In the words of Sarah Ban Brathnach, “…the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.” I’m not certain how this happens, but I am certain it does. There is an energy to a vision, particularly when that vision is born from one’s heart and soul. People and things begin to align in ways I could never have imagined. There is an attractive force to this energy. Remarkable people, with extraordinary talent emerge. At first, the interactions seem amazing. Like serendipity and coincidence are more common then you’ve ever realized before. Then, at some point, there is a shift in awareness. These events are not happenstance, there is something larger at work. Almost like the feeling one has when you finally choose to overcome your rationalizations and go on a rollercoaster. Once you’ve been strapped in you can choose to fight it, hold tight out of fear, and miss the exhilirating moments as they come and go. Or, you can resolve yourself to the fact that your destiny is determined and enjoy the ride. Upon reflection, one of the remarkable revelations is that for every significant turn in the road of my career and the journey toward this vision, there has been a person who has served as a catalyst to help me seize the moment. Paul Stachura is one such catalyst.

And so, with heightened awareness to what needs doing and a commitment to finding out what truly excites me, I continued my career. But my career had new meaning to me, it became a quest for “the vision.” Leadership quickly became my focus. Becoming the best leader I can be seemed to be a noble pursuit because every minute of every day presents an opportunity to help others. My career became the practice field to becoming a good leader. Competence in anything takes practice, and increasing competence in something creates confidence. A golfer isn’t born to be the best in the world. He was born with certain talents that can either be developed and together with the right attitude and some good luck can be capitalized on or, if not, wasted. Similarly, leadership skills may be present at birth - this can be debated - but certainly leadership skills can be learned and developed over time with practice. I began to understand this and as the impact on my career was obvious I began to understand that leadership development is important to me. It is said that “…leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow.” More than ever here on earth and particularly in business (and in Little Falls) good leadership is imperative. So, understanding leadership, gaining a track record of success, and clarifying what defines good leadership became a big part of the vision.

When I understood the source of my emptiness it occurred to me that I was free to act to correct it.  What an important revelation!  What a luxury.  And when you understand and consider how rare this is in our world it becomes less taken for granted.  I am truly grateful to all those who dedicated their lives to preserving freedom.

So the burning to return to Little Falls prompted action.  Having evaluated my skill set and my limited business experience, I decided to see if I could pursue an opportunity in the beer distribution industry back home.  Again, Providence intervened and I learned that Valley Beer Wholesalers in Herkimer, NY had been purchased by R.W. Burrows, Jr. - the same man that owned the Herkimer County Trust Company, the bank in Little Falls where my mom worked.  So I wrote Mr. Burrows a letter of introduction.  It seems now, upon reflection, that the rest of this story is a function of that very action.

What happened from here is a long tale and likely worthy of capturing in detail but I choose to simply summarize it all by saying my career and my professional maturity was established over the next ten years.  I am truly grateful to Bill for his confidence in me, for the many significant opportunities I was provided, and for many other things - the people I met and learned from, the MBA from RPI, the YPO experience, the network I established, the tests of character, the failures, the successes, and the experiences that have shaped my destiny both professionally and personally.  It all mattered greatly. 

It was during these ten years that I focused on my career first, family second, and everything else a distant third.  Immersed in my career, I asked Bill one day at dinner to tell me honestly what I could improve on.  His response was, “What you lack is vision.”

Armed with an education, I started thinking about my career.  It is easy to get influenced by the norm.  Hamilton grads were compelled to seek their fortune in professions like finance, to go on to school to become a doctor or a lawyer, to find a place to begin “changing the world” for the better.  I picked a line and got into it.  My first interview was with Proctor & Gamble on campus.  It went pretty well, but I didn’t make the cut.  My next thought was to query a mentor of mine from Hamilton who had graduated two years earlier.  He was making his way on Wall Street.  He got me an interview with MONY so I went to New York City to give it my best shot.  Never was there a fish further from water than me.  The interview was short, and not-so-sweet.  I was 0 for 2 and not at all sure what to do.  It was then that I learned the value of analytical and independent thinking.  To decide what to do next I had to break the objective down to it’s simplest denominator.  I needed a job.  So, what could I do that someone might pay me to do?  Well, I knew the beer business.  And, I knew the name of the family that purchased my grandfather’s beer business.  The rest just kind of fell into place.  A job as a ‘management trainee” at the Syracuse (a place that will be central to my life a lot it turns out) Anheuser-Busch distributorship.  A quick stint on the trucks to show I knew the game, a seized opportunity to be the first computer operations manager, then to add to this the night warehouse manager role for more money.  Working a lot, learning the business, making an impression, tackling the big problems head-on, networking, eyes wide open.  These things seemed to come natural and seemed to guide me quickly to a career path I could’ve never dreamed up.  

Along the way, I married my high school sweetheart and we began to build the foundation of our family.  An apartment, then our first child, then a home, then our second child.  Life picked up speed, fast.  At 24, barely two years out of school, things had changed so much for a kid like me.   The blistering pace of life I was on had hidden my feelings that something was missing.  There was an emptiness, subtle, but present.  Why?  Two beautiful children, a wonderful wife, a nice house, a good job and an emptiness.   Analytical and independent thought was my fallback option again.  What was causing the feeling?  What was missing? 

