Doug Cahill with Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez and BGSU men's golf teammate Brad Turner
Heritage Series: Doug Cahill
May 14, 2018 | General, Men's Golf, Falcon Club
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By: by Matt Markey, BGSUFalcons.com
Throughout the months of April and May, BGSUFalcons.com will be highlighting some of the men and women who have impacted the University, the community and the athletics department. From pioneers to more recent members of the campus community, Matt Markey will be providing the stories of our history. In our fifth installment, golfer Doug Cahill explores the ways his experiences in golf at BGSU have shaped his life.
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PREVIOUS HERITAGE SERIES STORIES Bob Dwors Noel Jablonski Judy Jeanette Carol DurentiniFalcon Flames Doug and Terre
Few college golf stories follow the course taken by Doug Cahill. Although his role changed, he never lost the love of the game, or his understanding of the importance of putting the team first.
Cahill came to Bowling Green from the sports hotbed of St. Henry, a small western Ohio town known for producing great athletes. He was a good golfer who had opportunities to enroll at other universities, but he chose to go to BG without a scholarship and play his way onto the team.
"John Piper was the golf coach at the time, and I chose Bowling Green because of him," Cahill said. "Coach Piper and BG were the best choice for me."
In Cahill's first match as a collegian, the Falcons were facing an Ohio State golf team led by Joey Sindelar, who would go on to a very successful career in professional golf that continues today. Playing against the best gave Cahill a rather blunt measuring stick for his own game.
"I was lucky, because he happened to be in my group, and I played about as well as I could play and I shot 79, and Joey shot 68. He was playing a game I wasn't familiar with," Cahill recalled. "I remember my dad telling me I'd better study hard, because professional golf was probably not in my future."
Cahill played with the Falcon team for two seasons before making an abrupt and highly unusual adjustment to his game.
"I tried really hard, but Coach Piper saw me as a better recruiter, so he asked me to stay on with the team and recruit," Cahill said. "So my last two years at BG I was the recruiter and the jayvee team coach, as an undergrad."
Cahill did not take the move as a demotion or a slight, instead choosing to use his new post as a building block for what has been a more than 30-year career at the top level of the business world.
"I loved it because I had always wanted to run something, and here I was coaching and recruiting, and essentially getting started being a sales guy and a business guy," he said.
Cahill would graduate from BGSU in 1982 with a degree in business and marketing, and then embark on a professional path that has seen him lead and grow a long list of consumer and industrial companies. He did not jump right into a leadership role, however, instead following his father's advice to first learn the business world from a sales position.
"My dad was the vice-president of HR for a good-sized company, and he said that if I wanted to run a business, I should be a sales guy first," he said. "He said to satisfy your customers you need to think about all aspects of the business –sales, manufacturing, marketing and engineering. If you figure that out, you'll be smart enough to run something."
Cahill spent the first three years following graduation as a sales rep, and said the experience did just what his father had told him it would do.
"It taught me how to be a CEO," Cahill said.
In the years since then, among his many roles Cahill has served as president and CEO of Nashville-based upright vacuum manufacturer Oreck, led Doane Pet Care Company as president and CEO and more than tripled its sales, and while working for Mars Incorporated he grew the company's U.S. Petcare business from $1.7 billion to $4 billion in three years.
He is currently managing director of CCMP Capital Advisors, a leading private equity firm, and serves on Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management Board of Visitors.
"I've run a pool chemical business, a pet food company, and several others, and in many ways they are all the same," Cahill said. "You get the right people working for you and focus on what they need to do their job, and guess what -- the rest of this doesn't matter. All the rest of this is just noise."
Cahill's father died before Doug finished college, but the lessons in leadership he received from his dad have resonated throughout Cahill's long and very successful career.
"He told me that to be a good leader you had to always put other people in front of you," Cahill said. "And when it came to integrity, there was no compromising on things. He taught me to do the right thing no matter what the situation."
Cahill has also leaned on his golf connection in the business world, saying golf often is a common thread in initial discussions with individuals from other companies.
"Golf has played a huge role a lot of times," he said. "That bond between golfers is something. It's crazy how much it has played a part in opening up things."
Cahill, who was Bowling Green's 2012 commencement speaker, stays in touch with his former Falcon teammates, including PGA teaching pro Brad Turner, PGA teaching pro Gary Battistoni, and former BGSU football place-kicker and standout golfer John Spengler. Cahill is also close friends with former Falcon hockey player and Hobey Baker Award winner George McPhee, and former Falcon Brian MacLellan.
"The connection to BG is real and it is awesome," Cahill said. "Coming back to speak at commencement was both an honor, and a lot of fun. The place is in my blood!"
Cahill met his wife Terre, a cheerleader for the Falcons, in freshman calculus class at BG and the couple celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary in April. The Cahills have been blessed with three children, and Bowling Green is one of the schools being considered by their youngest son, a high school junior in Nashville.
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