Off the Beaten Path of Clermont-Ferrand

Please enjoy getting to know Richard Alexander, AFA’s new Board President for 2022

Une Aventure Michelin

Just south of Centre-Val de Loire, paragliders jump from the heights of Puy de Dôme, families flock to the Cathédrale Notre Dame de l’Assomption, enthusiasts place their brand new cameras on tripods to capture the panorama at Parc Montjuzet, and perhaps above all, lines of tourists form outside the door of l’Aventure Michelin, little guides in hand, eager to see what’s inside.

Michelin, La Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin, is the only top-forty French historical company that is not headquartered in Paris, but in Clermont-Ferrand, near the center of France. This is where Richard Alexander moved to work for Michelin in 1996, and where he began his journey as a French speaker and a lover of French culture.

Last December, I had the opportunity to sit down with Richard and breakdown the elements of his journey as a professional, as a history enthusiast, as a learner of the French language, and as a member of the Alliance Francaise d’Austin. I am truly thankful for this experience, and am happy to share with you his story.

International Man of Business

For nearly 30 years, Richard was an IT Executive for information systems and supply chain companies, working on different projects around the world. A goal oriented individual, Richard focused on trying to improve himself as an IT leader, but also found himself in the role of what he calls a “turn-around artist”, helping teams that were really struggling to perform get to a good level. 

At a certain point, having traveled the world, working with teams in Switzerland, Russia, China, and Taiwan, to name a few, Richard realized that he truly enjoyed international business.

“Some point in there, it occurred to me that ‘Hey, I really like this!’ If I want to do international business, I really need to go live some place outside the U.S. and really experience it. You know, flying in to do a project for 8 weeks, 6 weeks, whatever, you get exposed and you get all excited and interested, but you don’t get deep.”

It was here that fate brought to Richard a recruiter for Michelin in Dallas, where he was living in 1995, who expressed interest on behalf of his company for an IT director that could go live in France. How could he say no?

“Sign me up!”

A family man, Richard moved with his wife and child to France in 1996 to work for Michelin.

“We lived in a little village outside of Clermont Ferrand, and we were the only Americans in the Village, it was definitely–it was for sure a plunge, a big immersion experience.”

Richard had some help from Michelin to prepare for his trip, though. In the months leading up to the move, Michelin trained him in immersion classes : five months of 9-hour days in the language lab with two native French speakers, one of whom he remains in contact with to this day. 

“I had some pretty intense training.”

I’d say so! This was Richard’s major introduction to the language and culture. His wife, he told me, also had some A1 - A2 level training with the instructors before the move. And then they were off to cross the pond. 

“Dad, just stay in the car, they won’t understand you”

I asked Richard about his experience in France for those first three years working with Michelin, and they were of course not without their challenges. The work, he noted, was the biggest one.

“Work was by far the hardest part, because you know, you’re in a meeting with 9 other people, and they’re all debating intensely [in French], and I’ve got something I want to say! I have something to contribute but I have to compose it. I have to write it down, you know, so I won’t look stupid.”

It was humbling for me to hear that such an accomplished person could be afraid of looking stupid! He later told me that the point of the job was of course more to challenge himself to learn the language, to live in the culture, than anything related to IT. 

Also in those first years, he had the opportunity to raise his son in France, which he explained to me was one of the most incredible processes to witness. 

“We enrolled him in the international school, which is a mix of English classes in the morning and French classes in the afternoon, and it was just the most incredible process–he would watch Cartoon Network in French, and for the first few weeks, he would just kinda look at it. Then he would start asking me, so–how do you say ‘car’? How do you say ‘dog’? How do you say ‘go’? Then all of the sudden he was speaking in full sentences! And by the time we left, by the time we came home after just over 3 years, his French was way better than mine.”

“I remember real clearly (he smiles here, and his eyes go up and look into the past), we were going to a hotel in a real small place, and he’s going like “Dad, you just wait in the car, I’ll go get the key, they won’t understand you.” (We laugh) He was very confident and very well adapted to it. It was good. It’s a miraculous process and hard to understand how it could possibly work.”

“It’s OK. It’s just Richard, he’s French”

With time, though, of course, Richard was also well adapted to the language. He continued to work for Michelin and moved back and forth from the United States to France several times in the following years, and during this time he was speaking French several hours a day with business executives and colleagues.

