In this episode of The Boulos Beat, host Greg Boulos speaks with Bob Gould, a retired partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, about his extensive leadership roles in both commercial and nonprofit sectors. Bob currently holds positions as Principal at Spinnaker Trust, Trustee and Investment Committee Chair of the Pinkerton Foundation, and Co-Chair of the Board of Squash Haven. The two discuss Bob’s family's history in Maine, his involvement in the Black Point Inn acquisition, and his role in the Portland Museum of Art's Winslow Homer Studio purchase. Bob also shares insights on the growth of the Pinkerton Foundation, the importance of mentorship, and his views on Portland's development and the future of Spinnaker Trust.
In this episode of The Boulos Beat, host Greg Boulos speaks with Bob Gould, a retired partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, about his extensive leadership roles in both commercial and nonprofit sectors. Bob currently holds positions as Principal at Spinnaker Trust, Trustee and Investment Committee Chair of the Pinkerton Foundation, and Co-Chair of the Board of Squash Haven.
The two discuss Bob’s family's history in Maine, his involvement in the Black Point Inn acquisition, and his role in the Portland Museum of Art's Winslow Homer Studio purchase. Bob also shares insights on the growth of the Pinkerton Foundation, the importance of mentorship, and his views on Portland's development and the future of Spinnaker Trust.
Bob Gould 3
Fri, Sep 13, 2024 11:13AM • 1:18:16
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
spinnaker, years, pinkerton, portland, business, maine, work, trust, investment, proutsneck, buy, company, foundation, squash, opportunity, gillespie, life, involved, family, bob
SPEAKERS
Bob Gould, Greg Boulos
Greg Boulos 00:00
I'd like to welcome our listeners to the Boulos beat podcast. I'm your host. Greg Boulos, The Boulos Company is northern New England's largest commercial real estate services firm with offices in Portland, Maine, as well as Manchester and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We've been selling and leasing real estate in Maine, in New Hampshire, since 1975.This podcast is designed to provide insight into Maine's leaders, is movers and shakers. And speaking of leaders, I'd like to welcome Bob Gould, a retired partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. He retired in 2011 after a 30-year career. Subsequently, he has assumed a number of leadership positions in both commercial and nonprofit endeavors, including many in and around Portland. His current roles include principal at Spinnaker trust in Portland, trustee and Investment Committee. Chair of the Pinkerton Foundation in New York, co-president of the board of the Hodgkin's school in Lakeville, Connecticut, Chairman of the Board of magnetic analysis Corporation in Elmsford, New York, co-chair of the board of squash haven in New Haven, Connecticut, manager of BPI partners in Scarborough, manager of Black Point conservation partners in Scarborough. Bob is the past president of the Proutsneck Association, a former member of the board of advisors of the Yale School of Management, a former board member of the Portland Museum of Art and, last but not least, a former board member of the Portland Community squash. And if that is not enough, when he was already a trustee of the Pinkerton Foundation in New York, Bob agreed to serve as Chairman of the Investment Committee starting in January 2011 Bob makes all the investment decisions for the foundation with the participation of two Investment Committee members, despite making grants of over 450 million, the foundation's portfolio has increased from approximately 500 million in December 2011 to over 700 million as of March, 2024 at Spinnaker, he supports the firm's investment processes. Bob has been married since 1989 to the former Sarah Copeman, the couple reside in Manchester, Mass and Proutsneck in Scavel Maine. The couple has three adult daughters, all living in New York City. Bob enjoys all racket sports, sailing, golf and politics. Welcome to the Boulos Beat. Bob. Bob, you are not a Maine native. How'd you happen to come to Maine and why split your time between here and Massachusetts?
Bob Gould 02:25
Well, I'm not a Maine native. I'm from away by any definition. I grew up around New York, but back in 1910 my great grandfather was he had grown up in good effort, and he was a successful lawyer in New York City. And by 1910 the railroads came up here, and there was an opportunity to buy three acres of land on Proutsneck from the artist Winslow Homer. And so my great grandfather actually bought three acres of land, and he had one daughter, and then she had two kids, and one of those kids is my mother, and so my family's been in the same house at Proutsneck since 1910 trying to enjoy as much of the summer as possible. So that really was for me, ever since I was a little kid, time in Maine was always amazingly important.
Greg Boulos 03:17
Does he know Wimmer hang out?
Bob Gould 03:19
Though? Oh, absolutely. Actually, we still have the correspondence between the two of them when he bought the pieces of land that made up the original parcel that he bought.
Greg Boulos 03:27
Yeah, don't lose that. That's,
Bob Gould 03:30
I think we offered it to the part of the Museum of Art, and they said, Actually, we've got lots of the Homer family were real estate developers at Proutsneck. In the end, they owned a big part of Proutsneck, and then sold lots as people were building summer cottages in the early part of the 20th century.
Greg Boulos 03:48
You don't have any idea what he paid for that lot. Do
Bob Gould 03:52
you, you know, I think it was still a lot of money. It was, you know, a couple $1,000 which was a lot. Yeah, back then it was a lot of money. I think it was maybe, you know, two or $3,000 in a similar amount to build a home, something like that. I bet you could double your money. Now, you know, tax on unrealized gains,
Greg Boulos 04:14
so you spend your time in Proutsneck and also Massachusetts. But why not move to an income free, income tax free state like Florida, Wyoming, New Hampshire,
Bob Gould 04:25
yeah. So, as I said, I grew up in the New York area, and we moved to Massachusetts back in 2002 or so. And you know, we've been residents of Massachusetts really all that time for tax reasons and the like and, you know, it was a 5% state income tax, and it felt pretty reasonable for the services that one got. There were good public schools, and, you know, very fine public schools. And we haven't really been tempted by the Be. You know, go, go seek a place. There's, I've forgotten who said it, but somebody very wise, I think, said that if you've been really fortunate, you know, why would you swap where you want to live? Just it's, hasn't been something that's been ever really on our agenda in terms of thinking about moving south or whatever, full time, that's great.
Greg Boulos 05:25
Based on your bio, we know that you're into the racquet sports squash, I believe. What about tennis and racquetball? And
Bob Gould 05:33
yeah, I I was a aspiring tennis player as a kid, and desperately wished I was, was better than I was, and I got to college and wasn't really going to be good enough to play on the tennis team, so I went over to the gym and convinced the squash coach to let me practice with him for 20 minutes. And he said, yeah, maybe you've got a shot. And I managed to make the team my junior year and played on the varsity squash team my senior year in college, I once I got to be a dad and had a family and was doing a lot of commuting. Squash is very physical game stuff. I mostly went back to tennis, but I still love playing squash tennis, anything with a racket. I've played it at one time or another, sailing too, right? I do love to sail as well, and we have a boat here in Maine and try to get out as much as we can. But we joke that sailing is the world at five or six knots, and Maine's got a lot of coastline. It takes a long time to get from Proutsneck, for example, all the way up to Penobscot bay or things like that. We love doing it, but our children are now, and for years, we hijacked our children and made them come with us on a cruise every summer in Maine. But now that they're in their late 20s and 30s, they don't respond to that sort of instruction.