Upon reflection, I began to focus on family and Little Falls.  The more I reflected the more I realized that the distance, though quite small, was the source of the emptiness.  Lori, my wife, felt it too.

Hamilton College is a unique place and an even more unique culture.  To a kid from Little Falls, who never ventured very far from home, and whose only passion was to play football, Hamilton is an adventure.  A place filled with academicians, history, and people from all over the country and world.  Hamilton quickly shattered my paradigms formed from what I came to realize was an isolated existence.  Not a bad thing, just a reality.  Herein lies a primary value of the Hamilton experience for me.  To truly love Little Falls and to appreciate it fully I learned you have to realize there are other places and cultures in the world that are different.  That choosing to be here and to commit to contributing to this community means you find something so appealing about it that you forsake all other places you can choose to exist.  Sounds obvious, but to a kid from Little Falls, it sometimes isn’t.  Growing up, I thought I knew for sure what a “smart kid” looked like, what “an athlete” did to prepare, hell I even thought I knew what “being smart” meant.  You wanted to know who the “druggies” were?  I could point them out, or so I thought.  Rich kids are jerks, or so I thought.  Blue collar kids were easy to spot… not so much.  My paradigms were all shattered.  Quickly.  The new reality that began to emerge was that my mind is dangerous.  It can convince me of things that are not real, not true.  It is so insidious, that if I am not careful, I can unknowingly convince myself of absurd conclusions without any effort whatsoever. 

Hamilton taught me that my biases were deep - and wrong.  That I should stop my arrogant categorization of people and really seek to understand them, deeply.  In seeking to understand the many wonderful people I met at Hamilton, and to get to know the dear friends I met that still impact my life today, has made a huge difference in the “who that I am.”

Over the years this has manifested itself in many ways.  Most importantly, I have learned to dream.  To take the power of my mind and to use it for good.  It doesn’t take much observation to realize that everything has two creations, first a thought, then the action.  Who is to say something is not possible?  Even more important, who cares what people say?  I am certain that Walt Disney had his critics when he began buying swamp land in the middle of Florida because he envisioned a wonderful world of adventure and theme parks that were so compelling and well run that people from all over the world would save their hard earned money to one day venture there.  Crazy?  To many, yes.  Impossible?  No.

And so it is with this vision Overlook Ridge.  In Little Falls, NY.  I learned from my Hamilton experience that there is a vastness of opportunity and cultures in the world and anyone is free to do whatever it is they choose.  I also learned that anything is possible.  And that if you have a passion, can communicate effectively (something they teach very well at Hamilton), you can realize your dreams and even change the world. 

Precious.

[By the way, there is some pretty bright people that go through the place.  I also learned that I'm not so smart.  Humbling.  Another valuable lesson learned.]

And so, after Hamilton, enlightened, youthful, but still ignorant in so many ways, it was off to begin my career life…

There is something special about Little Falls, New York.  Whatever it is attracted my grandfather here when he left his small town in Italy (Patrica in the province of Frosinone about 40 miles south of Rome), hopped a ship, and at 16 years old decided he was going to come to America to pursue his dream.  He settled here during prohibition and exercised his entrepreneurial spirit as a bootlegger.  He was young, smart, and determined.  Folklore in my family is filled with stories of his guts and saavy, but it was his values and his vision that laid the foundation for our family.  And, the lasting presence of these values through the generations is a testament to the power of his character.  A desire to succeed and a natural inward ability to lead, were qualities that he built on as he grew up here.  When prohibition ended he was awarded a beer distributorship and the Mohawk Valley was his designated territory.  Not Boston, like the Kennedy’s territory, but a place that became him and he a big part of this place.  He gave this to me.  I believe my grandfather’s soul energizes me and fuels the vision within.

As the youngest of his surviving grandchildren, I have always felt deeply committed to this area, my family, and the other people here.  Although I worked in the family beer distributor before it was sold, ironically to the Plymouth, MA (outside of Boston) behemeth beer baron family by the name of Sheehan,  it was business and this area that seemed to be at the core of my dream, and on which I would begin to build the foundation of my own vision.  After graduating from Little Falls High School in 1980 it was off to Hamilton College to play football - the game that was my life and passion at the time.  Little did I know the impact my experience at Hamilton College would have on me and how often it would emerge as a key to the path that has led here.  Now that I am laser focused finally on the vision that is Overlook Ridge I reflect often and have come to realize the role my time at Hamilton College has played in the process.  More to follow…

Little Falls, New York - The New Saratoga

Saratoga Springs is well-known for its horse racing, downtown attractions, and great location. But as this area becomes more costly and populated some people are beginning to look outside of Saratoga at new, unexploited areas for their vacation home destination or a place to settle down with their family.

Little Falls, New York features Overlook Ridge, a new community with breathtaking views of the Adirondack mountains, the Erie Canal, and the Mohawk River. It is a quiet and safe community like Saratoga Springs with a beautiful golf course, a historic village, and is conveniently located between Syracuse and Albany right on the NYS Thruway.

Overlook Ridge has all the amenities of Saratoga, including excellent restaurants, a variety of stores and shops, museums, the historic falls, and the Erie Canal in your backyard.

We’re starting this blog to discuss the great potentional of this area. We’d like to invite comment, investigation, or suggestions about great things to do in Little Falls New York and reasons why we live here, work here, play here.