I’ve always loved rock and roll – but it wasn’t until I joined the Army and went overseas that I would begin really exploring the depths of metal music.  Mind you, this was in the 1980s.  Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were in their prime, and a young band in Los Angeles decided to ditch the name “MetalMania” in lieu of a catchier, less cheesy one – Metallica.

Jason Penner - Brain Damage

Shortly after my arrival to Delta Company, 3/64th Armor in Schweinfurt, Germany, I met Jason Penner.  Jay was a cool cat all-around – knew his shit, whether it was about tanks or rock and roll.  As it turns out, he was the lead singer in an all-soldier band called “Brain Damage.”  Saw them play here and there.  They sounded pretty tight.  I’ve got an old VHS tape around here somewhere of one of their shows.  If I get the courage one day to try and play it (for fear of it being eaten due to age), I’ll try and digitize it and post it here somewhere.

As with all soldiers, the time came for Jason to head back stateside.  Demand for the band was growing, but they now needed a singer.  For some reason, they picked me.  One day, out in the middle of nowhere (REFORGER ’88, if I remember correctly), the drummer, Kirk Strieter, comes up to me out in the bush and says “Hey, I heard you could sing.  We’re looking for a singer, so you’re in, right?”  I chuckled a bit, as I tried to figure out why in the hell anyone would start a rumor that I could actually sing.  I agreed to come hang out with them when we got back from the deployment.

The practice room at the time was a tiny (miniscule, really) room underneath a place called Zapfhahn’s.  Zap’s was an institution in Schweinfurt, a dive bar located on the corner of Frühlingstraße and Niederwerrner Straße. Cozy little place, rock and roll always blaring over the speakers.  It had a reputation of being a great hangout during the week, and a place where GIs would go to beat the snot out of each other on the weekends.  What’s not to love?

That little practice room couldn’t have been more than 10′ x 10′.  And believe me, that space fills up quickly when you add in a drum kit, a bunch of amps, mic stands, and a sound board.  The acoustics were nothing short of, well … non-existent. I walked into the room for the first time and was completely sucker punched by the noise. Deafening.  Beautiful, but ear-shattering.  We used to practically rock the pictures off the wall in the bar above us. We got a lot of complaints from Zap’s, usually when they couldn’t hear their own jukebox because of the noise emanating from the basement. They loved us practicing there, though – we brought them a lot of business.

At any rate, at that first practice session, Tony, the guitarist, asked me if I knew this one particular song by Judas Priest.  I shook my head negatively.  “What about song X from Iron Maiden?”.  Nope.  Never heard of it.  Hmm.  “Well, what about Rock and Roll, by Led Zeppellin?  Everyone the hell knows that song!”  I flashed a wide grin and we rocked it.  The rest is, well history, I suppose. We played that song in every live gig we did after that.

I had some pretty big shoes to fill. Jay was the kind of frontman that every bands wants to have … needs to have. He had a natural “stage swagger” about him. He was confident, inspired. Plus, he had a history with the other guys that I didn’t. It was a little awkward at first, to say the least.

But, we practiced and practiced, wrote and wrote, played and played.  We rented a practice room just outside of town, in a farm village called Sennfeld – Herr Geyer, proprietor. He was an old guy, and didn’t give a crap about rock and roll, but he gladly took our geld. He once said that American beer looked like “apfelsaft” (apple juice) and tasted like “piss water” – we agreed.

We trolled the strip in Schweinfurt, at the height of 80s metal and American military presence. We shredded places like Maggie’s, The Green Goose, Jackpot, Wellington’s, Eastwood, the River Boat, and about a million other places. We were the kings of the boardwalk. There came a point where we didn’t pay for many of our own beers – a sure sign that you are going down the right path as a band.

