Early years (1980-1998)

Both of my parents worked in the computer industry. I’ve been a “computer geek” as long as I can remember. In fact, I’ve had a computer keyboard under my hands since I was 4 years old. That is when my parents bought me my first computer, a Commodore 64. I remember playing a lot of games on my C64 as a kid. I also taught myself BASIC programming at a very young age and discovered how much fun it could be to write programs to do whatever I wanted. As a kid, I remember reading a lot of Commodore magazines and “Commodore 64: Programmer’s Reference Guide“.

In elementary school, I enjoyed folding things out of paper, especially paper throwing stars. Other kids were interested in these because they were so much fun and asked me to make some for them. I realized that I could mass-produce these and make money by selling them to other kids at school. And so “ZONA Stars” was formed, my first company. I spent all my free time during this period producing my products. I had a folder that I would carry with me everywhere. I remember being in the back seat of my parents car driving places and I was always hard at work making products to sell. I even recruited my brother, who is one year younger than me, as a salesman. This first business proved to be very lucrative. I remember having $25 at one point and thinking “I am rich”. I even made bumper stickers with the ZONA Stars name and logo to help promote my company.

Before widespread use of the internet, I was involved with the local BBS (bulletin board system) scene. This was a small community of computer enthusiasts and hackers who would dial up to local bulletin boards. These were computers where you could play online games, send local email and download files. I ran my own BBS, “The Other Side” which was running on a 286 with 2 500MB SCSI hard drives with a 28.8 modem which was impressive at the time.

I was an early adopter of the Linux Operating system in 1996. I had heard about this “hacking software” as someone had called it, “Slackware Linux“. I got a copy of it, and although I realized that it wasn’t the “hacking software” that I had sought, it was still one of the best things ever. I was very proficient with Linux and involved with it for many years.

While I was in High School, my autocad teacher noticed my computer skills and recruited me to be a system administrator of sorts at my school. Instead of actually drawing things on computers in autocad, my autocad class consisted of working on any of the school’s computers that needed work, and developing a web page for the school showcasing students’ work. Other teachers began to take notice of this and asked me if I could help them with their computers at home. This turned into a nice side business throughout High School where I had a steady client base of teachers and other people associated with the school that I did I.T. work for.

College Years (1998-2000)

My dad had worked for Data General in Westboro, MA since 1978. He got me a job interview while I was still in high school and I think they were very impressed by my skills. After graduating High School in 1998, I went to work for Data General. Everyone there told me that I was the only employee to have ever been hired while I was still in high school. I was originally hired to do qualification testing on SCSI RAID controllers. Over time, this grew into testing of large SAN networks with multiple servers and disk arrays.

I attended RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) and studied Computer Science. When I was younger, I didn’t enjoy classes very much. I am almost entirely self-taught. I had a hard time focusing on my classes because they seemed so boring to me, and I think a lot of it was what I felt was the painfully slow pace that they seemed to move. I was always a bit of a rebel, especially so in college. I was at RIT for a year, and then I transferred to Northeastern University in Boston. I went there for half of a year. I felt like I didn’t have much in common with my classmates, I was already so far ahead of them. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to have a job programming. I didn’t want to sit in an office all day every day and sit behind a computer. I didn’t quite know what I wanted at that point, but I knew what I didn’t want. I decided that college was a waste of my time and an even bigger waste of my parents’ money. I left college after one and a half years.

Life in corporate America (1998-2001)

During school, I had worked for Data General part time (while at RIT, I worked during breaks from school). After leaving school, I worked for Data General full time. Data General was bought out by EMC in 2000. It was around this time that Red Hat Linux was gaining popularity in commercial applications. Under the new management of EMC, the storage group that I worked in began testing larger SAN configurations and also began testing with Linux servers. I was proficient with Linux at the time, and nobody else in my group knew the first thing about it. I began teaching people about it and I became the go-to person for Linux (among other things). I spearheaded an effort to completely redesign and streamline our testing lab.

