Q&A with Ben Trockman, Orr Fellowship Evansville region director
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As Indianapolis-based Orr Fellowship welcomes its first Evansville cohort this month, inaugural region director Ben Trockman is ready to lead the college graduates on their journey. The Evansville City Council president was selected to guide the fellows through extensive programming and networking opportunities at local businesses over the next two years.
Trockman spoke with Inside INdiana Business about steering the inaugural Orr Fellowship Evansville class and the reason he was so determined to secure the role.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What was the process of becoming the Orr Fellowship Evansville region director?
I had heard about Orr Fellowship expanding to Evansville, and I was interested in what they do in terms of professional development, working with businesses, helping young people become confident in their careers. So I started asking some questions about Orr Fellowship and who was involved in bringing it to Evansville.
I found out that the Evansville Regional Business Committee was very much the driver of bringing Orr Fellowship to Evansville, particularly Jim Ryan, Bob Koch and Pete Paradossi. I found out that there was an advisory committee. I knew that Tyler Stock, formerly with [Evansville Regional Economic Partnership], now with Welborn Baptist Foundation, was on the advisory committee.
As soon as I learned more about what Orr Fellowship was about and their plans to start a Evansville chapter, I told myself and my mentor and everyone I met with who was involved that it was my goal that there would not be a job posting for the fellowship [director] because I wanted to ensure I was that guy.
And guess what? There was not a job posting.
Describe your role as Evansville region director.
I would categorize my responsibilities into three different buckets.
One is partner company recruitment and retention, because we need good companies that are hiring our fellows for this two-year commitment that they embark on.
Two is the attraction and recruitment of fellows and working with universities around the area and even outside the area to get folks interested in the Evansville chapter of Orr Fellowship.
And number three is doing all the programming for the two years of the fellowship. Whether that’s scheduling the social events or the leadership trainings or the different nonprofit activities that they’ll be involved in, all the programming, the curriculum, if you will, that they will go through over the next two years.
What do you hope to bring to the role from your background?
Having good relationships with local business leaders. I have a unique background in my time serving as a city councilman and mostly my time at Old National Bank, where I ran a similar program. It was a mentorship at the time, but we were working with local businesses to hire individuals. I had the opportunity to get to know a lot of local business leaders when it comes to programming for the fellows.
I know a lot of awesome people in this community, from nonprofit to business leaders who are interested in changing and impacting our community. And those are the folks that we want to get involved with Orr Fellowship and introduce our fellows and allow them to learn from.
What I hope to bring from my background is my own experience as a young person and how I developed and the things I learned along the way, the relationships I made along the way, the errors I made along the way.
I hope to be able to share the experience that I had as a young professional and give these fellows a similar experience, because I would not be where I am today without my time at Old National Bank, without my mentors, without the nonprofit interactions I had that shaped me into I who I am today.
Why do you think Evansville was selected for the first Orr Fellowship expansion?
Jim Ryan, who is the CEO of Old National Bank, his daughter participated in Orr Fellowship and he knew what a great experience his daughter had, how it grounded her. And not only the first business that she was hired to after her college experience, but the way it created a good experience for her with her fellows and the community of Indianapolis.
At the end of the day, the fellowship is about getting people to fall in love with the community. That was Indianapolis for 20 years, and now we want to do that for Evansville. Business leaders like Jim Ryan saw the value in Orr Fellowship for the retention of talented young people. It made sense for the Evansville community trying to retain and attract top talent that this is absolutely something we should do.
What will Evansville’s Orr Fellows be doing this summer?
I’m currently working on the programming. Everyone’s going to start their job in June, and we have a fellow orientation about understanding the responsibilities and expectations of being an Orr Fellow. That’s everything from being a high achiever and being a great example to learning about, “Oh, hey, they’re going to do some recruiting on campus for our next class of Orr Fellows.” That happens later in June. We’ll let them get settled.
We’re going to have monthly meetings for all fellows. We’re trying to create good synergy between the group. We’re going to have a welcome picnic in late June, get everyone together to say, “Let’s have a great experience, enjoy each other and build a good relationship between everyone.”
We had a welcome weekend. We had most of our fellows come to Evansville about two months ago. They did a bus tour with our former [Department of Metropolitan Development] director, Philip Hooper. He was their tour guide. We did the Division II men’s basketball championship game at the Ford Center in the Old National Bank suite. The mayor, some state representatives showed up, other elected officials, the police chief, Lloyd Winnecke.
Our first big thing on the curriculum will be the Business Leaders Speaker Series, which is quarterly throughout their program. I’ve asked some business leaders to make a presentation to the group.
What’s unique is that the class in Indianapolis is 70 people. In Evansville, our class is 15, and our hope is to get to 25 in the future. But whether it’s 15 or 25, we have a smaller group and a smaller community. Your access to each other, a nonprofit executive director or a business CEO, you are one cup of coffee away from having a conversation with that person.
When we have our Business Leaders Speaker Series, it’s not going to be these leaders sitting in front of 70 people and speaking straight at them. We’re going to set up a dinner and have an interactive time. Our intention is to have Evansville and Indianapolis compete against each other in terms of attracting the top talent. I think that Evansville’s story is—and the way that we can sell that—we’re the better choice because you’re not one in almost a million in Indy.
What should 2026 college graduates do if they’re interested in an Orr Fellowship in Evansville?
What I would say—whether it’s parents who want their kids to be a part of a high-achieving program or it’s students themselves trying to figure out what to do in the future—is to look for applications to open in August. Reach out to any alumni that you can find online or on LinkedIn. It is a tight-knit group, and they will pass along your name to me or others. It’s a competitive group, and it’s a competitive application process, but it’s a great group of people.
Anything else you’d like to add?
As someone who deeply believes Evansville is a great place to be and live, and knowing that we need to continue building our pipeline of talent, this program is one of the answers.
I’m honored to lead this region and this chapter or fellowship, and I can’t wait to build relationships with these young people and help them along in their careers. Let them experience the things that I was able to experience. Because when you have the right mentor, the right connections, the right friends and the right supporters, the sky is the limit.