We eventually changed our name from Brain Damage to Shadow. Even though we had our military duties to contend with, we were four single American boys living the dream in a rock band … in Europe!  After one particular show in a little town called Oberlauringen, a producer approached us backstage and set more things in motion. We recorded a record – vinyl, no less (the Iron Umbrella LP).  We reaped enough crazy stories to fill a book (which at one point, someone was actually working on.) Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you the story involving the Rajun’ Cajun, some two week old Ox Tail soup, and a strange night time anomaly apparently known as the “Southern Lights.” (*snicker*) No kidding …

I was the baby of the group. At the time, I was 19. Tony, Monte and Kirk were all 5-7 years older than me. They razzed me, they gave me shit. But they were like big brothers, too. They took care of me, and made sure I didn’t get into any trouble. Well, at least any trouble in which they didn’t get to participate. We became the best of friends. Inseparable, and insufferable to be around if you weren’t part of the “Shadow circle of trust.”

We had some crazy songs.  We wrote about things from a human perspective.  What does it really mean to be a soldier, and to carry those burdens for the rest of your life?  What is stage fright really, truly all about? What would it be like if the world really came to an end?  How would someone truly feel if their lover committed suicide?  We even had a song about a guy simply called “The Missionary” who killed prostitutes in the name of his god.  Stuff that most bands wouldn’t touch, and we did it with an edge.

Scott Burkett, Germany, 1988

We had a built-in fan base, simply given the fact that we were all soldiers.  At the time (height of the cold war), the United States had somewhere around 300,000 troops stationed in Europe. And as for the Germans? They loved us simply because we were an American band.  We had it good.

One by one, we each concluded our military service commitment. Tony had been out for a while, but I got out next. So I moved into an apartment right off the Marktplatz with Tony. Monte and Kirk eventually got out as well, and we made our way back to the States.  We started building up a following here in the U.S. – even had some metal radio airplay with a few of our songs. We were rockers, and we partied like rockers should. Good stuff.

Eventually, however, as most bands do, for one reason or another, we disbanded, and everyone headed their separate ways. Tony continued his music career, and is still playing today.  Monte resurfaced in a new band recently as well.  Kirk went back into the Army, and get this, is currently stationed back where it all started (Grafenwoehr, Germany, not that far from Schweinfurt, where we all met all those years ago). Small world.

About 15 years later, I started getting emails from people around the world, asking me whether or not I was the same Scott Burkett that was the lead singer of Shadow, and if I had any more copies of the old vinyl record.  The frequency of these emails picked up over time – I still get them today. In trying to determine why so many people have emailed me over the years asking about the old Shadow record, I discovered some interesting things.

For starters, the underground heavy metal collector circuit is rather large, and apparently fairly affluent.  A copy of our now vintage, rare metal album, in “excellent” condition, is listed for sale on one collector site for $1,400, and on another for over $1,200. An auction from just a few years ago shows a copy selling for $400. According to some, there is a bit of an underground “cult-like” following of the band all across Germany.  Who knew?

I thought it would be cool to create remastered digital versions of the songs, and make them freely available to people who wanted to download them for personal use.  Maybe even have a charitable tie-in to a non-profit organization to help veterans.  Unfortunately, the only digitized copies of our songs that I have are ripped from the vinyl, and the quality simply isn’t that great. If you happen to have any decent vinyl rips from that original LP, please send them to me :)

As a next step, I decided to try and obtain the master recordings from the studio in Maßbach, Germany where we recorded the album.  Unfortunately, the studio had changed hands over the years, and it seemed no one knew what had happened to those original reels.  I tried contacting GEMA (the German version of our ASCAP), but again, no one could seem to find the mastered recordings that we filed as part of our copyright process. Sigh. So the hunt continues.  There is a bounty available if someone in the world can produce those original reels.

Over the years, I had been toying around with acoustic arrangements for some of our old songs. In 2003, Tony and I reunited for a series of acoustic sessions to produce some new music.  We re-arranged and recorded 5 songs from the original album, as well as 3 previously unreleased Shadow songs, all in an edgy acoustic format.  As we hadn’t yet reconnected with Monte and Kirk, we brought in some pretty darn good musicians to provide some tracks for a few of the tunes.  On drums, we had Ron Wikso (Foreigner, Richie Sambora/Bon Jovi, David Lee Roth, Cher), and pulling the bass strings was Lance Morrison (Alanis Morrissete, Rod Stewart, Simple Minds).  It was a blast!

