“At my age, you stop believing coincidence is always random.”
I laughed.
Then signed the Halston Community Ventures agreement.
Not because I suddenly believed I was qualified.
But because for the first time in years, the work felt connected to something larger than winning accounts.
Over the next eighteen months, we built the company.
Our first investment was a family-owned manufacturing shop in Ohio facing closure.
Our second was a rural medical transport company.
Our third was a bakery owned by two sisters who had been rejected by six banks despite fifteen profitable years.
Every investment committee meeting followed one rule.
Before spreadsheets, we met employees.
Machine operators.
Receptionists.
Drivers.
Cooks.
Warehouse workers.
People whose names never appeared in investor presentations but whose lives depended on the decisions made inside boardrooms.
Some deals failed.
Some businesses couldn’t be saved.
Others flourished.
Within three years, Halston Community Ventures had invested in eighty-seven companies and protected more than twelve thousand jobs.