Even at EMC, I was a bit of a rebel. My cubicle was filled with computers. Anytime people were going to try and dispose of old servers, disk arrays, or whatever, I tried to get these items and hook them up in my office, just for fun and just to play with. I must have had a dozen computers in my office at the high point. Our designated secretary sent out a standardized, dry email to our group letting us know that she was there to help us and asking if there was anything that she could do to make our work experience more productive. I emailed her back and told her that I wanted a tree in my office. Even though I was mostly joking, she got a tree from somewhere else in the building and had it put in my office. After I got the tree, several other employees thought it was funny and gave me more plants, so I basically had a jungle in my cubicle before long. EMC provided free coffee and tea. I would drink 6 or more cups per day. I made a stack of Styrofoam cups that went from my desk all the way to the ceiling. It was a prominent landmark in the office, and many managers disapproved of it and told me so.

I had to do these things to hold my interest and keep working at EMC fun and exciting. After a while, I became bored with the corporate environment. I was also upset that I was not paid what I thought I was worth, because I didn’t have a college degree. That piece of paper is worth a lot in the corporate world. I knew more than people being paid twice what I was being paid. I taught people that were paid twice what I was being paid and they came to me for advice. I had already started a part time business on the side, and one day I approached my manager and demanded a pay increase or I would quit. He was willing to give me an increase but he wasn’t willing to give me what I thought I deserved, so I quit and went on to pursue entrepreneurial activities full time.

early entrepreneurial activities (1999-2003)

Before I left EMC, I had already started a small internet service provider, CyonISP, with two other partners. We provided dial-up access, we resold Verizon DSL and provided web hosting and web design services. We had a significant number of customers quickly, due to the fact that one of my partners was an outstanding salesman who knew a lot of influential people. Although I left CyonISP in 2003, the company is still run profitably by my partners.

During this time, I had several part-time jobs, including working for a company doing onsite computer service for businesses and working for a leasing company selling computers and equipment coming back from their clients after the leases were up. I’ve always been a natural at networking (people networking), and I got all these jobs through friends or through my other contacts.

I started another company, this time selling used computers and laptops, Total Asset Recovery. This was very profitable. We were able to get most of the equipment (broken computers and laptops) for next to nothing or for free. Then, we would fix them and sell them for a large profit. I left the company shortly after starting it. My partner and I had different business philosophies, and we could not come to an agreement on how to run the company. Total Asset Recovery is still run by my former partner to this day.

Total IT Group (2002-2004)

I had gained a significant amount of business knowledge at this point. I took everything that I learned and all that I knew about the computer refurbishing and recycling industry and started another company selling used computers, Total IT Group. I wanted this to be much bigger and better than my previous ventures. I started in my parents’ garage in 2002, buying scrap and broken computers, repairing them and then selling them. After a few months, I trained and hired my brother because I could no longer handle the workload. Within a year, Total IT Group had grown to occupy a 3000 sq ft warehouse and had 4 employees and a van. We were one of the largest suppliers of used PCs in Southeastern Massachusetts, and a top seller of refurbished PCs and laptops on eBay, selling approximately 100 computers per week. We supplied many small computer shops and service providers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We also expanded into reselling new peripherals and accessories.

Even though I was running a computer company, I no longer worked with computers directly because I had employees who did this. I focused my energy on running a business, sales, and marketing. This was the most valuable part of my business education, because I learned about how to really be a business owner rather than someone who is simply self employed.

In the summer of 2004, I saw profits plunge. I kept a close eye on the books, and I had seen profits slowly and steadily declining ever since the beginning. I had done things to counteract this, such as focusing on higher profit items, but the low cost of new computers and added competition in the marketplace had been accelerating. There was still a lot of money in used laptops at this point, but the desktop computers were almost not even worth the work that we had to put into them. I saw where the industry was heading and I decided that the price competition was too much and I decided to get out of the business while I was financially ahead of the game. Looking back, I am thankful that I had the foresight to make this choice at the time I did. I had been reading books about Real Estate and thinking of Real Estate investing for years. I realized that it was time to make the jump.