At any rate, I decided to at least put together a little Shadow tribute section on the site here.  It turned into something larger, with photos, tunes, road stories, and more.  All of the tracks from the original LP are there, as well as the tracks from the acoustic sessions. If you are so inclined, you can go explore the world of Shadow.  Or, at least what was. It truly was the time of our lives.

Cheers.

I’ll be helping out again with the Georgia Tech Business Plan Competition, which is always a rewarding experience.  And yes, the good Mr. Blake and I are in the process of giving StartupLounge a fresh kick in the pants.  Stay tuned for more on that.

I’m also sifting through over 200 draft blog posts that I’ve started over the years, in an attempt to locate any that deserve finishing.  The vast majority of them will be deleted, as they are no longer timely or relevant.  But there are a few gems I’ve found already.

At any rate, see you on the bitstream …

Cheers.

As a more “official” announcement (I suppose), I have joined the MFG.com global leadership team as SVP of Technology. One obvious focus of mine is to help evolve our technology platform. However, the thing that I am most excited about is the opportunity to also participate in evolving the MFG.com business model itself.

Since I’ve already been there for a few months, we’re knee-deep in a ton of different initiatives already, with undoubtedly plenty more to follow. As time permits, I’ll try to share some of the cooler things we’re doing here in my blog.

In particular, though, we are undertaking some things that will fundamentally shift the landscape of our sector. That’s the kind of stuff that gets me jazzed.

Cheers.

After three years of blood, sweat, and tears at StarPound, I’ve decided that it’s time to move on.

We achieved a great number of successes over the past few years, and I’m incredibly proud of the entire team. When I joined the company, it was a 3 person company (that had been whittled back from 80 or so at one point) Our initial VC had long written off their original $4M investment, with that particular fund approaching sunset. The product wasn’t really complete, and subsequently, there were no customers.

Since then, we:

• Got the product stable and out the door – the world’s most advanced open source BPM and call center platform


• Secured our first customers, including a Fortune Global 100 company, the largest in its industry


• Designed, built and launched another incredible product in Teledini, a mashable VOIP/SIP phone for the browser


• Received a lot of really awesome recognition by the community, including TechAmerica’s Spirit of Endeavor Awards, TAG Top 40 Innovative Company (twice), and named to VARGUY’s Open Source 50 list for 2 straight years (alongside Red Hat, MYSQL, Drupal, SugarCRM, and others).


• Brought in another round of investment, and provided a financial exit for our initial venture capital investor

Even more importantly, we came together as a team and overcame an almost unimaginable collection of obstacles. We truly became friends for life and created an amazing company culture. When you see each other more than you see your own families, suffice it to say you tend to form very strong bonds. This is largely why this decision was incredibly difficult for me to make.

My reasons for leaving are varied. Some are personal, some are professional. Nevertheless, my departure is very amicable, and I feel that I am leaving the company in significantly better shape than it was when I joined. I may remain involved on the board, or as an adviser, which is cool. I’ll be working with the team over the next month or so to transition everything and to reach our next development milestone.

So, what’s next for me? Well, the first thing on the agenda is our first family vacation in almost seven years. Definitely way past due.

One of the side effects of becoming completely immersed in any effort is that it can become an incredible time sink. If you know me at all, you know that I really enjoy working with the larger startup community on various things (StartupLounge, TI:GER, various business plan competitions, lecturing/speaking, mentoring, coaching, etc.) Unfortunately, a lot of those activities had to take a back seat for a while. I’m definitely looking forward to re-engaging with the community that I loved so dearly.

Beyond that, I have a few ideas I’m tossing around, and a few other irons in the fire, as it were – so we’ll see.

Thanks to everyone on the StarPound team for all of your hard work and sacrifices over the past few years. I wish you all the very best!

Cheers.

I agree, in principle, with Matt Ingram’s view that new media entities should be treated as traditional media. Clearly the world has evolved beyond newspapers, radio, and TV.  I would venture to say that more news breaks over new media than traditional media these days.

But with that respect and treatment comes a responsibility. There have been plenty of times where traditional media outlets such as the New York Times have refused to publish certain things, often on the basis of national security.

Publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents is not journalism.  It’s treason against humanity.  And the soldier that gave them to WikiLeaks is, in my opinion, guilty of treason against the United States.

This isn’t the same as “exposing” a story. That’s something real journalists do. This isn’t a case of Jeffrey Wigand or Erin Brockovich dong the right thing.  In this case, sans any real journalistic purpose, WikiLeaks’ actions were wholly irresponsible and unjustified. Quite frankly, given the absence of any real journalistic purpose, it borders on electronic terrorism.

Why were they published? To what end? If the documents had shed light on some deep-rooted conspiracy, such as our government knowingly invading another country for oil, or to boost some politician’s ratings, then I’d be all for it.  That would be responsible whistle blowing. But even in that case, one wouldn’t have to publish hundreds of thousands of unrelated classified documents to serve the cause.

Wikileaks has described itself as follows:

WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.

Publishing all of these classified documents is counter to their own mantra.  In my view, the  documents they chose to publish are not “important news and information.”  Exactly what “suppressed and censored injustice” is being spotlighted here?  War?  It’s a dirty business.  Deal with it.  Wars are not fought with pillows. Putting the spotlight on how dirty war exposes absolutely nothing.

Again, if in these documents, there were cases of groups or individuals ignoring orders, violating laws, etc., then those individual documents deserve to be brought forward. The New York Times would publish them, as well they should.  But they wouldn’t run a mountain of classified documents, many unrelated, through their printing presses. The last time I checked, it wasn’t a crime to call the Prime Minister of Xanadu a bumbling idiot.

I’m actually fairly liberal in some of my views these days.  But I do not define “liberalism” as “hey, let’s be completely transparent, open and free, and publish classified documents online.”

If someone gave me their sister’s diary, irrespective of what it contained, and I published it word-for-word on the Internet, is that responsible? No. It’s juvenile at best.

Cheers.

Thanks to participation from all of you, we were able to raise enough money to move the Roberts’ into their new home!  Due to the hard work, financial contributions, and desire to truly make a meaningful difference in the world shown by all of you, the family is moving into their new Atlanta home this week.  The home is big enough to keep the family together, and little Jamaal has started at his new school.

On behalf of myself and the Roberts’ family, I’d like to publicly thank to all of the entrepreneurs, investors, community leaders, and friends who helped with this.  A special thanks to Bo Emerson at the AJC for initially making the community aware of the story, and to Doris Benit for getting the initial fund set up.  As a veteran myself, I took a deep personal interest in this story when it broke.  It just really hit me personally.  Your collective willingness to help me with this cause speaks volumes about you all.   A deep heartfelt thanks to you all from this old Marne Dog :)

Cheers.

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
~ Dr. Seuss

I guess this is as formal an “announcement” as I’m going to give on this, but after a lengthy period of soul searching, I have made the very difficult decision to largely step away from StartupLounge.com.

Five years ago or so, when Mike Blake and I came up with the concept of StartupLounge, neither one of us had any idea of what we were getting ourselves into.  Truth be told, I think if we had known how much work we’d need to put into something like this, we may very well not have started it at all.  Some folks have called StartupLounge “influential” or “important”, and I suppose to some extent it is.  But really, at the core, it is/was really about helping people help themselves, then to help others – and about 2 guys having fun yapping on a mic every now and then. And I will tell you – I most certainly learned more about our collective craft than others probably learned from me.

My reasons for stepping back from heavy involvement in StartupLounge is complex, and somewhat difficult to explain.  A big part of it is the time commitment required to record and produce podcasts (40 hours a pop), organizing events, PitchCamp, evangelizing, etc.   I simply do not have the time anymore to contribute at a high level in order to continue making a difference.  And when you’ve poured your heart and soul into something for as long as we have with StartupLounge, it makes the decision a very emotional one, to say the least.

Another huge factor in my decision is simply the level of energy required to perform my duties at my day job (StarPound).  Although we have a great deal of work ahead of us, the team is really doing some great things there. We’ve recently raised another round of capital, and are heads down on a ton of different things right now.