Greg Boulos 06:57
You know, I, I prefer power boat voting because you can get from A to B quickly. But every time I've ever gone on a sailboat, it just seems like a lot of yelling, and like yelling at me to do this, do that, and it's nerve wracking.
Bob Gould 07:12
Greg, our sailing, we really did love to sail. My wife is a very fine sailor, and had taught sailing as a kid in England, she's English, and so as our kids were young, we actually did bare boat charters in the Caribbean, and sailed most of the length of the Caribbean. And so there was no yelling and screaming. What there was the three girls all reading books, having a good time, and I was doing all the work, and Sarah was doing all the work, but there was no yelling. It was just the girls enjoying while we worked.
Greg Boulos 07:45
I should have gone on your boat, if you don't mind me asking me You've accomplished so much, we're going to get into that. But how old are you?
Bob Gould 07:52
I'm 65 just got my Medicare card.
Greg Boulos 07:56
Congratulations. Can't believe it. Any plans on retiring? Or are you going to be like myself, where my retirement party will be the same as my funeral?
Bob Gould 08:07
Yeah, I feel like our generation has been extraordinarily lucky in some really important ways, and one of them is that the timing of the development of zoom and related technologies enables us right at the point in life where we're getting to a stage where we we'd like greater flexibility in our schedules and ability to control where we are, but still have a desire to be productively involved in a number of enterprises or nonprofits or what have You, and suddenly the technology is available to do it. And so I don't, I definitely think about reducing the number of things that I have at the moment. I'm probably a little over committed right now, but I have no interest in fully retiring. And I think, you know, one of the things I've become aware of as I've gotten to my age, is that people's networks will naturally start to narrow as you get into your mid 60s or so, unless you work very, very hard to offset that by putting yourselves in new situations with new people and meeting new people doing different things, your network may narrow to Your family and those who are closest to you or what have you, but I do derive an enormous amount of stimulation from meeting folks who are out really trying to change the world in one way or another. And so full retirement isn't and my golf game isn't that good, and it would get between my ears, and that would be a real that would be a problem. But, you
Greg Boulos 09:43
know, you're right about the network narrowing. I mean, I found that with myself, people dying, and it's so hard to do business with them after they've passed. But listen, Bob, you live at Proutsneck, as we discussed part of the year, and you were part. The effort to purchase the Black Point Inn several years ago as part of that purchase, I believe there were several lots that came with the hotel. What was the motivation to purchase a Proutsneck in and what's the story on how it all unfolded?
Bob Gould 10:13
So this goes back to the early 2000s where the Black Point Inn, a very historic hotel right in the center of Proutsneck on nine and a half acres, and it was owned by Eric chinkette at the time. And Eric was a very smart, is a very smart businessman. He figured out that, you know, the Black Point Inn was really a magical property, and he was expanding it. And I think the proud snap community was a little bit late to realize that the Black Point Inn had 88 hotel rooms, and then it had another 60 staff rooms and cottages and various things. And Eric was ambitious. And at some point, I think people realized that, oh gosh, the scale of the black point in, and the facilities and things that that are available at Proutsneck were going to be in conflict, and that was going to be a long term problem for the community. And so I was involved in efforts to check and see, you know, is the expansion of the black point in really a good idea. And there were some fights down at town hall and zoning boards and things like that. And the community was increasingly resistant to big expansion of the inn. And Eric was talking about potentially putting in underground parking and other significant and really wanted it to be a wedding venue all the time and things like that. So there was a an opening where Eric, I guess, had must have indicated that at some price, he'd be potentially willing to sell it. And community leaders at Proutsneck had had two or three opportunities to buy the black point in in years past and hadn't taken advantage of those opportunities. And we looked around and said, We're never going to get this opportunity again. And so a Proutsneck friend named Ogden Honeywell, who's been involved in commercial real estate and in Proutsneck and myself went to see the broker, and there was a price that was put on the table, and we didn't haggle. We said, Okay, we're going to do that. And nine of us put up the money originally to sign a purchase agreement. We leased the end for a year, and that gave us time to go out in the community and ask additional families to join the group. But we it was a firm purchase agreement in, you know, I don't know, February of 2005 that we would close on the purchase in January of 2006 and we'd rent it in the meantime. And we did that, and we started calling families at Proutsneck. And I think 39 families participated in purchasing the inn, and at that point, we now had, you know, control of the inn, and we hired managers and oversaw it, and met every week to talk about how it was doing. But we quickly realized that the really the ideal long term solution was to turn it into a smaller inn that only had 26 rooms, which was really the historic footprint of the inn. If you went all the way back to the 1890s or whatever, when it was built, and that would be a size of inn that would could be accommodated within the community, so that anyone who came and beat was a guest at the Black Point Inn was welcome to play tennis at the country club or play on the golf course, or use the beach and walk all of the private roads and things at Proutsneck. But the that created the opportunity for the creation of 13 lots, and the creation of 13 lots presented the opportunity to get the investors back their money. And so that's what we did, off the lots. So we spun off the lot, individual lots, and the people who invested in the in the purchase of the in were given the first opportunity to buy the lots. And that's really how it played out. Now, we sold a number of the lots in 2007 but we didn't get them all sold. And then there was a little thing called the great financial crisis in 2008 so the last of the lots probably didn't get sold till 2010 11, you know, somewhere, but number of years later. But ultimately, the investors have done quite well. We still own the end, we lease it to the migas Hotel Group, which runs the inn, and they do a nice job. And now the inn really fits in the community. And I think the guests, you know, the town of Scarborough, very, very importantly, wanted the public accommodation to remain, and that was okay with us. We just wanted to make sure it was of a scale that the community and the hotel could coexist. And you know, we're tough about certain things. There are no. You know, the wedding business is an important business, but we don't allow the end to do weddings in July and August, because it's a short, short season, and people don't want, you know, loud bands or something, till two in the morning. You know, every that's when most of the residents are most of the residents are there in July and August. And obviously the pandemic has for Proutsneck, just like I'm sure communities all over the coast, all over Maine. You know, remote work has changed everything. You know, I said that I have three daughters, and I worried for a period of time that, you know, they'd be lucky to get a week off every summer that they could come to Maine, and that would be sort of it. And of course, with remote work, you know, I don't think they'd accept a job that wouldn't let them work remotely for at least a number of weeks in, you know, in Maine in the summer. And so now the question is, sort of in the house, how many locations are there that people can be working simultaneously and get the internet speed stronger and things like that. So it's, it's, it's been a blessing that, and I think that's really, you know, I've said this a number of times that I think for the state of Maine, the introduction of remote work is a isn't tremendously powerful and important change. It brings, you know, the opportunity to live in the state of Maine and to enjoy the quality of life and the access to the water and the mountains and a small city like Portland that's got such a vibrant arts and food and other scene that is hugely attractive to highly educated people. But the job market was always narrow. It was always thin. And today you have people coming to Maine for the quality of life whose paycheck is not being derived from the Maine economy. It's being derived from the global economy, and they're working remotely here in Maine. Now I think that creates stresses and strains, because many of those people have expectations in terms of services and things that they'd like, and that growth can create pressure. And I think we'll see that. We're already seeing that. We've seen that in the housing market, yeah, housing market, obviously in Portland, we've seen it very distinctly there. But anyway, so that's the story of the Black Point Inn. It's really, I think it's worked out really well for the community and for the Scarborough area at large. And the black point in is a successful commercial enterprise, and we reinvest in it every year to try to keep it that way. And
Greg Boulos 17:38
what was your role with the Portland Museum of Art acquisition of the Winslow Homer studio in the surrounding land, right?