Beginning in sales (2004-2005)

Although I had some sales experience selling for my previous businesses, sales was not something that came naturally to me at all. I had read many books that stressed the importance of going into sales and learning how to be a great salesman, especially Rich Dad, Poor Dad which I was reading at the time. I had a great interest in Real Estate and I felt that this is where my future was. Going into Real Estate sales seemed to be the obvious answer, so I set out getting my Real Estate sales license.

After getting my license, I worked for NextGEN Realty in Boston, MA as a rental agent. I did this for 6 months without making any money. I wanted to be successful, but I was my own worst enemy. I was too self conscious and too “shy” to make phone calls in front of other people. I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing and I didn’t feel like I was getting the proper training, but I also wasn’t putting in the effort on my part. This was an integral part of my sales training and learning experience. I read a lot of books and I knew what to do intellectually, but I didn’t apply what I was learning.

After NextGEN, I left and went to ERA in Waltham in a traditional Real Estate Sales position. I had read books on how to be a successful Real Estate Agent, but I didn’t know what to do day-to-day to be successful. I didn’t receive any support or guidance on what I should be doing. Most people in my office would sit around in the office all day and drink coffee and they didn’t appear to actually do anything. After 6 months, I couldn’t see it going anywhere.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I was not confident in my own abilities. This was a low point in my life. I was working on a business plan for another business that I was planning to launch, when I received a job offer from a friend who I used to do computer service for.

Industrial Services & Engineering (2005-2007)

I went to work for Industrial Services and Engineering (ISE) in the summer of 2005. ISE is a company specializing in Forensic Engineering serving the insurance industry.

I was hired for my background in electronics and computers. Although I didn’t have the educational credentials for the job, the owner of the company knew that I had the skills that the job required. ISE had been asked by their clients to investigate and evaluate lightning damage and other types of electrical damage, but they were not able to do so effectively. I took on the responsibility for developing this part of the company, eventually bringing in an electrician and electrical engineer to assist me with these investigations. My responsibilities at ISE included site examination to determine origin and cause of damage, conducting interviews of involved parties and estimating repair and replacement costs. I worked on hundreds of insurance losses and evaluated millions of dollars worth of damage from residential homes up to strip malls and commercial buildings.

ISE purchased a FLIR ThermaCAM Infrared camera. This type of camera senses heat, and can be used in many different applications. I continued my professional education by taking several classes at FLIR and becoming a Certified Infrared Thermographer. I used the camera to diagnose electrical problems, roof leaks, freeze damage, building construction issues, among other things.

I attended several classes and seminars on Fire Investigation. I attended Eastern Kentucky University and received my certification as a CFEI (Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator) in record time. This time around, I enjoyed my classes very much and did very well. I went on to investigate hundreds of fire losses and explosions for insurance companies such as St. Paul Travelers and Allstate. I worked on all types of fires, from the small kitchen fire up to multi-million dollar losses where several buildings were burned.

Although I enjoyed this career, I knew from the beginning that this career was not my calling in life. I enjoyed the learning and growth associated with this career, but I knew that I did not have a future working for someone else. I have always and will always be an entrepreneur at heart with a strong desire to build businesses and work on investments.

Within 2 years of taking the job at ISE, I had gone from being brand new to the industry to being a well respected player in the industry. I felt that I had reached a point where I was no longer growing, and the day-to-day tasks of my job became drudgery. At this point, I decided it was time to quit, because it was no longer fun and I did not need the income from the job to survive. I left ISE in the summer of 2007 to pursue my other business ideas and investments.

Back to entrepreneurship and investments (2006-2008)

I have been an avid reader of business, investment and real estate books for many years. I knew that my future was in Real Estate investments. While I was working for ISE, I bought my first investment property, a 4 unit apartment building in 2006. Since buying it, I have learned a lot about renovations, cash flow management, and being a landlord in Massachusetts (one of the hardest states there is).

I co-founded Blackstone Valley Home Solutions, which specializes in educating and assisting people in foreclosure.

Check out the projects page to see what I’m doing now.