At some point in our careers, we look back and wonder (and maybe hope) that we’ve made a difference. I can count many ways I made a difference for a company’s revenue, margin, or operating performance, but where I really get satisfaction is seeing the growth of people that worked with me. High performing teams generate great results, and they also align purpose and vision and unify the teams. These teams create new leaders, and those leaders learn and grow and have their own paths to success. This is what I love about my work is this visible trail of success of other people that have been on the ride with me.With the support of a lot of great people, I’ve led sales teams working with all levels of retail in support of businesses annualizing over 100M in revenue. I co-launched a Product Development firm that 12 years later is still doing great things at retail. I grew a small regional packaging company into a much larger company that had contracts with some of the largest pet food clients in the world. And recently, I’ve worked as a Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for a CPG company selling into the casino gifting channel. This latest role has required many adjustments as we managed explosive growth, capital funding solutions, ERP system conversion to NetSuite, and addition of a multi-location 3PL. Through these years and experiences in business, my foundation has been the work ethic learned literally in the trenches with my dad’s construction business as a teenager, and later through the training the U.S. Army gave me as a Field Artillery Officer. I stumbled a few times as a somewhat arrogant young lieutenant but learned very quickly how to work with others in complex and stressful situations and learned how to manage teams as if our lives depended on it, because in that case, they actually did. That level of seriousness has stayed with me as a senior business executive, as I know failure is just around the corner if we don’t have the vision and required leadership to steer around it. My goal is to always lead in this manner, communicate the vision vividly to the people that work with me, and with this transparency and alignment, success and contentment follows.