From an interview that took place in Summer 2022
In today’s America, where attention is money, and a bigger audience is a better audience, who comes to mind when you see the words “influential people”?
They might be politicians. They might be authors, podcasters, TV hosts, or internet personalities. For Pierre and Susan Twer, though, the most influential people they know are their parents.
“My parents are great people. I try to model myself after my mom. We say she’s a saint,” says Susan Twer, a mom of three herself. Susan and Pierre’s parents are all still living, which is something the two of them are grateful for every day.
Pierre’s father, a German immigrant, came to the United States with 13 pounds of luggage and settled on Lake Michigan. During the week, he worked as a factory foreman. He built houses in the evenings. “My parents are great role models. They’re very hardworking people, and my dad really inspired me,” he says.
Their family – parents, kids, and grandkids – are more important to Pierre and Susan than almost anything else in the world. But even before they had a family of their own, Pierre and Susan have been constants to one another since they were students at IU Bloomington.
Although they lived in the sorority and fraternity next to one another, the two of them didn’t meet until their senior year. At the time, Pierre was undergoing a change in his identity. Instead of living for the weekend’s parties, Pierre was in the middle of becoming someone who dedicated himself to hard work and the creation of a fulfilling, selfless life.
“I found out there were really smart people in my fraternity who were going places with their lives,” Pierre recalls. For the last half of his time in college, he tried to surround himself with them. Most influential, though, was his future wife. “When I met Susan, it changed my life,” Pierre says. “She was disciplined. She was the person I wanted to be.”
A dancer and responsible student who would one day become a CPA, Susan was (and still is) kind, poised, and beautiful. Even then, she stood firm in her values and her identity. “I want to be dependable to anyone that’s counting on me,” she says. “A big word in my life is respect. A lot of people think respect has to be earned before it’s rewarded. I think the opposite. I think everyone deserves it.”
Susan’s emphasis on respect has influenced Pierre’s approach to things and people throughout his life. He’s sold medical devices to doctors and surgeons since his graduation from college. A natural lover of people, Pierre eventually worked his way to his current position as Indiana Sales Manager at Abbott Structural Heart by building authentic relationships.
“I have so much respect for the surgeons I’ve worked with. They are really smart people doing great work. I’m very fortunate to have become friends with them,” he says. “I get to spend a lot of time with them. That’s what you do, in my profession; you hang out with the surgeons. And if the surgeons don’t like you, that’s a really tough job.”
Dave Hollander is one lifelong mentor of Pierre’s that has helped him learn how to be a great friend. A now-retired gastroenterologist, Dave has “always been a kind person, thinking of others first. I could talk to him for 45 minutes on the phone, and I’m so busy answering all his questions about me that it takes me that long to realize I haven’t asked a single question about him. So now I’m mindful, when I talk to people, that it’s not about you asking questions and me answering you,” he says. “He’s taught me how to think of others while having conversations. That said, how’s your coffee, Heather?” (It was delicious.)
Heart Reach Medical and Bolt for the Heart came about when Pierre visited Elkhart for work and met Heart Reach Michiana’s founder, Dr. Walt Holleran. Inspired by Holleran’s mission, Pierre asked to bring the concept back to Carmel. In 2010, that concept birthed Bolt for the Heart.
Bolt for the Heart’s goal is to save as many lives as possible by placing AEDs in law enforcement heroes’ patrol cars. One would think that AEDs are already included in every patrol car, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. Without organizations like Bolt for the Heart, officers who come across people in cardiac arrest may not have the tools necessary to save their lives.
Bolt for the Heart is linked to Heart Reach Medical, but the difference between them is how they serve. Heart Reach Medical is a distribution company that sells AEDs at a discounted price to businesses who Bolt is unable to donate to; and to law enforcement departments who have the funds to purchase them beyond what Bolt is able to donate. Bolt for the Heart is the nonprofit arm donating AEDs to departments that can’t afford to equip their officers with AEDs on their own.
Thanks to the support of many generous donors and sponsors, Bolt for the Heart has placed over 2750 AEDs (over $3 million in total donations) in police vehicles around Indiana. So far, those AEDs have saved more than 20 lives of Indiana citizens – a number that will keep growing with time. Currently, they’re looking at expanding into Michigan and Ohio, too.
“It’s an extension of what I’ve been doing for my whole career, which is watching other people save lives,” Pierre explains. “Bolt allows me to get a little taste of what they do, which is really kind of cool.”
The Twers love their incredible Board of Directors, both past and present, who have been pivotal to the organization’s success. “The energy in the room at Board meetings is phenomenal,” Susan says. “I don’t think you can single out any one Board member because everybody has had an impact.”
“We have some great leaders on the board that have taught me how to be a better leader,” Pierre adds. “People on our board are in their leadership positions [outside of Bolt for the Heart] for a reason. They’re very good people.”
