Why It Is Never Too Late to Write Your Next Chapter

After 18-years in the recreational marine industry, I have decided to pursue a new path, and journey into the world of disaster management. As many of you know, I have been involved with DockMaster Software since the end of 2002. I owned the company with my former partner Keith Beaty until 2013. At that point, we sold the business to My-Villages (aka MyTaskit) and pivoted slightly into the task management software arena. In May of 2017, Valsoft acquired DockMaster and I agreed to once again run the company as its President.

There was and still is plenty to do at DockMaster. The company is growing and there are plenty of opportunities ahead. But I felt it was time for me to take a step back and ask myself, where do you see yourself in 5, 10 and 15-years?  

A book I often recommend to young entrepreneurs and business leaders is “The War of Art” by Stephen Pressfield. Pressfield is best known for his novel and subsequent screenplay, “The Legend of Bagger Vance”. In the “War of Art”, Pressfield describes the battle he and every other creative on the planet go through in their head to produce something new and relevant.

"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” Stephen Pressfield

You might call the Resistance "emotional work.” For example, it's not technically hard to give a speech to a room full of people, you just stand up there and talk. What’s hard is the Resistance in your head telling you all of the reasons you aren’t good at giving speeches.

So, I had to honestly ask myself, what am I putting off out of fear because the Resistance stands in my way? Because what we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations they are willing to have, either with themselves or with others.

This led me to realize the two things I was looking for in the next phase of my career, 1) I want to build something that would have a huge impact in a positive way on people’s lives and 2) I want to increase my opportunities to learn while helping others.

Impacting Lives in a Positive Way:

At DMG we are building a global company, with a diverse set of products, that truly help people in need. Most people run from disasters, at DMG we run to them. Whether it be to aid survivors of a hurricane, flood, earthquake or fire, or to provide temporary housing, containment, hospitals and clinics in the wake of a pandemic like COVID-19, we seek to help people. Tom Rubio our CEO learned this firsthand when he came to the aid of those effected by Hurricane Dorian in the Northern Bahamas last summer. Tom’s passion to help people in need shapes the culture at DMG and this is something I wanted to be part of. 

Increase Learning Opportunities:

I learned a lot in my 18-years with DockMaster. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I believe I learned from many of those mistakes to help improve the company. The DockMaster business has been transitioned into the very able hands of Kent Howard and the leadership team at Valsoft. DockMaster is a very valuable asset and while I helped to increase DockMaster’s value, it is the amazing team and their dedication to both the product and the DockMaster customers that make the company so valuable.

From the Valsoft leadership team, I learned invaluable lessons about how to buy and grow sustainable software businesses. It starts with building a culture based on meritocracy. Netflix is a great example of this. At Netflix they call it the Dream Team.

“If you think of a professional sports team, it is up to the coach to ensure that every player on the field is amazing at their position and plays very effectively with the others. We model ourselves on being a team, not a family. A family is about unconditional love, despite, say, your siblings’ bad behavior. A dream team is about pushing yourself to be the best teammate you can be, caring intensely about your teammates, and knowing that you may not be on the team forever.” Netflix

At DMG, I will certainly learn a lot about rapid deployment of temporary structures, logistics management, navigating government regulations both domestically and internationally, securing supply chains, medical research, and of course the technology required to grow a company worldwide. The learning opportunities are almost endless.

The list of people I have met and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude over the past 18 years is far too long to include here. DockMaster has wonderful customers, who are passionate about sharing the boating experience with everyone. This is what led me to DockMaster in the first place, a passion for boating and an interest in preserving our aquatic resources, especially in Florida. I also value the great partners DockMaster counts on to deliver a complete solution to its clients.

The marine industry does get into your blood stream as one lifelong industry executive told me. It is the people in the industry and the great team at DockMaster that I will miss the most. My goal is to visit as many of my formers customers as possible when my wife and I decide to write the next, next chapter, on our future live aboard boat.

Thanks to each of you who helped make the DockMaster chapter such a wonderful experience for me!