Bob Gould 17:45
Yeah, that was another sort of complicated situation. So the Portland Museum of Art purchased the Winslow Homer studio at Proutsneck from Chippy willower, a member of the willauer family, which is related to the Homer family, but when they purchased it, it was on a piece of land that was only about maybe 100 by 100 it was a very small postage stamp of of relatively small piece of land. But very importantly, there was a U shaped parcel of land that surrounded the Winslow Homer studio, and included the land on the ocean front side of the studio. So when the museum bought it, they only acquired the little the 100 by 100 area right on the road, and there was a U shaped lot around the front of it. And I was involved with a man has deceased, a guy named George Gillespie, who is a real mentor for me. He had been the senior Trust and Estates attorney at Cravath Swain and Moore for 40 years or so, and a very high standards. You only got one chance with George, but and he was we had gotten to know each other through that black point in process that I'd been involved in. And he asked me to get involved. I was the president of the Proutsneck Association, sort of the, you know, the end of the long standing non profit entity at Proutsneck. And I began discussions with Mark beer about Gee. Mark's the director, the director of the part of the part of the museum of art that they, you know, the community hoped that we wouldn't have, you know, busses coming for tours of the studio all the time. And I expressed to him that I thought maybe there was a deal to be done that I would help raise money to help the museum have the funds necessary to buy that U shaped parcel, which wasn't going to be cheap because the people who owned it were, you know, getting plans to put a house right in front of the going right in front of the studio, blocking its view. And so that was going to be expensive, but I said I thought I could help raise the money, or substantial part of the money, to do that, but that the community would like. An agreement with the Portland Museum of Art about how the how the studio would be used in future years. And after lots of back and forth with some, with some, Lenny Nelson was very involved from the Portland museum of art as well as Mark and several other people. And out of it came really two goals. One was we did get an agreement put in place as to how the museum would use it, and folks who've gone on the tours of the studio and the like. That's the result of it, that that's how people visit the studio. But there was also a hope that through that effort, we would bring the Proutsneck community and the Portland Museum of Art closer together. And today, I think there are three board members on the PMA board, including, I think that the chair, the president of the board, is, or she may have just finished her term. Actually, George Gillespie's daughter, Eileen, has been the most recent president of the PMA, and we were able, the PMA was successfully able to buy that U shaped parcel protect the studio. We got an agreement in place, and the relationship between the PMA and the Proutsneck community was really strengthened dramatically. And no tour busses, no tour busses. There's a Mercedes Benz, sort of 16 passenger van that picks, picks guests up at the Portland Museum of Art, and drives them out, and they're given an opportunity to do a full tour at the studio and then walk out onto the rocks and enjoy the and see where Homer painted from, and the like. And that, that whole package is sort of, you can book them on. You can book them online, and we track the, you know, the usage of that, and it's well attended. Bob, you're
Greg Boulos 21:47
chairman of the Pinkerton Foundation, Investment Committee in New York. What is the Pinkerton foundation? Yeah,
Bob Gould 21:53
it's a, it's a wonderful story. And my involvement actually goes back to that, that same man, George Gillespie, that I mentioned to you. So the story, roughly, is that the Pinkerton family is the guards family. It was, unfortunately, best known for failing Abraham Lincoln. But they, you know, the Pinkerton guards are, you know, legendary for years and years. Well, in the 1970s the Pinkerton security company was still ongoing, and there was a business there that was had some value, but the last of the Pinkerton family members to actually run the company was given a bad medical diagnosis, and so he sat down with his trust and estates lawyer George Gillespie to consider what to do, and together, they agreed that He should leave his estate to part of it in a trust to take care of a daughter, and the other part to create a private foundation that would be for disadvantaged youth of the city of New York. And the charming part of the story, you know, obviously it's sad in the beginning that Mr. Pinkerton Did, did pass away. But the way the instructions were left was that this Foundation was created, and MR. Gillespie was the first trustee, and then a few months later, JP Morgan would join as a second trustee, but all investment decisions would be unanimous, and that all seemed sort of logical, but what really happened is, when the Pinkerton business was sold, I may not have these numbers right, but I think it was sold for about $30 million so 15 million went to into a trust to take care of his daughter for the balance of her life, and the other 15 million established the foundation MR. Gillespie purchased 100% of the money went into shares of Berkshire Hathaway. And a few months later, JP Morgan joined as the CO trustee, and of course, came in with all their investment experts in a great diversified program as to what they thought they should do, and presented it. And MR. GILLESPIE said, that's all very interesting. Thank you very much. But no, actually, we're not going to do any of that, and it requires a unanimous consent, so it's going to stay the way it is. And you know, so the Pinkerton Foundation, when I got involved, MR. Gillespie made me so let's you know, nominated me as a trustee back in 2009 or so. And at that point, the Pinkerton Foundation was about $125 million even though had been giving away 5% every year. But, you know, Berkshire Hathaway had taken it from 15 million to 125 million. But at the same time, his daughter hadn't needed a lot of expenses to take care of her. And so that part which had also been invested exclusively in Berkshire Hathaway, had grown to like 350 million. And when she passed away, which was right when I retired from my primary career at Brown Brothers Harriman at the end of 2010 when I called to our. Gillespie to tell him that I was making that decision. He said, Well, actually, Mr. Pinkerton's daughter died last night, and so instead of 125 million, the foundation's going to grow to 475 million. And as a, as a would you be interested in being the chairman of the Investment Committee and managing that portfolio? And I said, Yes, that would be a wonderful thing to sort of build the portfolio of activities that I wanted to do going forward. And I'm proud to say that foundation is now about 700 million, and we get and it gives away 35 million or more to youth development agencies in the city of New York, the people involved in it are among the most, the most giving and brilliant people that I've come across in any part of my life. And it is a privilege to be involved in it. When we went from 125 million to sort of 375, there was a big 475, I guess there was a big analysis of, did the Pinkerton foundation need to expand its mandate beyond just youth development in the city of New York? And there was all this discussion until the executive chairman, another wonderful guy named Rick Smith, who had been the CEO of Newsweek for he was the editor in chief and the CEO of Newsweek for decades, and once joked that the only job he thought would be better would be the to run the Pinkerton foundation. Well, he's probably he's in his 70s now. He's been running the Pinkerton foundation for the last 10 years. But he in response to whether or not the mandate should be expanded, he said, one in every 300 Americans as a child in the New York City public schools. There's plenty of need in the city of New York to absorb 35 million a year, or a lot more than that, and so yeah, so I've been running that Foundation's endowment now for the last 14 years or so, and it's been that's been great.
