My first business education came from a family motel, which led to growth of another property over twelve+ years into a hotel built in three stages of expansion, until the property was ultimately taken through eminent domain. I learned early that you can build something real and still lose it to forces outside your control. That lesson followed me into life science commercialization, where I led nineteen product launches across five sectors before that career, too, derailed. Both times, I went looking for the next ground I could stand on.

That ground became real estate, residential, then brokerage, then commercial, culminating in the full CCIM designation curriculum in investment and use analysis. That discipline is what sent me back to school: completing an MBA at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, built around six questions every serious operator eventually has to answer — how to create and capture value, manage performance through data, lead with integrity, manage risk, leverage global opportunity, and foster an innovative mindset.

Four chapters, one capability: I learn unfamiliar systems fast, and lead innovation within them. The chapters changed. What I rebuilt with, each time, didn't.