1974 and I graduated from college in 1976,” Kettering said. “I got my degree in secondary education, though I never intended to teach.”
Instead, Kettering wanted to go into counseling, but she got her first teaching job at Tennessee Temple and worked there until her husband graduated the following year.
“You can see better looking back and how you were guided along a path,” Kettering said. “I ended up spending about 20 years in education.”
The couple moved together to Dayton in 1978 and Ken took a job with the Miami Valley Christian Broadcasting Company to help create a family/Christian television station in Springfield. The couple would eventually have four children, Leah, Kyle, Krista and Tyler.
“I was raising kids, running my own business, and helping Ken at the station part time,” Kettering said. “After four years, Ken applied at WDTN and was hired and eventually moved to Fox 45 as a sports broadcaster.”
When her youngest son Tyler started Kindergarten in 1989, Kettering decided to ramp up her image consulting business and in 1991, received a call from the Dayton Christian School superintendent Bud Schindler, who asked her if she was interested in a teaching job. She was already well known there since her children all attended the school.
“Bud told me I could teach students and make a difference,” Kettering said. “And of course he offered to help me.”
Kettering ended up teaching English, speech and Bible classes at Dayton Christian until 2006. She left there to help her husband produce musicals at a local high school and in July of 2011, she was asked back to Dayton Christian to take over a full-time position in communications, marketing and fundraising.
And throughout her life, Kettering learned how important strong leaders are to the success of others.
“Everything rises and falls on leadership,” Kettering said.
In February of 2014, Kettering joined the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team, spending a year studying, preparing and planning to become a coach, trainer and speaker. Today at 70 years old, she is helping others through volunteerism and working as a senior major gifts counselor with a company called Development Systems International.
“I’ve been looking hard at how I’m designed and what’s important to me,” Kettering said. “It’s always been how I can help others and do meaningful work.”
Since joining John Maxwell’s team a decade ago, she has taken more than 100 hours of advanced coursework in Maxwell’s methods of speaking, sales, event planning, coaching, philosophy and communication. And she started hosting LIVE2LEAD in Dayton — a local leadership broadcast of Maxwell’s own live leadership event, simulcasted at 400 sites and in 32 countries.
Today, Kettering is also calling on her skills from her years as an image consultant and, as a leadership coach, is helping people learn how to be their best and grow as leaders.
“I used to get distracted by my own appearance myself and it prevented me from doing my best work,” Kettering said. “I think it came from being married to a handsome man in the public eye and feeling like everyone was expecting him to show up with a model on his arm!”
Throughout the years, Kettering learned from mentors, friends and of course, her family, how to shed her own self consciousness so she could focus on helping others.
“There are so many needs in this world,” Kettering said. “We don’t have time to be distracted by our own insecurities.”
Becoming a certified team member for Maxwell is an opportunity Kettering said has changed her life and the lives of many others she has met. She is working to transform communities by leading by example and through adult “transformation tables” in Dayton and in Springfield.
“Had others not seen me and helped give me confidence and opportunity, I wouldn’t be here today,” Kettering said. “This is why I love what I do and work hard to create opportunities for others to be seen and heard.”
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