Greg Boulos 27:05
And are you still exclusively invested in Berkshire Hathaway? No,
Bob Gould 27:08
no. Berkshire Hathaway is still the largest part of that portfolio. But no, it's, it represents, you know, less than a quarter of the portfolio. But, and, you know, there's a well known story in Maine that the you know, when the alphon family sold Dexter shoe to Berkshire Hathaway, they took stock and Greg Powell, who's run that portfolio forever, and I have had a number of lunches just to sort of chat about very large exposures to Berkshire Hathaway and belief in in Buffett and Munger leadership of that business for years and years, but Munger has passed away. Munger has passed away now. I had the incredible privilege again through George Gillespie, who was very close to Munger. I got to have dinner with him twice, and play golf with him once at Proutsneck. And he's absolutely brilliant, and the two of them had an enormous impact on my investment thinking and investment
Greg Boulos 28:12
philosophies. The story goes that Warren Buffett said the worst investment that Berkshire Hathaway ever made was Dexter shoe. Yeah, it certainly was the best investment that the Dexter family shoe family ever made.
Bob Gould 28:25
Yeah. The impact of the Berkshire Hathaway acquisition of Dexter shoe, the impact that that has had on the state of Maine is remarkable. I mean, because, you know, I don't remember what the value of Dexter shoe was, I think it was in the order of six or 700 million or so. But that stock, you know, like you know, Berkshire shares, held for a very long time, became worth many, many multiples of that and the program to provide a starting savings account for children in the state of Maine, enormous facilities for major colleges and universities in Maine. The investments throughout protect, you know, particularly in Central Maine, and just the philanthropy overall that has flowed from those families and from that transaction is really, really powerful impact in the state of Maine.
Greg Boulos 29:20
Can you explain to me, you talk about 5% of the asset that Pinkerton has, yeah, it gives you give to charity, yeah, I hear that 5% a lot of IRS
Bob Gould 29:33
rule, yeah. So if you set up a private foundation, the private foundation, I believe, needs to meet a 5% it's not. You don't have to pay out all 5% but the expenses related to actually running the foundation, plus the actual grants that are made, needs to make meet 5% in order for the foundation to be essentially exempt from taxes, at least. That's. That's my understanding of it. Certainly at the Pinkerton Foundation, we have never contemplated missing it. I mean, we always make, you know, we're always spending 5% or more. You can you can spend more than 5% you can spend more than 5% but I think the point is, if you set up a private foundation and you get the benefit of that non taxable situation. Well, the purpose is for it to be a charitable entity, and you should give away but from an investment management perspective. So if you think, Okay, I'm gonna give away 5% every year and then there's two or 3% inflation, well that means I need to grow those assets at least 8% just to maintain the purchasing power of the yet the foundation's annual grants, and my goal has obviously been to massively grow the purchasing power of the grants that the Pinkerton foundation is able to give.
Greg Boulos 30:52
And Bob, you're a principal at Spinnaker trust located here in Portland, right? What does Spinnaker trust do? And what's your role there?
Bob Gould 31:01
Right to Spinnaker trust is, is a wealth management firm set up by Dick Curran, who's a well known Portland trust in the States, and wealth management person who's at Pierce Atwood earlier in his career, and is just a wonderful high and high integrity guy, but Spinnaker trust is primarily a wealth management firm with about $3 billion that it's overseeing in aggregate for its clients, and then it also has an important business, acting as a trustee for employee stock ownership plans. So there are about 50 employee stock ownership plans where Spinnaker is acting as the trustee. So they're representing the shareholders, the employee shareholders, of companies, ops, exactly. And you know, so my role is that after I had retired from Brown Brothers, and I was doing the Pinkerton role, and I had some other nonprofit things, I was really looking for an opportunity to continue to be engaged with a commercial business, not just nonprofits. I enjoy the strategy. I enjoyed the thinking, and I was looking for an opportunity where that might be possible. And I met Dick Curran, and I met Amanda Rand, who is now the CEO of Spinnaker, and they're both just terrifically high quality people and very, very capable. And Spinnaker had had some ownership issues at that point and wanted to buy out some of its shareholders and the like. And I sat down with Dick and went through that, and then met other members of the team and came away and said, Yeah, I'll be happy to make an investment in Spinnaker to help buy out some of the other shareholders. But my condition was sort of that I wanted to see Spinnaker set up a kind of partnership structure that would enable ownership transition over time, so that younger members of the firm would have visibility as to what the opportunity would be in the future. And those of us over 65 Spinnaker isn't has an employee stock ownership plan itself, and so there's a valuation of our stock done every year, and those of us who are over 65 sell some of our stock to younger partners who are coming along, and that whole process is transparent to all of the principles of the firm. And I think that's a good way to organize a business that's really a service business like that. And so Spinnaker, I've now been involved since 2015 and during that time, I think we've almost tripled the assets that are overseen by Spinnaker and built out the team. It's now about 45 people, and there's been, you know, significant turnover. And when I say turnover, I mean just generationally, that some people are retiring, and new principles are being made, and it's working, and the firm's been really successful. So I'm, I my primary roles there. I was very involved in the ESOP business and helping Janine Pendergast, who runs that business, but they've really now staffed that, and that really runs along, and I'm just sort of a senior advisor to it. And then I try to help Jessamyn Norton, who's the chief investment officer on the pure investment side, and I, so I try to weigh in there, when you're a major owner of the firm, yeah, I'm one of the major
Greg Boulos 34:25
owners of the firm. And was Bobby did Bobby monk start that Spinnaker?
Bob Gould 34:28
He did Dick Curran really started it. And then Spinnaker merged with Ram trust, and Bobby monks and John Higgins were major players in RAM trust and when, and they did that merger. But then after the merger, John Higgins decided to move along and start his own firm, and really, Bobby was going to go with John in that effort. And so the sort of recapitalization that was done was largely I and some other board members at Spinnaker. Bought out the interests of Bobby monks and some of the other investors, and the
Greg Boulos 35:05
way younger people become partners in Spinnaker. Is there a set formula? In other words, you gotta be there so many years, you have to have production of a certain amount, or is it kind of arbitrary?