Finally, and perhaps the most important reason, is my family.  As it stands now, I am rarely home in time for dinner (thanks in part to Atlanta traffic).  I have a wife and two young daughters at home that I hardly ever see these days.  And this needs to change.  So, something has to give.

I should also add that there has been some speculation that my health is suspect, and that this somehow is contributing to my decision.  This is patently not true.  Sure, I’m battling a kidney stone right now (ouch!), but this too shall pass (literally and figuratively). Trust me. I’m as fit as a horse.  Then again, they shoot horses when they actually do get ill, so maybe that’s a bad analogy to go with.

Through StartupLounge, I have met some incredibly wonderful people over the past several years.  Entrepreneurs, most of which want to do something great.  Investors who actually want to engage with them.  And a wealth of community leaders and stakeholders who want to make a difference. I place an extremely high value on these relationships, and hope to continue nurturing them for years to come.

One person in particular, though, has meant the world to me throughout this journey.  Mike Blake.  I have come to rely on his wisdom and sensibilities for so, so many things.  Not just professionally, but personally as well.  I can only hope to one day even begin to repay him for the friendship, comaraderie, and contributions he has made to my life. Mike and I remain the best of friends, and I appreciate his understanding and patience throughout my rather circuitous decision making process.

With all of that being said, I should add that StartupLounge will continue on.  The inimitable  Josh Watts has agreed to replace me as the co-host of our podcast.  If you don’t know Josh, you should.  I can’t think of a better person to step into that role.  He has a solid understanding of early-stage entrepreneurship, technology, and carries with him a wicked sense of humor that will help keep the StartupLounge podcast as entertaining as ever.  So for you die-hard listeners of our podcasts, rest assured, it will continue to be worth tuning into. Who knows?  I might even make a cameo appearance every now and then :)

All of the free StartupLounge events will continue, including PitchCamp, Startup Seminars, and of course, the thrice yearly StartupLounge gathering in Atlanta.  Expansions are already underway to carry the philosophy and beliefs behind StartupLounge to other areas, including Savannah and Raleigh/Durham.  Mike is 100% committed to doing this, and his continued leadership will turn this into a reality.

As for me, well, it isn’t like I’m completely falling off the face of the earth.  I’ll still be around, helping as many people as I can, where I can.  I just may not be as visible. I will continue to attend StartupLounge events when I can, as well as others.  I continue to take enormous satisfaction in helping others achieve success, be it through mentoring, speaking, coaching, etc.  Oh, and continuing to learn new things myself.  I can’t imagine my life without those things, quite frankly.

Enough rambling from me.  I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.  Peace out.

Cheers.

Tree Pub and Grill
5071 Peachtree Industrial Blvd (recently renamed Peachtree Blvd)
Chamblee, GA 30341

http://www.thetreepubandgrill.com/

Band goes on around 9:30 on Saturday, August 14.

Hope to see everyone there!

What is StyroFone?

StyroFone (henceforth referred to as simply “SF”) is a mashable, SIP compatible soft phone distributed as a browser plugin.  It isn’t a Flash phone, or anything like that.  We decided to distribute it as a browser plugin to provide persistence of voice connectivity from page to page, as well as to provide a better platform for mashups.

@zlu had a pretty good summary: @zlu #styrofone, takes the guts out of skype and puts in the browser!

At StarPound, we love our beer, and why not?  Let’s face it – when most people think about IP telephony and converged applications, they immediately think of beer.  We are no different.  So, one afternoon, Wei Wang (CTO) and I were at our local watering hole near the office discussing this and that.  Short version – a few beers later, we had conceived the idea behind SF, and started working on the prototype.

The phone app itself is fully SIP compliant, with full codec support (G.711, G.729, et al), echo cancellation,  and can be used with any SIP service provider or switch.

We have a few major goals in the design of the phone.

First and foremost, we wanted it to be seamlessly integrated into the browser.  By this, I mean that it should not disrupt or deter from the surfing experience.  It should augment it.   The phone should not be “intrusive”, but “supportive”.  Don’t want to see the phone?  It minimizes and resizes like Firebug.  We’ve also implemented things like customizable click-to-call capabilities (phone links on web pages are turned into links which popup the phone and start dialing the number for you).

