Musings at Altitude

Today, I called the very wise friend who wrote the “Nirvana” email.  He’s 78 years old, give or take a year, and he lives just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   His sole job today is taking care of his beautiful wife who suffers from aphasia (loss of ability to speak the words you want to speak) and the early stages of dementia.   His continuing passion is a constant desire to teach others the wonderful lessons he learned in his more than 5 decades of business life.

I want to take just a moment to tell you what he did for our company:

• Founded the operational arm of the federal contracting division of our company
• Was the first President in our company of a government focused subsidiary
• Won the first federal contract
• Hired the first federally focused project team
• Established our first federal company headquarters
• Built that company to $60M in revenue before retiring and turning it over to some younger business leaders

And I want to share with you what sprang from that first company he started and then from all the leaders he then mentored and nurtured as they continued to grow the business:

• That one company is now 22 federally focused operating companies
• That $60M in revenue is now more than $700M
• Those 1,200 team members are now more than 5,000
• That one headquarters is now four different major operating locations
• That one leader mentored, trained and nurtured 2/3rds of our federal contracting leaders today

This leader paved the way for the success that so many of our leaders are having today.  This leader did what most entrepreneurs dream of doing and yet never accomplish – he started a business from scratch, established the headquarters, won those first contracts and built that company into a sustaining, profitable business.

AND, he knew when to turn it over to others to take it to that next level, and yet stay engaged in a mentoring fashion while those new leaders put their talents to work to continue the growth that he had so successfully started.

As a young business leader who learned by listening to the wisdom of those that went before me, I want to thank Fred for teaching me how to succeed in this business.  And I also want to thank Fred for showing us so clearly every single day how special it is to love someone as deeply as he loves Marcia.

His mentoring and nurturing isn’t limited to business.  It’s about life overall.