Bob Gould 35:16
Certainly arbitrary. Isn't the word I but it is. You know, Spinnaker is a meritocracy, and when you're running a wealth management firm, there are a couple of absolutely critical roles. And the critical roles are number one, you need people managing relationships who produce delighted clients, not just satisfied clients, but clients who are really delighted with what they're getting, and those people need an interesting mix of really good social skills, an understanding of an understanding of investments, but very much a willingness to be the same person 24 hours a day. You know you need to be trustworthy, and so when you're on the side of the soccer field watching, you can't be screaming at the ref and being unreasonable and whatever, and then expect people to trust you in the most intimate and important sort of financial issues in their life. So the relationship managers at Spinnaker the if you're a relationship manager, and you're being given the responsibility to oversee large blocks of client assets and client important client relationships. That's a pretty clear path to becoming a principal of the firm. Obviously. The other critical thing is people got to make good investment decisions, and our Chief Investment Officer, Jessamyn Norton, is one of our critical principles in that. And then the wealth management business today is a technology business. You know, we that the technologies that we use at Spinnaker are absolutely critical. You know, everything's in the cloud. Our clients have access to it from anywhere we can produce reports, trade block trades across everything. There's a lot of technology used in a number of areas, and your senior people in that area very important. So I've just described the various things. The people who come up in those areas and prove themselves to be invaluable leaders, they are eligible to become principals of the firm. And then it's, you know, there's, we all sit down and debate it and work really, really hard at it, but most of those people actually the way it works out, we work really hard at developing our young people. Our biggest fear is other firms then who haven't done such a good job coming along and trying to steal them. So actually, we would like to make our best young people principles as soon as we're as soon as we're able to and as soon as it's a great retention tool. It's a great retention tool. And, you know, I always joke, there are a lot of businesses that I've been involved in where it's really important to follow the sort of take a look at what's happening to the employees in the age group of 30 to 35 because those employees are making decisions about is this a good place for me and my career? Can I achieve my objectives professionally, compensation, wise and others? And if those people see a path forward that looks exciting to them. They stay. If those people are leaving, that is a big red flag for any business, because they're saying, you know, either there isn't the visibility or it doesn't look attractive enough for the leadership. I don't believe in whatever it is. And so, yeah, we focus very, very hard on that development of folks in that 25 to 40 critical period of developing people so that they are principals of the firm who will then carry on. And part of the model that I mentioned is that for those of us who are over 65 we're hoping that the younger people coming along will buy our shares as we age so. So your exit strategy is very clear, but it's 100% dependent on the job you do developing the next generation of people coming along. And I'm sure it's the same in your business as it is for us. The
Greg Boulos 39:16
way you described how people become partners is very similar with our firm, yeah, and the younger folks who have proven themselves buy into the company, the older folks start to sell their shares, and it's it allows the company to continue and not just dissolve when the major principal retires or dies, right?
Bob Gould 39:37
That that was very much the goal when I got involved in 2015 was to say, hey, there's an opportunity to put in place a structure, you know, Brown Brothers, Harriman, where I, you know, formative part of my career was founded in 1818, as a true partnership, and it's still going today. 200 and whatever. Years later, and I had the privilege of becoming a partner and being a partner during the primary parts of my commercial career, and then being bought out afterwards. And so I definitely brought some of that structure as a mindset.
Greg Boulos 40:17
Spinnaker purchases real estate too, right? Well,
Bob Gould 40:19
Spinnaker, so what Spinnaker does is really interesting. Part of it is that our clients really expressed interest in having real estate exposure, and so we had hired was guy named Chris O'Neill, who really built it for Spinnaker. So we raised a fund of 15 or $20 million and we're able to actually invest on behalf of our clients in real estate projects. But then we found that in addition to wanting those investments, there are families who have significant commercial real estate portfolios where maybe there, there aren't people in the family who necessarily want to succeed the original patriarch or matriarch in managing a commercial portfolio. And so actually, we found that there were roles for us to help families, whether they own a bunch of land someplace that needs to go through zoning processes in order to become something that can be sold in an optimal sense, or significant warehouses that are owned and somebody's got to manage the process of leasing those and hiring a commercial broker and overseeing all of that process. And we found there's substantial demand for real estate services, for real estate advisory services, and so we both manage a fund that makes direct investments in real estate properties, and we're sitting, you know, right now over near Scarborough downs, and there's a building not a half a mile away that's owned in part by one of our clients, in partnership with one of the with the spinnaker Real Estate Fund. So it's been a good thing for our wealth management business, and it's also a separate business sort of us, for us, of it that we think is valuable to a number of the families that we advise, that seems unique to me. We have not seen that in a lot, in a lot of other places, you're right. And Casey McCormick now runs that effort for Spinnaker, and we just have recently made a couple of additional investments. But I'm on the real estate committee at Spinnaker, and so every month I hear a comprehensive update of what's going on relating to, you know, as you know, Greg, things sometimes go wrong in real estate. You know, somebody owns something, and you know, the lease, the lease doesn't get renewed. And there's, you know, you've got to manage that, or there's an opportunity to spin off another piece of property, but there's some wetlands, and you got to manage that and get through an approval process. And there's, there, you know, we've seen that opportunity, we will continue to do it. You're right at the moment, we don't seem to see it. We haven't seen any of our competitors in that space. Yeah, so it's not just coupon clipping. No, no, no, no. Yeah. Our clients don't ask us just to do that for them. On the real estate side, I'm afraid the ones that we're where we are there is, there's work to be done related to pools of commercial real estate assets. Spinnaker
Greg Boulos 43:26
work with commercial brokers
Bob Gould 43:29
Spinnaker does, well, you know, particularly in our in our real estate fund, where we're out looking for opportunities and things we do. And then, of course, when we're representing a family, if we've got something that needs to be leased we've we're kind of, you know, we're like anybody else. We're going to be advising the family and saying, We think you should hire this real estate broker to list it. And then when those proposals come in, we're, you know, acting on behalf of the family to actually get the property leased up or to get whatever needs to be done.
Greg Boulos 44:02
And does Spinnaker invest money in stocks, bonds and other financial instruments, as well as real estate? I So, yes.
Bob Gould 44:09
I mean the vast majority of the 3 billion or so that that Spinnaker overseas are, you know, principally United States stocks, bonds and what are called ETFs, exchange traded funds. You know, one of the really unique things about Spinnaker is that it's a genuine it's a Trust Company. And in Dick Curran, Amanda Rand and Caitlin demillo, you have a series of really experienced trust and estate attorneys. And so what actually happens is a number of families sit down with us and actually go through trusts and estate plans, not having to sort of pay for it by the hour. In fact, there's no, you know, it's no additional charge to really go through all of that and help develop talking in terms of what are their goals, in terms of their children, or setting up a fund that. To pay for college costs for grandchildren or various things like that. And Dick and Amanda and Caitlin and several others in the firm are capable of having those conversations and then saying, Okay, so in order to execute this, your trust and estate attorney is so and so. Work on get this document done and come back, and then we'll actually execute it and get it all and get it all done. And that's very valuable for a number of families at the earlier and a number of our younger relationship managers. Really, all of our relationship managers are working with a number of clients, on plans, on wealth management plans, you know, how am I doing in my retirement savings? Am I going to be able to afford to buy the family cottage on Sebago? Will I be able to pay, you know, these college costs, whatever it is, and today, they're, you know, they're software programs that enable you to really map that out and probabilistically understand, am I on a path and am I? Am I on a on a trajectory that makes sense? You know, the trust and estate taxes and things in America today really only affect a very, very small percentage of folks. And even for a firm like Spinnaker, where we're in the wealth management business, and most of our clients do have some wealth, but more of them have a planning issue than have necessarily a trust and estates issue. But those are central parts of spinnakers business, along with managing stocks and bonds and ETFs and private investments and we also work hard to evaluate one off investments for clients when they've got something that they've seen or they've been shown by somebody else, we have the ability to look at that and say, Does this make any sense? You
Greg Boulos 46:48
know, Bob, obviously, you've got a wealth of experience with investing funds in stocks and related financial instruments. My understanding, as a financial advisor's goal is to match or exceed the return the s, p provides every year. Although that is the goal, I also understand something like 80% of fund managers don't achieve it. Given that, why wouldn't somebody simply invest in a S, P Index Fund? That's what I've been advising my children to do. It's something I wish I had done earlier in my career.
