CCO Campus Ministry

Why Rod Schoon wants to bring the CCO to Indiana

This article first appeared in the summer 2009 issue of On Campus magazine.

Happily married to his wife, Cathy, for 35 years, the father of three grown sons, and heavily involved in his church and community, Rod has always lived out his Christian faith in every area of life. But he knows that it could have turned out differently.

A high school basketball star in his small Indiana town, Rod came to the University of Pittsburgh on a basketball scholarship in 1967. Even though he was raised in a Christian home and Bellefield Presbyterian Church was right across the street from his residence hall, Rod didn’t attend church much. Surrounded by the concrete of the city, and missing home, Rod was distracted. Then Bellefield pastor Bob Long knocked on his door and invited Rod to join a small group of other Christian athletes.

Before Rod knew it, he was studying Scripture. Lots of it. As a former Pitt athlete himself, Bob understood Rod’s struggles and temptations. Rod says, “Had Bob not been there with his influence, I could have gone the other way. Bob got in my face. He challenged me when he thought I was chasing after the wrong girl. He didn’t let me go off the deep end. He took my faith and solidified it, made it more meaningful, deeper. He was like a big brother to me.”

After graduating with a degree in economics, Rod went back to Indiana and took a job as a manager in a factory. He eventually developed a career of turning around poorly performing factories. His most recent achievement is Ashley Industrial Molding Inc., a custom molder and painter of plastic products for agricultural, industrial and military markets. In 2001, he and other employees bought the company, and thanks to Rod’s leadership, it has become hugely successful.

Rod is making a substantial five-year commitment to bring the CCO into Indiana. He also knows that somewhere down the road he will more than likely sell his ownership in Ashley and make provision for additional financial resources to go to campus ministry in Indiana.

Rod knows firsthand the strategic significance of college ministry and the need in his home state. Indiana has 350,000 college students on campuses and only a fraction of these students are being reached. It is Rod’s prayer and ours that hundreds more lives will be transformed as his has been.

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