In 1991 I received a letter that began the chain of events that has brought me to this point in my life. I was a 1ST Lieutenant in the U.S. Army stationed in Schweinfurt German. I had recently returned from Southwest Asia as part of Desert Shield & Desert Storm. The Berlin Wall was about to fall and the old borders with countries which were part of the USSR had opened. The United States having defeated the forces of Saddam Hussein and with the end of the Cold War in sight, by letter, I was informed that my services were No Longer Needed. Officially this was the beginning of the U.S. Military draw down, and I was part of the Reduction in Force. I had been RIF’ed! Fired while stationed in another country with two young daughters and a wife, I was soon to be UNEMPLOYED. I had to do something!Before the age of the internet and on-line job hunting, I found an advertisement in the Army Times for a business called the Military Recruiting Institute (MRI). I drove across Germany from Schweinfurt to Frankfurt, to sit in an Auditorium of about two hundred plus other Lieutenants who had also been RIF’ed. The presentation was by Lou Benjamin, who made it clear that his firm only accepts the best and that 90% of would not be called back. I was blessed with a call and personal interview. Only 50% of those interviewed were “picked up” as candidates of MRI and would be presented to interview with Fortune 500 companies that were looking for young, self-motivated, leaders for positions in their companies. I never fought harder in an interview. I had to make the cut and make this work.I was discharged on February 13, 1992, in Fort Dix, NJ and three weeks later I was in Houston TX for interviews. I had twelve interviews in 24 hours. Some sales and some production. I received two offers from those interviews. One was with Greyhound and would have landed me in downtown Chicago the other was with a company called Clarke American based in San Antonio, TX. Welcome to Texas, and as they say the rest is history.I joined Clarke American (now Harland Clarke) in 1992 and I have been a resident of the San Antonio Metropolitan area since May of that year. In 2014, I began my most recent and most exciting venture in business, choosing to become a licensed Real Estate Agent in Texas. After consideration I decided to join Keller Williams Heritage as they are the Number 1 Brokerage in the San Antonio Board of Realtors.If you want to be the best you align with and work with the best.
Listed skills include Event Management, Large Scale Event Planning, Budget Process, Contract Negotiation, and 23 others.