Cross & Crescent

Todd Hopkins (Memphis 1987) transferred to the University of Memphis his junior year in college. He says the only person on campus he knew was a friend from high school, who happened to be a member of Lambda Chi Alpha.

‘Super Lawyer’

Former Fraternity ELC from 1987 to 1988, Grand High Epsilon Mark “Fletcher” McElreath (Mercer 1987) was ranked by his peers as a “New York Super Lawyer” in 2006.

The selection was based on the opinion of lawyers who have been practicing for five years or more and who have been asked to identify “the best attorneys they have personally observed in action.”

McElreath is currently a partner with the law firm of Alston & Bird LLP in New York City, New York.

Besides serving as the co-leader of the firm’s Financial Services Group, his practice focuses on debt and equity securities offerings, both domestic and cross-border, and public and private mergers and acquisitions activities.

In his post career experiences, McElreath has handled a wide variety of securities matters including basic initial public and follow-on offerings of equity securities, as both issuer and underwriter’s counsel; Rule 144A and registered offerings of debt securities, and exchange offers for debt securities; and, public and private tender offers of equity and debt securities.

Besides being a former Fraternity staff member, he also has served as a chapter adviser at Mercer University.

“I was pretty set on doing my own thing and concentrating on my grades,” Hopkins says. “I really had no plans on joining a fraternity.”

Through his high school friend he quickly met members of the chapter and developed friendship with many of the brothers. He realized that the group was something he wanted to be a part of and associated.

“I didn’t even know what rush was, I never went through rush, but they were rushing me without me knowing,” joked Hopkins. “I just wanted to play on their softball team.”

As a senior, Hopkins ran for and was elected vice-president. He knew the position had a strong focus on community service, which he enjoyed. He decided to get the chapter really involved.

“We did 29 community service projects that year,” Hopkins says. “(Once) we had three community service projects going on the same weekend.”

The chapter put different members in charge of each event and often times they had to divide their teams to cover all the activities. As a result of their efforts, the chapter decided to apply for the Fraternity’s Tozier Brown Community Affairs award and they made a rather unorthodox scrapbook of their philanthropy work for their submission.

“It was about three feet wide by two feet tall and was made out of wood,” he says. “You’d open it and it would have these big giant sheets of paper that had all our stuff the chapter had done in it. My dad actually had to build a wooden crate to ship it in.”

The chapter won the award and as a result of Hopkins making some connections with the Fraternity staff, he soon was hired to become a Fraternity ELC.

“I guess how Headquarters found out about me was this big wooden crate they got by FedEx with a Tozier Brown application,” he says.

Lambda Chi Teachings

Hopkins traveled as an ELC for a year and he was then hired as the Fraternity’s associate director of development and conference coordinator. He was then promoted to director of development, where he worked for the last two and a half year of his four years on staff.

Hopkins says he made great friends while at Headquarters and learned a lot of things that are a big part of who he is today.

“I learned a lot from chapter alumni,” Hopkins says. “There really are a lot of people who believe in Lambda Chi, and relationships they made with Lambda Chi brothers play a significant role in their development.”

He compares managing a chapter to being on an executive team and young men learn how to manage it like a business.

“As an officer you receive the benefits of the brotherhood that all the members are receiving but at the same time you can get significant advance training on what it’s like to manage an organization,” Hopkins says. “That is huge.”

Launch of Office Pride

After giving nine months notice, Hopkins left the Fraternity staff in June 1992, and started Office Pride, a cleaning business. The idea to start the company actually came from class project he did while working on his master’s degree in business at Butler University.

His first customer was Lambda Chi Alpha. He would come into the Headquarters office late at night to vacuum the carpets and empty trash cans. He earned just $500 a month.

“I would come in around midnight because the younger staff members would ask why a staff member had turned into the janitor,” Hopkins says. “I had a vision and I knew all along that I wasn’t just mopping floors but building a business.”

Office Pride quickly grew and today the company has grown into a multimillion dollar janitorial franchising company. It has more than 100 franchises and collectively they clean thousands of businesses.

To this day, Office Pride remains the cleaning service for 8741 Founders Road. Recently, Hopkins rekindled a friendship with fellow former staff member Rick Torrison (Coe 1987), and Torrison now owns his own Office Pride franchise.

His Newest Passion

Hopkins now lives in Pensacola, Florida, where he has found a new passion — writing. His first book Five Wisdoms for Entrepreneurial Survival: Practical Experience and Biblical Perspective was self published. He then began work on his next big book idea — The Janitor.

“The Janitor” is a story about an old retired janitor who had once been a business person himself. His wife had died and really just for something to do he is cleaning office buildings. Late at night the janitor meets a young CEO and develops a friendship. Before too long the janitor is counseling the CEO on how to live life and business to the fullest. It helps him turn his life around at a time when he thought he had no hope.

“Being a business owner for 15 years, I have seen people get so wrapped up in business success that they lose their family on the way,” Hopkins says. “Work would end up driving them and consuming them. People who looked successful on the outside were miserable on the inside. That’s the message I want to convey.”

The book was picked up by Thomas Nelson Publishing and is being published in English, Spanish and Portuguese. It has already been published and released in Korea, where it was a bestseller — selling more than 100,000 copies in the first six weeks. It will be released in the United States on July 17, 2007.

As for his future, Hopkins looks forward to the opportunity of doing more writing. He says that having a good staff at Office Pride allows him to pursue other interests. He has already finished the draft for his next book and is waiting for the opportune time to submit it.

“I have shifted gears and just love to write, and teaching through that vehicle,” he says.