So I am kind of overcommitted in my personal life. I am a little obsessed with people. People in general. I like people. People are some of my favorite… oh you get the idea. So because I love people so much, I find it very distressing that some people don’t think they have a chance in life.
Some people are not aware that they have what it takes to live a happier, more productive life within them. It bugs me. Because it’s not true.
Most people are self-limiting, held back by their own nagging doubts and passivity. But it’s not hard to wake people up from this stupor. It only requires that someone draw near to them, look them hard in the eye and say WAKE UP! You can read a book and you can be inspired and you can get an education and BOOM! You can live in a house, own your own car and send your kids to a decent school, where hopefully they won’t have it as hard as you did. For almost any poor person, that is possible. Not easy but possible.
So because I have seen people benefit from this path so often. I am very committed to education. In addition to my real job as CEO of a real estate technology company, I am also (over)engaged in several projects to try and make Huntsville a smarter city.
I am Chairman of the Board of Randolph School, the premier K-12 education institution in the area and the only Independent School between Nashville and Birmingham.
I am also Chairman of the Board of The Village of Promise, a 501(c)(3) focused on intervening in the cycle of generational poverty in Huntsville, specifically University Place Elementary School. Village of Promise was started by a friend of mine and a friend of the Randolph family, Bobby Bradley in who’s own life education was transformational.
Also, I am on the Board of a “second hand store” owned by my wife Julie and I in the Lincoln Village neighborhood. It’s called Village Marketplace and it’s mission is to provide: recovery employment, low-cost goods to the area and steady funding to our partners, the Boys & Girls Club of North Alabama, The Village of Promise and Lincoln Academy, a christian school in the Lincoln Village neighborhood.
What all these things have in common is an effort to help people who want to help themselves. Education across the spectrum is helpful and life-changing and people have to be taught that no one can stop them from living a better life, unless they just don’t go.