Right now, we’re targeting Firefox/PC for the initial launch, but we’re going to expand that as quickly as possible to IE, and for Macs. And yes, we’re looking at the iPad as well.

The second goal was to ensure that the phone was “mashable”.  See the screenshot below for an idea of what we’re talking about:

So, a call comes in, and all of a sudden, you get to see cool things about that person, like CRM data, Twitter feeds, blog feeds, their Flickr feed, remote weather, etc.  You get the idea.

There is a full API as well, for controlling the phone (making calls, call control for conferencing, etc.).  This is extended into the widget area as well.  The widgets are all driven by what we call an “event bus”, so they can send and receive standard SF events, as well as their own custom events.  Widgets can communicate not only with the phone itself, but also other widgets.

The widget API can also be used to fully integrate into your PBX for voicemail management, user directories, etc:

We’re also incorporating browser sharing, so while you’re talking with someone, you can collaborate over the web together. If you want to bring another colleague into the collaboration conference (or even just a voice conference), you can just drag them into the phone. :)

StyroFone also has a TON of applicability within vertical markets.  Consider customer service and call centers.  How about your customers conversing with a customer service agent over voice/video/collab at the same time?  Yeah, it looks cool – can’t do a screenshot of that just yet, but trust me … it’s cool as hell.

We use SF for calls all the time internally at StarPound.  I even had a conference call at a local cafe over SF and local WiFi.  It pairs nicely with USB Bluetooth headsets as well. :)

We think this is all pretty cool stuff. However, what is probably even cooler than the phone, is the business model we are refining for it.  The phone itself will be freely available, so you’ll be able to download it and use it for personal use.  But our business model, we think, will allow us to offer a completely free phone service for subscribers.  When we say free, we don’t just mean SF-to-SF.  I’m talking about SF to PSTN, cell, etc.  A free global communications network.  This is our goal, although this will not be a day-one service.

There’s a LOT more to StyroFone than I have time (or authority) to discuss right now.  However, I will no doubt write more about SF as we move closer to the next beta cycle.  If you are interested, you can head to styrofone.com and apply for it.

Cheers.

… a most unfortunate story this week: the foreclosure and eviction of a Lithonia family whose son was the first Georgia casualty during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Spc. Jamaal Addison was killed during an ambush on March 2003, and the Lithonia branch of the United States Post Office has been renamed in his honor. And in a miserable twist of fate, the family is set to be evicted on the very day set aside to honor Spc. Addison, Monday August 2nd.

Above: Patricia Roberts (R), mother of US Army Specialist Jamaal Addison, mourns along with other family members during his funeral at White’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Georgia on Monday. Addison was killed when his unit was ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23. Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution

There has been some stuff written about what we’re trying to do to help the family.  While I appreciate the effort to spread the word, it isn’t about me, or some kind of magical thing I’ve done.  There were/are a lot more people involved in this.  I just made some phone calls, really.  Here is the story.

After reading Bo Emerson’s AJC article which shed light on his family’s difficult situation, I decided to see what we could do to help – being a vet myself, and having kids of my own, it just hit me hard.  After some super-sleuthing by Robert Shoe, my fellow ex-Army bizdev guy at StarPound, we were able to track Ms. Roberts down and talk with her about her situation. I had several different (very emotional) conversations with her, and I will tell you, Patricia Roberts is one of the most wonderful, salt-of-the-earth people you will ever meet.

My immediate concern was three-fold: 1) secure adequate housing for the family, so they wouldn’t have to worry about that, 2) keep the family together in the process (they already had to split up among relatives and friends, including Ms. Robert’s own mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s), and 3) ensure that Little Jamaal (his young son, who was only 2 when his father died) would be settled in time to start school. After this, we could knuckle down and help Ms. Roberts secure new employment (and we’re already making progress on that front).

I had been in contact with my wife, who had shared some of this with our own four year old daughter, Katie.  When I got home that night, Katie was full of questions.

