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Thinking Outside the Box
Your dad was a smart businessman. He was always thinking outside the box. I will never forget when you first moved back to Vermont from Florida. We were having lunch at a local restaurant and he received a call from someone in California. He very rarely took calls during our lunch, but he took this one.
When he came back to the table he said it was his new boss. Citigroup had just purchased Geneva and his boss was now in California. With that twinkle in his eye and a grin on his face, he calming told me that his boss didn't know he had moved to Vermont.
I couldn't believe it. Here's your dad with a corner office in downtown Tampa, with four investment analysts reporting to him, and they don't know he lives in Vermont.
I said, “Brad, are you crazy? Why haven't you told anyone?” He always answered a question with a question. “What's the difference of commuting from Delray Beach to Tampa than from Burlington, VT to Tampa?” I told him 2000 miles! He looked right at me, didn't say a word, and just smiled and laughed.
You see your dad could get away with this because he was a top producer. Savvy, aggressive, smart and creative. Most investment bankers of his caliber do a lot of their transactions from the office. Not your dad. He had to be in the field – shaking hands, meeting owner and employes, watching them work and understand the business first hand. He also met with CEOs and Board member in order to better understand the direction of the company. Like I said, he was smart and he always thought outside of the box.