Bob Gould 47:16
Yeah, index funds are, are wonderful products, essentially, and they've really changed an enormous number of things. And I think in a fairly substantial number of cases, owning the S, p5, 100 index fund makes, makes pretty good sense in a lot of situations, I'd say sort of two different responses to your question. First, let me just talk about the S P Index right now, because it's in an unusual spot, and over the last 10 years, the performance of the S P index is multiples of international stocks, multiples of emerging stocks, and way better than small caps and mid caps. And that is primarily driven by the fact that, you know, the internet and the development of the technology revolution, driven by Silicon Valley, driven by US companies is of a scale like actually, we've never seen before. If you start going through the companies that dominate the world today, Microsoft, Apple, alphabet, Amazon, I don't know if Tesla, it belongs on that same list. These are companies that, for the most part, didn't exist 3540 years ago, right? And they are all technology companies. They were all venture capital back. They're all American, and they are all absolutely dominant what I would call network effect businesses, where the value to the consumer is increased by the fact that so many people use it, and that network becomes more and more valuable. Think in terms of, you know, the iOS operating system and the Apple world. If you're inside that, it's, you know, very comfortable and do a huge number of things. Microsoft obviously has created office productivity in virtually every language around the world, and so any mid sized business using Microsoft Office, 365, unbelievable productivity gains. These are businesses that don't even have to put people on the ground in order to achieve enormous sales around the world. And you compare that to a General Motors of years ago, where in order to grow, they needed a new factory in every location, right? And, you know, but the total employment numbers at Apple and Microsoft and Google and things aren't that big, but you're now talking about businesses that are $3 trillion okay, well, their share of the S, p5, 100 has gone from. Nothing to you know, 30% 29% or something. It's just technology, and that doesn't include either alphabet or Amazon. So the S p5 100 today is really dominated by American technology companies in a way that we never imagined when, when people first started talking about the S p5 100 as a proxy for sort of American large businesses. Today, the S and p5 100 is much more of a proxy for American dominant technology businesses. And there, that's just a reality of what's happened in the last few years. So it's been a spectacular success for everybody who's involved in it. I think if you own the S, p5, 100 today, it's it is important to understand what you own, and that it has become so dominated by these American technology companies, I could make an argument for you that that it probably make sense to have some in smaller caps and mid caps. And obviously the pricing of international stocks is substantially lower than the pricing of US stocks. But I, you know, I think there's balance in those arguments. But I think there are actually good reasons. You know, this powering of American technology is totally contrary to what I was taught in business school and what conventional wisdom was in 1985 in 1985 you were told that investing in international stocks was a free lunch, that over time, they would perform the same as the US, and they would balance out at different times, and therefore you'd get the same return over a long period of time with less volatility, and that that was sort of the free lunch of investing. It was 100% wrong. It massively misunderstood the advantage that the ecosystem that was being created in Silicon Valley and around the United States, around technology and the scale. You know, I think it's hard for us to really because we've all lived through it. I don't know that it's easy for us to appreciate this is the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, and it's happened right under our noses, and we are enjoying, think of the productivity, Greg, that you enjoy every day today compared
Greg Boulos 52:21
to my phone can do more today that has more computing power than when they sent the astronauts to the moon, right?
Bob Gould 52:26
And so the challenge for us, I think, as investors today, is to look at this and to get balance and perspective on this of understanding that, you know, if I drop my iPhone off of off a Boston Whaler this afternoon, I would be at the Apple store within three hours, right? What takes you so long? Yeah, exactly. And they say, okay, that that tells you how we all feel about diverting dollars from other parts of our lives to technology at Spinnaker, Microsoft 365 is central to our business. It's in the cloud. We don't have to run a server for it in our office. I don't know how you run a small business without it, right? If they raise the fee from whatever per month to, you know, $4 higher, are we going to not pay it? You're going to pay it. So I think it's really important for investors to have exposure to all of this. I'm not sure it's the only exposure you want to have, but I do think this has been an extraordinarily powerful part of what's happened during our lives from an investing perspective. Now going forward, look, artificial intelligence is fascinating and interesting, and these major companies are spending like $40 billion a year on capital expenditures, which is what's driving Nvidia's stock price to the moon. You know, extraordinary. Never, almost never seen anything like that. But at the same time, the venture capital community is not sitting on their hands. They are innovating like you cannot believe, around blockchain, around artificial intelligence, around, you know, supporting the US Department of Defense, where everybody understands all these geopolitical tensions create new opportunities and new directions. I'm not, I certainly don't predict the sort of demise of the Magnificent Seven or anything like that. I think they are going to continue to make our lives more productive, more enjoyable and more connected, and I think in those ways, it's extraordinarily valuable. I don't think their valuations are, you know, are just crazy, but I do think we're going to see tremendous innovation in other parts of the world, and there will be other really compelling things to do on investing, like one last point on investing, we spent the 2000 10s in a period where, in my opinion, it was very risky, but we drove interest. Rates essentially to zero coming out of the great financial crisis, and then never really did anything about it. That does create all kinds of excesses during that time. Allocating money to fixed income was kind of a wasted time. Fixed Income is supposed to provide a steady income stream, security of principal and liquidity, okay. Well, when interest rates are down at zero or 1% there's a concept called convexity, which is it sort of explains the fact that bonds, when interest rates are really low, become incredibly volatile. Well now, with interest rates back at sort of 4% or so, fixed income makes more. Makes some sense. Again, if interest rates go way back down, we'll be back in that situation where people really question. So asset allocation is very important. People's tolerance for risk is very important. The S, p5, 100, absolutely an index fund. That's a totally logical place for a meaningful portion of assets, I wouldn't put 100% of my assets.