• “Daddy, why does Little Jamaal need a new home?”
• “Where is his mommy?”
• “Mommy said something happened to Little Jamaal’s daddy. What happened, Daddy?”
• “So Little Jamaal’s daddy was trying to stop the bad guys?”
• “What kind of bad guys?”
• “Are the bad guys going to come to our house?”
• “Daddy, I’m scared of bad guys.”
• “Ok, Daddy, I won’t be scared any more.”
• “Daddy, I made a picture for Little Jamaal, can you give it to him?”
• “It’s a picture of their new house and he is looking out of the window at the sunflower. I even signed it with my name!”

I tried to navigate the endless barrage of 1-800 numbers, customer service agents, and loss mitigation “experts” from Suntrust (the foreclosing bank), but basically ended up wasting 3 or 4 hours on the phone.   I “get” that they are a business, and at the end of the day, they have policies which need to be upheld.  But when someone calls offering a financial solution in a situation like this, I would have expected to be received a bit more warmly, and that’s all I’ll say about it.  We could have gotten her current with her mortgage payments, bought it out of foreclosure for her, etc. But, no dice. Suffice it to say, I knew we had to take a different path.

To their credit, Suntrust at least eventually gave her family an extension on when they had to be out of their current home.  Of course, this was after they got hammered by Senators, the folks at Ft. McPherson, and other folks in the community.  But still … it does help.

In the meantime, Mike Blake and the great folks at HA&W stepped up to offer tax/accounting advice on how to treat the property if we were able to work a deal with Suntrust. Even though we chose a different path, they were absolutely awesome.

I immediately called my good friend and VetLoop co-founder Jason Jones of Cresa Partners here in Atlanta.  For those that know Jason, well, I don’t need to say anything else.  Jason is a former naval aviator who ran missions off the carrier U.S.S. Enterprise. He is also one of the most charitable and good-natured guys I’ve ever had the privilege of calling a friend.  Jason stepped up and got involved with us, as I knew he would.

One of our customers, Doug Ingram (DHL), was in our office working with our team on a project.  After mentioning the story to him, Doug stepped up and got involved as well.  On the side, Doug dabbles in rental properties.  He had an idle house that happened to be sitting on 6 acres of land he bought down in Fairburn, just south of Atlanta.  He graciously offered to let the Roberts’ family use the house until they could get back on their feet.  Several of us offered to pay her rent there, should she decide to stay longer (a point that Doug readily dismissed as unnecessary).  One evening, we went down to the house to check it out.  After spending a few hours on site, it was evident that we were going to need a veritable army of people to help get the house to a livable state.  We lined up a bunch of really great friends (aka the StarPound Flag Football team, Nest Construction, and some other folks) to come down on the weekend and do an overhaul.

I was thrilled that we had pulled together a solution for the family.

However, the next morning, after further reflection, we just didn’t feel good about putting her in the house – it just needed too much work.  The house was built in 1958 and had seen better days.  So, another path would have to be found. I was reminded of one of the many bits of wisdom my late father shared with me growing up. He used to tell me that “the worst feeling in the world is wanting so desperately to help someone, and feeling powerless to do so.”  I was starting to feel that way a bit.

Sometimes, the easiest solution is right in front of you.  Thanks to my good friend Mike Blake for slapping me silly and telling me what should have been obvious.  We’d raise enough money to cover the family’s rent in a decent rental home here in Atlanta say, for a year – plenty of time for her to get back on her feet, and take care of her family.  We’ve already identified several properties that might be a good match for the family. We all started throwing money into the hat, and very quickly found ourselves with $4,000. And this is what I need help with from the community out there.

Please.  If you can contribute to the effort here, please donate to the fund below, which will help provide a longer-term solution for the family:

Chase Bank
JAMAAL ADDISON II MEMORIAL FUND
Routing #: 061092387
Account #: 4901323066
1-800-788-7000

I never knew SPC Jamaal Addison, although I suppose one day I will get to meet him.  He paid the ultimate price to give us the freedom to talk about startups, technology, and other things that don’t really matter at the end of the day.  And his family needs our help.  Please help us.

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UPDATE: Benefit concert

UPDATE: I inadvertently omitted a digit in the account # for the fund – corrected now – if you have contributed, PLEASE verify that your money went into the right account.  So sorry!

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