Those who aren’t familiar with Bolt for the Heart may still be familiar with one of their most visible fundraisers of the year: the Bolt for the Heart Thanksgiving Day 5k. 2023 will be its 12th year. Bolt for the Heart has a commitment to do their fundraising through family-oriented outdoor activities, like runs and walks. Pierre and Susan love that this 5k has become a family tradition for many people in the Carmel community, including several sudden cardiac arrest survivors saved by Bolt for the Heart AEDs.
Pierre is too humble to lead with it in a conversation, but he’s been recognized with several awards for his work, including the prestigious Sagamore of the Wabash. The Sagamore of the Wabash is the highest honor that the governor can bestow upon a citizen of Indiana and reserved for those who have provided a truly noble service to our state. “That was the coolest. It was such a surprise and so humbling for him. I was so proud,” Susan says.
But Pierre’s most impactful award is one with far less pomp and circumstance: a gift given to him by Susan. For his 50th birthday, she secretly reached out to around 70 of Pierre’s closest friends and asked them to perform an act of kindness in his honor, then write them down and send them to her. She got exactly 50 back and compiled them in a scrapbook for him to read.
Pierre maintains that the book of kindness was the nicest gift anyone’s ever given him in his life, and represents his crowning achievement in life. “I may have a nice award from Governor Pence on the wall, but that can’t compare to this book,” he says. “So on a bad day, I pull that out, read a couple pages, and I’m back.”
The book is so important to the Twers because it represents the space in the world where they find the most meaning; the sphere of people who they can personally impact, and who have personally impacted them. Most important of all the people they’ve impacted are their three adult children, Adam, Ashley, and Erika.
“I spent a lot of my adulthood still trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Susan admits, “But now, looking back, I see that, being a mom was the best job I’ve ever had.” The births of their kids are three of the biggest highlights in her life (and Pierre’s, too).
Raised by two kind, hardworking parents, Adam, Ashley, and Erika have all grown into kind, hardworking people. They learned discipline young through sports, and the Twers got to make a lot of fun family memories by traveling alongside their teams. Today, two of them have families of their own. Pierre and Susan now have the joy of positively impacting their two grandchildren, and will welcome a third in 2023.
Because all their kids’ families live close to each other, it doesn’t usually feel like the Twers are empty nesters. “Having the kids so close is a blessing. It’s a full life, and I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Susan says.
“I don’t use the word ‘legacy’ very often,” Pierre adds. “If our kids are good examples of what we’ve taught them, and they’re living a good, clean, honest, faithful life, that’s the greatest legacy I could ask for. We feel great joy when Ashley and Erika get notes from patients, or when we see the kind of father Adam has become.”
Pierre and Susan’s kids are blessed to have grown up with a great example of a long-term marriage. The Twers have been married for 37 years and have renewed their vows twice. Both times, the renewal was a surprise given to Susan by Pierre.
“I think one of our strengths is communication,” Susan says. “You have to talk things out. Whether it’s a low point, whether it’s a disagreement, no matter what it is.” That, plus the healthy level of respect and affection they have for each other, makes their marriage one of the great joys and safe havens of their lives.
“I am the black-and-white perspective in our relationship,” Susan says. “I tend to see things and react strongly in one direction. And Pierre will back me down and show me a kinder, non-assumptive approach, which, a lot of times, turns out to be the right one.”
“I’ve always looked at Susan as being a foundational rock for me,” Pierre adds. “I’m like a plane – I just fly all over the place. She’s like the runway that’s always there for me to land on. Steady, always, as a wife and a mom and now a grandma. She’s solid in her roots and thoughts and beliefs.”
Currently, Pierre and Susan are in a busy, happy season of work and work for Bolt, spending time with their kids and grandkids, and settling into their new house. Susan made sure her porch swing, where she likes to sit, read, and drink coffee, came with them. They’re both enjoying their new neighborhood and looking forward to making more family memories in their new space.
The Twers aren’t local celebrities (nor would they ever want to be). They probably wouldn’t describe themselves as pillars of the community. And it’s true; they aren’t the highly visible structural supports that, on the surface, make a community richer and brighter and keep it running. However, Pierre and Susan are one of those couples that would be better described as a community’s backbone; the invisible, internal structure that keeps everything supported, healthy, and moving behind the scenes.
The backbone of a community looks like the teachers who stay after school to tutor their students, the entrepreneurs with big dreams to improve the city, or the next-door neighbors who watch your kids when you need it most. It looks like the drivers who wave at you while you’re jogging, the people who get involved with local causes, and the parents of three who’ve been happily married for 37 long, joyful years and make it their life’s prerogative to spread kindness wherever they go. It’s the people like the Twers who do what they can, with what they have, for the people they’re with, to build a better world.