Greg Boulos 56:03
Let me ask you about Bitcoin. What's your opinion on that? Well,
Bob Gould 56:07
I am actually quite bullish on blockchain technology. I I went on a bicycle trip with some guys back in like 2011 and a guy explained why we every night at dinner. We there were there were there for three nights, we'd have a different dinner conversation, and one of them was all about blockchain back at that point. And we all left the dinner promising that we were gonna make a small investment in Bitcoin. And I ultimately chickened out because I wasn't sure what the tax how it would be handled from a tax point of view, and I'm not positive that I know where bitcoin is going to go. On the other hand, the idea that, for example, a digital currency backed by the US dollar. So it's kind of like a money market fund, where, you know, if you buy in us, you get $1 of this digital currency, but they're going to have $1 actually deposited in a bank. Okay? Well, if you are in rural parts of Africa, I went to Tanzania during last February, the idea that you could have the equivalent of US dollars sitting there on your iPhone, and you can transfer them anywhere. I mean, you know, they're more people who have decent internet access in the world than there are people who have access to fresh water. Sort of a reminder of how powerful, how powerful capitalism is, but I see enormous potential in blockchain technology. I personally haven't made an investment in just straight currencies, but I have made investments in venture capital funds that do cryptocurrencies and do blockchain technology generally. One of the places where that's talked about quite a bit is, for example, social media, where on Instagram or x or whatever, there's a lot of value created by all the activity that happens on those platforms, but 99% of it goes to the to the sponsor, to the owner, the creators of the content and the like. Get nothing. Okay? Well, Blockchain actually would enable you to create a social network where each person on it could control their own content and the terms that anybody could access it. And it could be quite exciting. Will it get off the ground and be really valuable? I don't know. Another example that we, you and I could relate to is look at the title business around the United States. You could take the title information for every property in America, and put it on a blockchain, and nobody could ever change it. You know, it all changes, and the entire business of being uncertain about title and everything would go away. It would be a massive improvement in efficiency, and blockchain offers that potential to do. We'll see if we get there. There's regulatory issues, there's a lot of complexity. There's a lot of fighting going on in Washington over these issues, because people understand that there are enormous economic consequences, and so you've got a lot of lobbyists and everything on all sides fighting over
Greg Boulos 59:17
these issues, everybody looking out for their own interest. Obviously,
Bob Gould 59:22
I'm afraid is that that old joke, where you stand depends on where you sit. I like that.
Greg Boulos 59:28
Where do you see Spinnaker in five years? 10 years? Oh,
Bob Gould 59:31
so that's a, so that's a that's something I'm proud about, and I feel good about, as I said, I think Spinnaker is, well, Spinnaker is overseeing about $3 billion of client assets today, but there is a team of younger people coming along at Spinnaker. And you know, Amanda Rand, who's the CEO, is Amanda's in her mid 40s. Caitlin demillo is the chief trust officer. Is even younger. There are no there are some terrific younger people at Spinnaker. I fully expect Spinnaker, you know, I will continue to be involved, I hope for the next 10 years as a director, as my direct involvement gradually, gradually wanes, but I'll continue to be sort of an advisor and the like. And I fully expect that Spinnaker will continue to grow and prosper, and it won't surprise me at all when Spinnaker passes 5 billion of assets under management or whatever, and winds up with 75 employees. But it's interesting, you know, people, people have different professional goals and the like. Obviously, I grew up in New York, and most of my career was on Wall Street, where the scale of ambition was enormous. You know, you really what I've found in working here in Maine is tremendously high quality people. But if I went to them and said, Hey, we could do three acquisitions in, you know, Boston, Cleveland and whatever, and we could make these economics work and the like. But their life would become being on an airplane all the time, rather than meeting with clients say no, they'd say no, no, thank you. And whereas, when I was at Brown Brothers, if I'd laid that out, and the return on investment would have been high enough, we'd have been all in. So just a different perspective. So I expect Spinnaker to remain a Portland based with the goal of being the highest quality wealth management firm in northern New England. That's the goal, and I think that people are committed to that with a balanced quality of life that they can do and do that business well. And I don't think, even with great technology, that the need for really thoughtful people who will advise you on your financials and your planning towards retirement or other goals. I don't think that needs going to go away. It's a very high touch service. So, you know, sort of think of it as high touch, high tech eats, both. But I'm pretty optimistic about where that's going to be, and I think I'll get bought out over time.
Greg Boulos 1:02:10
You work a lot with families. Through my experience in commercial real estate, I've seen the ugly side of money, how it can affect families and tear them apart, particularly after the parent with the money dies. I'm sure you've seen this as well on the advisory end, any interesting stories regarding conflicts between family members who have died or otherwise?
Bob Gould 1:02:34
Yeah, two that I can think of that I think might be interesting. You know, earlier in my career at Brown Brothers Harriman, I was in the mergers and acquisition advisory business for a considerable period of time, and it was a tremendously formative experience for me, because I kept getting, you know, one week I was trying to help buy the second largest coal mining company in America. The next week I was selling, I was involved in selling banks and the New York metropolitan area, and the next week I was working on rock crushing equipment. And then I was involved in working on the sale of one of the largest elevator and escalator companies in America. And I saw a number of cases where there was tremendous family conflict and a couple of lessons. I did take one of them, I'm not going to mention which one it was, but it was a situation where mistrust had developed between the siblings of a business, and as the business became very successful, there were that that mistrust had developed. And so questions about, you know, was the use of the private aircraft, you know, really fair, you know, or was the CEO paying themselves unreasonably, as opposed to Dividends going to each family member and the like. And I, we were brought in in a situation where there was such conflict and mistrust that we wound up structuring a deal with the family where we said, Okay, we're going to work on a sale of the company, and as long as we get this price, at least, and these representations and warranties and these agreements, you will give us our proxy to vote yes on the sale, provided we can deliver a deal on these terms and we did that, and we got that done, but what it taught me in, you know, I same lesson I've learned in lots of different ways communicate. You gotta communicate. If you leave a void, it'll get filled badly. In that case, we gave them every piece of information about the transaction we're gonna go out and get for you is going to look like this, and we're gonna be able to deliver. On all of the end, and here's exactly what's going to happen about your responsibility post closing, or any of those kinds of details. And so we were, we were able to get through that. And that was, as I say, that was a very, very formative lesson for me. And I carry that lesson. You know, my family is involved in a business that makes testing equipment for the steel industry. That's what my dad did for his entire life, and my grandfather before him, and I have cousins and others who are involved, who are shareholders of the business as a result, and I'm now the chairman of the board, but my dad had a lesson there that this is not a terribly big company. We publish an annual report that looks like a public company, and we send a quarterly report of financials and commentary to every shareholder. We have an annual meeting, we publish an annual report. We provide every shareholder all the information they would get if it was a public company, and one of the reasons to do that is just to keep that level of trust, because at some point there's going to be something that's happening with the company, and I'm going to need the support of all of those people. And I think you earn that through, through, through that communication. The other mess, the other lesson I learned was there was a situation where there was a family that had substantial assets, and they set up a foundation in their will and had four children, and the idea was that the four children would come together in order to make the grants from This foundation every year, and it required that the four children all agree sort of unanimously. And the hope was that this was going to, you know, was a way to keep the family together kind of thing. The problem was that the kids had violently different political views and focuses, and they weren't just interested in different things. They were violently opposed to what their siblings were doing, and it ripped the entire family apart. And ultimately, under a court order, we had to get the thing broken into four separate foundations. But it was a mess, and what I what I really learned from that, and is that, particularly in those some of those family relationships, trust is the single most important thing, and how family members choose to relate to each other and how much time they spend with each other, not sure it's a good idea to try to force that kind of thing through, through, through, from the grave. I think you need to be sensitive to those kinds of issues and not try to force them. So as I said, communication and trust are the two big things that I've seen go wrong in and I've been in a lot. I have been involved in a lot of different, you know, situations we're trying to manage through family conflict. Yeah, I
Greg Boulos 1:08:07
tell my kids and I tell my the brokers in the office that communication is half the battle, yeah, because even if you got bad news communicated, and you'll, you'll keep the trust that's
Bob Gould 1:08:21
we. We've tried to do that. You know, at Spinnaker, we do it a semi annual report to our employees that goes through all the major initiatives where it's got we're pursuing, what's happening, how it's going, how the different parts of our business are doing, and how we're doing financially.
