Building Bluffton's Advancement
03/13/2026
For Suter, coming back isn’t just a career move. It’s an investment in the place, and people, who shaped him.
Investing in Bluffton’s future through relationships
For Pete Suter ’94, MAOM ‘02, Bluffton University has never just been a workplace or an alma mater; it’s home. A double major in accounting and business administration, he later returned to earn his master of arts in organizational management. His connection to campus, however, began long before his days as a student.
“I chose Bluffton because my parents were faculty members, and so honestly I didn’t look anywhere else,” he said. What kept him here was the community.
“I had a fantastic time at Bluffton,” Suter aid. “I immediately connected with my roommate. We were roommates all four years together, lived in Bren-Dell all four years, absolutely loved the faculty, loved the activities and made lots of friends.”
Though he once thought teaching wasn’t for him, Suter discovered a passion for educating through an adjunct role at Bluffton. “I didn’t think that I wanted to teach; in fact, I knew I never wanted to teach, but then I did some adjunct work … and thought, you know, this is kind of fun,” he remarked.
What began as a one-year fill-in role became more than a decade in the classroom.
“I agreed to fill in for a year, and then ended up continuing for another 12 years teaching,” Suter said. “I loved being in the undergraduate classroom, loved connecting with students.”
He taught marketing, finance and graduate courses, and each spring organized experiential
learning trips to Chicago. “We would visit the Federal Reserve, visit Chicago Board
of Trade, visit some nonprofits and I loved those trips,” he said.
In addition to teaching, Suter also worked in development, discovering a natural fit
for Bluffton’s relationship-centered culture.
“Like what a dream job, right? You get paid to visit people and eat lunch,” he joked. “It was really, really fun to connect with alumni … it’s always fun to hear their stories, and they’re always excited to hear about what’s going on at Bluffton.”
Eventually, he stepped away from teaching to focus on family and business, launching and growing the Shirley’s Popcorn retail brand. “We started it from scratch in 2009, grew it to a total of seven stores in 2019, so it has been a lot of fun to build that business,” he said.
Still, his guiding principle remained simple: “You get one trip around the block,
and so if you’re not spending time doing something that you enjoy, it’s absolutely
not worthwhile. You have to do things that you enjoy. At least I do,” he noted.
Now serving as vice president of advancement, Suter sees his return to Bluffton as
a way to combine his experiences as an educator, entrepreneur and alumni.
“Bluffton is at a point where it needs really, really committed people […] it just felt to me like an opportunity where I could invest everything that I have learned and my experiences and combine that with my passion for Bluffton and do something really worthwhile,” he said.
“My goal is to help the entire institution think more entrepreneurially without sacrificing any scholarship,” Suter added.
His approach centers on connection. “We say it’s all about relationships, and to me
that has two sides. How can ‘we’ invest in that relationship at the same level that
we’re asking ‘them’ [alumni and donors] to invest in that relationship?”
For Suter, coming back isn’t just a career move. It’s an investment in the place,
and people, who shaped him.