Bob Schrock remembers sitting in the conference room at DJ Construction listening to others talk about the Community Foundation’s role in the community.

The Community Foundation was getting a large gift from David Gundlach’s estate. Bob was on the board in 2013 as the organization did its listening tour to determine how to best be stewards of that gift. He invited friends to participate in a session, where President Pete McCown asked, “If you were in Bob’s shoes and could give away $10 million a year to make the community better, what would you do?”

Someone in the room said the foundation should help families. The conversation turned to how to help fathers own their role in their children’s lives.

That moment, along with a series of others, helped cement Bob’s mission.

Bob had helped build a successful company as president and CEO of DJ Construction, but had been wrestling with questions about his purpose since he’d turned 50 a few years earlier. He’d read “Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance” by Bob Buford about approaching the second half of one’s life. Justin Maust of EntreLegacy Group offered life coaching and Bob said yes, though he’d declined such offers in the past.

As they met regularly over coffee, Justin mentored and helped Bob wrestle with how to spend his days. He was considering leaving the construction business. “The purpose of us meeting wasn’t the transition of DJ. It was the transition of me,” Bob says.

Justin asked Bob, “If you could put a dent in one thing, what would it be?”

Friend and coworker Enos Yoder remembers Bob wrestling with how to give. As DJ had done well, Bob’s financial generosity had increased, and he was asking how to get more involved in the community. “I know Bob was searching for his next phase,” Enos says.

Bob and Enos were friends and their children were nearly the same age. They did life together, at church and on the softball field. When Enos’s work life was out of balance because of travel, he went to work for Bob at DJ. Together, they discussed and prayed over how to make a difference. At Sugar Grove Church where they attend, they had heard about the needs of mothers and children after a father abandoned the family.

As a board member for The Crossing and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Elkhart County, Bob had heard stories about students who had achieved success with the help of mentors when dads were absent. He thought about the day he volunteered with Lifeline at an apartment complex, cooking for the families from which the fathers were absent.

He also thought about his own father, Don, who had mentored him and others. “I know I am who I am today because not only did I have a dad in my life, but I knew he loved me and believed in me,” Bob says.

He thought about how he and Enos had mentored Jaraan Cornell, a former Purdue University basketball player who hadn’t gotten his college degree because of his own child’s health issues. “My biological dad walked out on me so there was no way I could walk out on my child,” Jaraan says.

Bob became a mentor and father figure for Jaraan. “Fathering is taking a young man, a young girl, and trying to help change a life,” Jaraan says. “It’s being in a kid’s life. Doing it out of your heart because you care. That’s what fathers do.”

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Bob, and Enos, did that for Jaraan and helped him get back to school. The two men were in the crowd at his college graduation. “This was a complete stranger at one point,” Jaraan says of “Boiler Bob,” his nickname for Schrock, “but it didn’t take long until it felt like someone I had known for 20 years.”

While vacationing in Grand Cayman, Bob was drawing charts and graphs, wrestling with the questions from Justin and Pete. He suddenly realized he wanted to make a dent in the fatherless epidemic. He wanted to urge fathers to step up and be leaders in their families. He also wanted others to help young people whose fathers were absent.

He told Justin, Enos and others and was soon meeting with the Community Foundation to establish the Faithful Dads Fund, a donor-advised fund that would support Bob’s passion. Starting in 2015, Bob volunteered as a big brother for Big Brothers Big Sisters and is now mentoring his second young man in the program.

The mentoring and focus on fatherhood energized Bob for his last years as CEO of DJ. As he was preparing to leave DJ, the management team asked him for a Big Hairy Audacious Goal that could guide the company. Instead of one that related to construction or business, Bob suggested the company work at addressing the fatherless epidemic in this community.

Bob and DJ sponsored three Fathers Matter Forums in Elkhart County, bringing in nationally known speakers to promote faithful fatherhood and highlight local organizations working on the issue. Bob and DJ helped bring the All Pro Dad program to Elkhart County, where fathers join their kids at elementary school. It’s now in schools in Elkhart, Goshen and Nappanee. He’s watched as fathers praise their children in front of others at the school. “Those are powerful moments,” Bob says.

DJ employees volunteer at All Pro Dad events and now the company is leading the Transition to Trades (T3) Program to help young people try construction. Some of the participants are getting jobs at DJ or other construction-related companies from their time working on the tiny homes project at Faith Mission or with Lacasa and Lifeline.

Bob has been the kind of father every kid wants and needs. “I cannot think of any time growing up where I doubted my dad’s love for me and investment in my life,” says son Matt.

Bob went to dog shows and rock concerts with his daughter Mandi. “He supported my interests rather than push his own,” she says, noting that as she and her husband parent their son they try to do the same.

“I know I am who I am today because not only did I have a dad in my life, but I knew he loved me and believed in me.”

Bob Schrock, retired President/CEO, DJ Construction

Mandi is director of brand management at DJ and Matt is vice president. They’ve both seen how their father’s fervor for fatherhood has shaped the company’s response and the family’s philanthropy. They sit with him on the committee, along with Enos, to make decisions about granting from the Faithful Dads fund. As they meet each year in November, on a date near Bob’s late father’s birthday, the family has a clearer sense of how to focus on what they truly want to support financially.

Bob admits that making a dent in the fatherless epidemic isn’t easy to do or measure, but that doesn’t diminish his effort. He’ll keep urging others to be there for children, whether it’s their biological ones or others.

As Jaraan put it, “If we just had 100 more Bob Schrocks, the community, the world, would be a better place for young men.”

This story appeared in the 2022 Annual Report.