He worked with a team in Montreal, who always appreciated his ability to communicate in French.

“I would go to Montreal and I would actually do my Powerpoints in French for them, and they just would eat that up. It was the first time that they had had someone in charge that was listening to them the way they wanted to be listened to.“

After 9 years of working with Michelin, a real change had taken place for Richard in his ability to communicate and express himself in this context as a speaker of French. He told me that it was one of the proudest moments of his professional life when he held his own in a heated meeting he attended in France one year. 

“I had been at Michelin at this point, for 7 or 8 years…and I was on the phone with French people every day. And so I was there for a meeting with the Executive team in France, and it was intense. It was a very hot, difficult period for us. It’s in the evening, it’s way past dinner time, and the debate is still going (and there’s only like 6 of us now), and somebody said “Should we switch to English?” and my Friend Christain said, ‘No, it’s OK. It’s just Richard, he’s French”. And that made me happier than just about anything that ever happened at the office.”

The Blog

In December 2016, Richard retired, staying in touch with French friends and continuing to practice with conversation partners, while also pursuing his own personal goal of becoming a freelance writer.

In just the first 6 months of 2017, Richard published three articles with France Today Magazine. His relationship to those sales left him feeling a lack of agency, however. The magazine had its own schedule, its word limits, its writers-block inducing red-tape. We joked about him having written these articles for The French Dispatch, a fictional journal from the movie of the same name, and he remarked on how much he had enjoyed the film. 

The film gives a bit of a historical backdrop of France and its customs throughout, which is something that Richard likes too. In fact, Richard has a masters degree in American history, and is an avid reader of the subject of history in general to this day. 

His vision for his own writing, together with his passion for history and his experience with France and its culture, naturally led him to develop one of his most impressive side projects, his blog Deep Heart of France. The blog covers the places, history, and culture of central France, offering galleries, blog posts, videos, day trip planners and more. 

I continue to be blown away by this, but Richard always suggests modestly, 

“For me it’s not like a grand project, but it pleases me to have this interaction with this community of people.”

This community of people refers to his readership in France, England and Australia who send him ideas and thoughtful responses to his writings. 

“It certainly pleases me to spend the time photographing, interviewing, and traveling. Frankly, it was great this year (2021), because for about 4 weeks it’s just me, and I’m eating at 1 star Michelin restaurants in France and I’m living the good life (he smiles).”

I was glad to learn about his experiences over the years with his blog, which currently has over 150 posts, and I highly encourage you to check it out, too!

Language Learning and AFA

A truly passionate learner and goal-oriented person, Richard has kept in contact with teachers and conversation partners over the years to maintain and push his French skills. When he moved to Austin in 2019 to be closer to his son and his son’s growing family, one of his former French instructors from South Carolina recommended he search for an Alliance Francaise in the new city. And we are glad she did! 

“[She] said check out the Alliance, it’s a big city, they probably have one. We didn’t have [an Alliance] in Greenville, South Carolina. So I got online, looked at it, and the classes were exactly what I liked and what I was looking for.”

Richard started taking classes with Isabelle Sambuis on Saturdays, an advanced conversation course with grammar instruction, and continues to enjoy it. 

“I want to maintain, but I also want to advance. Which is what I like about what Isabelle has been doing for the last several months, which is including a grammar segment at the end of every conversational group. Certainly if there were ever a higher level grammar course I would be interested in that.”

He has also looked to be as involved in AFA as he can over the years, being nominated for the positions of AFA Board Member and Head of the Scholarship Committee in 2021. As a member of this committee, I can personally say that Richard’s eye for detail and understanding of business communications are only matched by his passion for learning.  We are pleased to have Richard take on this role of President of the AFA Board in 2022, as he truly encompasses AFA’s goals: an individual who is passionate about community, communication and connection. 

“In-person events definitely appeal to me. I’m interested in the book clubs, the Cinema discussions, and I’m really looking forward to more live events.”

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About the author, Evan Bostelmann. Evan is the School Coordinator at the Alliance Francaise d’Austin. He has studied and taught French for 10 years. He spent time in Rouen, Normandie before moving to Austin in 2017, and has a passion for second language acquisition and for learning about others’ journeys through Francophone culture.