[Seahawk]

I have always been entrepreneurial. My Mother was a real estate broker and was very money savvy. My Dad was incredible bright but rather stolid with his investing...the miracle of compound interest. I learned a lot from both.

I worked all through HS in the summers and during the school year on weekends.

In college I was a white water rafting guide for a year and then decided, with two older teachers who were also guiding in the summer for the same company I was, to start our own small company.

This was in 1976. I was 19. We did very well since we decided to market heavily in the Bay Area in person - me - and Los Angeles. We also decided to focus on fun rather than wear people out about how cool we were. I was amazed at the few other companies at the time were all very serious about the whole experience, very whole earth, mother earth, etc. Which is fine, they had a good client base I am sure. We focused on the customers having fun. We also hired witty guides and funny, witty women guides. We discovered that nobody really cares how expert the guide is, just that they get down the river safely and enjoy the ride. Our repeat business, which we tracked, was excellent.

We also started a kayaking school that also did well. Remember, this was in the '70's before driving to the 7-11 became "extreme". Again, teach but have fun.

I sold my shares when I commissioned in the Navy and made, at the time, a bunch of money. I invested the proceeds and then I bought a house in Coronado, California when I was stationed there in 1984. I rode the real estate crest and sold before the market broke...luck on my part. I had orders to Maryland and didn't want to own/rent from across the country.

Also at that time I developed a toy with another guy. 'Top Gun' all the rage and we developed a few toys for kids bikes and cars that took advantage of it. It was called Top Gun Grip (we were not sued amazingly - I had no idea what I was doing) and was basically a replica of a fighter pilots control head on the jet...it replace the standard stick shift on a car and the rubber version replaced the steering bar grips on a bike. We also did a desk top version, all the button worked and made machine gun noises, bombs dropping, etc. You could grab it and "shoot down" your co-workers. Way too goofy for words.

It did well for a few years and then dropped off to zero. I Googled it and can't find any remnant of it. It was no hula hoop that's for sure. I think I have a few in the attic. The best part of the experience was going to a toy show in New York, meeting a whole lot of creative people and getting to know the toy world a little bit.

I continued to invest in real estate and then became a farmer and business owner while still in the Navy. My wife was also doing well as an engineer so the intent of the farming and horse businesses was to make money but also take advantage of tax laws and have significant write-offs.

So we did. I made O-6 in the Navy and stayed very busy. My wife did well, too.

After retirement I started a company that specializes in Unmanned Systems for DoD and commercial markets. As we progressed, we started two other companies, one to make a specific commercial UAS fixed wing aircraft and the other to do computational fluid dynamics analysis for commercial UAS. We are doing well and are on the cusp of making what we hope will be significant partnerships.

My point in writing all this is that, while hard, making money is a function of awareness and effort. There is no magic bean. I could have made much more money (at least to date) had I taken the offers when I retired for partnerships in companies that support DoD in what is commonly called 'Systems Engineering and Technical Support - a$$es in seats as they are called: Non DoD civil servants who support the military and other government agencies. I was really good at DoD acquisition but had grown to loathe the process. So I declined and took a risk doing something I really wanted to do that had less up front remuneration but was my own.

I had created a solid foundation from which to take those risks, but even while in the Navy I tried to create value from my off time.

Awareness and effort. In my UAS business I made some interesting mistakes but I was smart enough and worked hard enough to recognized my mistakes and work my way through them. That has also become another opportunity, one I hope to share in a few months.

Finally. I get asked about investing all the time. The basics are pretty easy but for some reason they are also easily forgotten. My goal is to create value, not necessarily just make money.