Greg Boulos 1:08:40
Bob, you've got a unique perspective on Portland, having lived in New York and Connecticut and elsewhere. What's your take on how Portland is doing now? And where do you see there's room for improvement?
Bob Gould 1:08:51
Gosh, yeah, it's been a privilege to be involved in things in in the Portland area, and so Portland's one of the most dynamic, but also rapidly changing communities that I've been involved in. And I'd love to talk for just a minute about Portland Community squash, which I think is one of the one of the areas I've been involved in that I think you really that's a pretty good example of how great a town Portland is. So Barrett to Casey, and who is the Executive Director of Portland Community squash I had met years ago because I was involved in running an education and squash program in New Haven, Connecticut, and had been on the board of that for a long time. And Barrett had sought me out because he was interested in creating something similar here in Portland. And he and I and he worked with a number of people, but I was one of his sort of advisors through that process, and mostly I helped Barrett understand if he was able to find a facility to build Portland Community squash, how would the fundraising work? How could we get a bank to support us in. Doing that, what would a budget look like? What would the presentation to a bank look like to get their support, and what would that presentation look like to major donors, so that people would really believe in it and believe in the opportunity. And it was just tremendously rewarding to see Barrett take that and then run with it and create the Portland Community squash facility over in the Back Bay. And then, and he, he took what was a concept that people had and really turned it into a community, almost like a YWCA, I mean, and it's expanding now so that it's a community center where, yes, there's tons of kids playing squash and there are tons of kids doing after school work, but there's also different ethnic and racial groups having dinners on different nights of the week and using the facility and English as a second language and like and so I would, you know, I was very involved in helping Get that done. And I was a board member for a period of time, and I played in the squash League, so I went back to playing squash for a couple years, just to play in the league over there. And it's pretty cool when you imagine, you know, a first generation immigrant who's been here for, you know, five years, and the kids now 15 years old, and they're playing squash with, like the senior partner of one of the major law firms in Portland. And you know that that doesn't happen in very many places, but the scale and the vibrancy of Portland really makes that possible. Look, I think there are, Portland is going to experience the pressures of growth, and that's, you know, it's increasingly popular and the prices have gone up substantially, and that creates tension about what kind of city is Portland going to be going forward? And I don't see any way around those. I think that's going to be a difficult push and pull. You know, Spinnaker is up in the arts district in Portland, right near the Portland Museum of Art and, you know, I was on the Portland Museum of Art Board for five years or so, and supportive of the notion that the museum can be a real anchor for that part of town and help in a sort of revitalization of that part of town, and I think that that's very important, but it's not easy, because you've got questions of, you know, affordable housing in different parts of town, and the need for growth and the balance of commercial versus residential, and the same time that's happening, you've Got questions about how much office space do people want in a world where you've got a certain amount of remote work? So I think, you know, the areas around Portland are terrific places to raise a family. Have access to the water, the mountains and everything the city itself is more complicated, you know, because it's doing so many different things and fulfilling so many people's different desires for what the city needs to be and needs to achieve. And so I, I would, I would personally stay out of politics in Portland, because I think it's going to be some pushing and pulling. I mean, I wouldn't know how to, how to reconcile all those issues, it
Greg Boulos 1:13:21
would be very frustrating. I'm sure,
Bob Gould 1:13:22
I think, I think it's tough work. Yeah,
Greg Boulos 1:13:25
and finally, Bob, if you could go back in time, what would you advise your younger self knowing what you now know? Yeah,
Bob Gould 1:13:33
a couple of things. So I was really blessed with a great education. I went to a school called Hotchkiss in Connecticut, where I, you know, six days a week, coat and tie, three to four hours of homework a night and but I learned how to I learned how to write and I learned how to communicate, and that was very valuable. But to answer your question, I had taken a gap year. I was immature when I came out of high school, and I probably didn't take as much advantage of some of the college opportunities as I as I wish I had. And I'm pleased to say I think that my children did do so I think, I definitely think gap years are an interesting, an interesting opportunity. And you know, I particularly, you know, I'm the dad of three daughters who I don't know needed that they had matured earlier. If I could go back and do it over again, I would have taken a gap year before I went to
Greg Boulos 1:14:38
college. Wouldn't be a gap year lying on the couch? No, no, oh
Bob Gould 1:14:41
god no. It wouldn't have been a gap year lying on the couch. It would have been a gap year working. And I think that would have given me a lot, you know, I would have hoped that maybe I got some travel in there. But, you know, back in 1977 When I graduated from, you know, it was a lot less structured. It was a lot less clear what you could do for gap year. But, but I think a more important answer to your question is, my life has been incredibly influenced by a half a dozen mentors. And you know, any time I have an opportunity to advise someone who's younger in their career or whatever, and one of my first questions are, you know, who are your mentors, and what are those relationships like? And you know, I think of the times in my life at Brown Brothers where I was given opportunities and I didn't even know I was in the running for those opportunities sometimes, but it was absolutely connected to one of three or four mentors that I had. And similarly, when I got into positions of power or authority, it was actually pretty simple. I mean, I suddenly, I had a big job. I had, you know, three or 400 people reporting to me, and I sat down at the beginning of the year and said, Gee, these are all the things I need to get done. And then I looked around and it was like, Okay, who do I have confidence in that I can assign these responsibilities to? But people that I had been mentoring over a long period, I had such greater degree of confidence that I knew what they were capable of doing. And so, yeah, in some cases, their name got plucked out of a group. And so I always advise young people to really hold on to the mentoring relationships that you have in your life. And even if you go off to graduate school or you leave one employer and go to another, or what have you. Don't just let those relationships go. Those people have expressed an interest in you, and there's keep maintain that relationship and work on it. It will help develop things. And it's amazing how opportunities in life. You know, ultimately, people have to make choices as to who they're going to give an opportunity to. And if you've maintained those kinds of mentoring relationships, I think you massively increase your chances of being chosen for those kinds of things. And I think they're also just, you know, I've mentioned this man, George Gillespie, several times, his influence on my life had been enormous.
Greg Boulos 1:17:24
And think how different your life might have been, yeah, had you not known him, yeah. So Bob, thank you so much.
Bob Gould 1:17:31
This has been fun.
Greg Boulos 1:17:36
Bob, thank you for being our guest today on the Boulos Beat Boulos Company podcast, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. You can learn more about Spinnaker trust at the company's website, which is www.spinnakertrust.com and LinkedIn at Spinnaker trust. And if you'd like to learn more about the Boulos Company, please be sure to visit us@Boulos.com you can also find us at the Boulos Company on Facebook and LinkedIn, and at the Boulos CO on Instagram and x. And lastly, if you want to know the secret owning real estate, it's pretty simple, just be sure to outlive your debt. You.