My grandfathers taught me that exceptional outcomes require exceptional thinking.
Emanuel left school in eighth grade to sweep floors. He built one of Delaware’s largest department store chains. Milton started with a horse and cart, selling meat door to door. He grew one of the East Coast’s most successful packing plants.
Milton started with a horse and cart, selling meat door to door. He grew one of the East Coast’s most successful packing plants.
Discovering the Yes hidden inside a dozen No’s, I learned to look where others don’t.
From Surfboards to Strategies
As a kid, I’d pedal my bike to the Jersey Shore with a surfboard under my arm. The ocean taught me discipline, patience, and timing. Older surfers became mentors in ways I couldn’t yet understand.
The most important lesson: choosing which waves to catch—and which to let pass.
That’s how I approach strategy today. Not every opportunity deserves pursuit. Answers that seem obvious are often the wrong ones. The work is in knowing the difference.
We are self-made entrepreneurs serving self-made entrepreneurial peers—builders who have lived the weight of ownership, risk, and consequence. From that common vantage point, we imagine what planning can become when it is designed by those who have carried it themselves.