Parishioner Spotlight: Tony Nagygyor
Spotlight on Tony Nagygyor
Hometown: Born and raised in the Lacey/Olympia, WA. area.
Episcopal affiliation: Raised Catholic but started attending Episcopal Church in college.
Profession: Works in research and development for Procter & Gamble
The first thing we have to talk about is your last name. How do you pronounce it?
[Nagygyor] pronounced Naw-ger, like Dodger. It’s a combination of two Hungarian words: Nagy, which means large and Gyor, which is fast.
How long has your family been in this county?
My Grandfather [Nagygyor] immigrated during the Hungarian Revolution in the late ‘50s. He was at school for forestry in a city near the Austrian border. During the revolution, he and his classmates decided to go for it and crossed into Austria. They were in their early 20s and didn’t have a plan. Eventually, the University of British Columbia decided to take the whole class into its forestry program in Canada. He came over and finished his degree at UBC in Vancouver.
My Grandmother [Nagygyor], who was from Denmark, and her sister had left Denmark around the same time and came to U.S. on a boat and traveled across America on a Greyhound.
My grandfather and his best friend met them at a dance in Canada, and the guys eventually married the two sisters. They all ended up moving to Eugene, Oregon and were neighbors. My great aunt still lives next door to my grandparents in Eugene.
Are you a lifelong Episcopalian?
No. There are Episcopalian roots on my dad’s side. My grandfather and grandmother in Eugene were Episcopalian, but Dad converted to Catholicism when he married my mom. So I was born, raised and confirmed Catholic.
I read on your Facebook page that you attended college at the Colorado School of the Mines. Talk about that decision.
I knew I wanted to be an engineer from high school. I love math, and I enjoyed science. And engineering is in the blood. My dad and grandfather are both forest engineers and my mom’s dad is a mechanical engineer. By the time I was applying to colleges, I had decided on chemical engineering. I minored in math and computer science.
How did you end up in Cincinnati?
I had interned twice at P&G during college. Both of those internships were in packaging research and development (R&D). In September of my senior year, they offered me a full-time job. I wanted to test the waters a little before accepting, because I had won the Astronaut Scholarship from a foundation formed by the Mercury Seven Astronauts. It is a scholarship given to undergrads who have done significant research promoting American innovation and ingenuity. But, in the end, I had loved my responsibility doing R&D in packaging during my internships. Two years ago, I started full-time with P&G in R&D in the North American Dish Packaging Division. I work with the Dawn, Cascade and Gain brands on the technical side to determine if the packaging can survive the transportation supply chain; if it’s appealing to consumers and compatible with the product inside as well as making sure our plants can produce the packaging. The other part of it is continuing to improve existing packaging and the use of recycled content.
How did you end up at All Saints?
I had started going to the Episcopal church on campus in college the last three years. My grandparents were friends with [former] Bishop Breidenthal’s late father and knew Bishop Breidenthal as a kid. I was living in an apartment in Pleasant Ridge and came to All Saints one Sunday. And kept coming.
What is it about All Saints that makes it such a good fit?
I was at a place in my spiritual journey where I wanted a church where I not only felt I fit in but where I also felt I was needed. The Catholic church I grew up in was probably a 1,000 members with six or seven services. We helped out, but if we had suddenly disappeared, it wouldn’t have had much impact. At All Saints, if I don’t get involved, the church is going to feel it. During this part of my spiritual journey, I really want to help. I serve on the vestry and am a lector. Public speaking doesn’t come naturally, and I want to get better at it. I also do it for Mom, who is a reader at her church and is excellent at it.
Do people ever tell you that you have an old soul?
Yes, I’ve heard that before.
What’s your favorite thing to do with your free time?
I enjoy biking, especially before church every Sunday. I bike out to Indian Hill [from my house in Deer Park] and do pickup soccer games in Mason on Saturday.
What do you like least about this area?
I miss mountains. When I made the decision to move here full-time, I knew I had enough vacation time that I can get to Colorado and get home to Washington often enough to keep me here.
Something most people don’t know about you?
I came up with a cure for malaria. A family friend got me my first internship with the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland when I was 19. I was working in their malaria lab at the time. The family friend was a chemist there, and he told me about a series of chemical compounds that was potentially interesting [for a possible cure]. He helped me devise a system of steps to possibly get there and left me to try and do it, and I did. I worked with some doctors on testing it, and it worked really well. They continued to work on it after I left, but they could never prove the mechanism in which it worked [why it worked.] Because of that, we could never get published. I found out, much to the chagrin of the family friend, that someone else at a different lab figured it out, and they got published. So the world will benefit from it.
What drives you crazy?
Narrow thinking and short-sidedness. Something that I have been thinking a lot about lately is how people, in general, are so critical about the political climate and taking it out on the country itself. I agree we have a lot to improve upon, but the ideal America is the freedom to pursue all the rights illuminated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The idea that people, regardless of background or social status, in their lifetime, through hard work, can flip the script. I don’t believe that everyone today is given equal access to go after the American dream, and this is where, as a society, we have a responsibility to work towards giving all the opportunities to achieve that dream. We always have had challenges, but what has changed is that people have lost the fight and ability to focus on those ideals that make the American experiment aspirational. I believe we as individuals and as a collective have to find a way to rally around those ideals again.
Have you gone through hard times yet?
On a material level, no. I think that’s why I love some of my outdoor adventures. They bring an abbreviated experience of pushing through challenges, such as: ‘I’ve got one more mountain pass I’ve got to get over today and there’s no way I want to do it, but I have to do it.’ It builds up that grit and resolve that is important and the self-belief that I can do it.
What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened in church?
When I was at my church in college. the youth pastor wanted to put on a special event that he could advertise the church on campus. I was asked to run the slides showing the words to the hymns. The way the slides had been put together, you had to flip back and forth from verse to chorus, but no one told me that, so I just kept going forward with the slides. Everyone kept looking around trying to follow the music. After the third song, I was relieved of my duties. [Please note]: I won’t run slides if that ever comes up.