Strength of Mind

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Charlie’s wife, Tricia, asked him. “I mean it. Let’s discuss the worst case scenario and decide if we can handle it.”

Charlie sighed deeply and mulled over all the ways his plan could backfire. His company, Business Leasing Associates, Inc., which had been thriving just a matter of months before, was suddenly on its deathbed after losing all its funding from a savings and loan company in Buffalo, New York. The company was bleeding money, and it seemed there were just two options: declare bankruptcy, or tough it out.

Already, Charlie had decided that he would take sole responsibility for the company, since his other two partners still had young families and no other source of income. He, on the other hand, had military retirement and a part-time consulting job with a Department of Defense national security entity, which, coupled with his wife’s government job and the fact that his children were already finished with college, put him in a reasonably stable position.

“I’d spent 21 years in the military, so I’d made an awful lot of tough decisions in my day,” he says. “But this one was different because it would affect my family. On one hand, if we pulled the company through this, we could be extremely successful again.  On the other, however, we could fail and find ourselves in serious trouble. We could lose everything. The bank could come after us for all our personal guarantees, but Tricia assured me that if that happened, we could start over, living off my federal retirement and her federal job. Once we realized we weren’t afraid of the worst case scenario, we decided we could handle anything.”

Together, the couple decided to work through the company’s troubling times, and while it took nearly a decade for Business Leasing Associates, Inc. to regain its footing, it is now thriving once more, proving that Charlie and Tricia’s leap of faith had been the right choice. Through careful analysis, strong values, honor, integrity, and trust—character traits cemented in Charlie through many years in the military—he, along with several new business partners, was able to pull his company back from the brink and translate strength of mind into a sturdy future for both his family and his company.

Focused primarily on equipment leasing, the company has broadened to encompass commercial loans and other financial instruments and is built on a large following of faithful customers, some of which have returned for their services forty times. “I’m doing this primarily to help people that can’t get financing anywhere else,” he says. “Each of our leases has a story, and I know them all. I understand them and their families and their problems. Before we even approve a deal, it becomes very personal. For the past several years, banks have not been giving a lot of loans, so it’s become incredibly hard for small business owners. I’ve taken great joy in helping people who deserve to be in the business and just need a break.”

Oftentimes, banks will refer potential clients to Charlie and his partners, knowing they’ll offer whatever help they can. The typical client for Business Leasing Associates has a credit score under 740, but seems to have the direction and integrity to pay them back in the future. Because of this distinct business philosophy, Charlie has gained extraordinary relationships that have spanned generations. “I had a client who was a dry cleaner that worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week,” he recalls. “We financed twelve different acquisitions for him, which allowed him to start his own business and start making a profit. Interestingly enough, he’s become so successful that now he’s one of our investors.”

While the company has seen countless success stories, Charlie has in turn learned to deal with any obstacle the company faces, from stolen equipment to clients running into trouble halfway through the lease, and with several clients even declaring bankruptcy. “In situations where the client falls into trouble, we try and help them out by stretching out their payments,” he explains. “If we think they can make it, they can continue to pay us under the new terms, knowing someone would need to give them another start. I’d prefer to have the client pay me less on his leases over a longer period of time than stop paying me all together. For this, I don’t add on extra charges or late fees, because at the end of the day, we just want our money back. “

Over the last 29 years, Business Leasing Associates, Inc. has created almost $8 million in leases to approximately five thousand clients, most of which are found around the Beltway of DC. The company boasts a distinguished reputation, to the extent that all of the investors involved heard about it by word of mouth. “We’ve never had to ask for a single dollar from any of our one hundred plus investors,” he explains. “They invest in relationships, both with us and with other investors.” In turn, the company sees to it that the investors are treated extremely well. “If there’s a ten thousand dollar lease, we go to five investor accounts, including our own, and take two thousand dollars from each to fund the project. As the payments come back in, they get back what they put out, and we pay 8 percent compounded, which can be a huge return over time.”

Since the company’s founding in 1983, little has changed, giving it a unique charm as well as a classic sense of accountability. Charlie has kept his rates consistent over the past thirty years, and many of his investors have been with the company for decades. What really sets the company apart, however, is how Charlie views himself as a team player in his arena, rather than a competitor. “I have no competition,” he says. “I try and partner with anyone in the area working in the same business. If I know a potential borrower has sent an application to me and the other guy, I’ll call that company up and see if he wants them. Sometimes we split deals, and sometimes I refer deals out if it seems more specific to them. I believe we are all experts, and there is certainly enough work to go around, so there’s no reason not to work together.”

Charlie grew up in Mathews County, Virginia where his father was a county treasurer for 26 years, and his mother was a teacher. His parents seemed to know everyone in the small community of nine thousand residents, where few people left and even fewer people came in. His mother had been very strict with Charlie, who was an only child, seeing that he studied rigorously and never missed a day of school. Even in his adulthood, he recalls his mother being the boss of the family, constantly keeping him and his father in line. “Before my father died, he told me, ‘You and I have always gotten along well. I’ve never had to discipline you. I think we both did exactly what your mother told us to do, and it worked out just fine,’” Charlie recalls with a chuckle.

The only time Charlie did not listen to his mother was when she signed him up for piano lessons in fourth grade. He liked the lessons enough at first, but after freezing at his first piano recital, he decided he wanted nothing more to do with the instrument. His strong-willed mother, however, insisted he continue to take lessons throughout high school, but because Charlie was so adamant to never perform again, he refused to practice and ended up spending most of his lessons chatting with his teacher. “I took one lesson a week for eight years, and managed to not learn a single thing,” he laughs. “My mother knew what was going on, but she insisted I keep taking the lessons in case I changed my mind.”

Charlie found early on that he was not an exceptional athlete, so he decided to invest his free time in working, beginning in seventh grade by sweeping the school floors at night and putting together bikes and doll houses for the local toy store. During his senior year of high school, he worked for a butcher, waking up at 4 am to drive to Richmond to pick up meat and deliver it to a local butcher before going to class.

With the encouragement of his mother, he did extremely well academically, winning the State Debate Championships his junior year. He graduated second in his class and was one of seven from his high school who went on to pursue higher education, enrolling at the College of William and Mary. Because he had spent time in high school working as a page in the Senate of Virginia, he decided to study law on a six-year track. He never wanted to ask his parents for money, so he joined the ROTC, worked as a waiter throughout undergrad, and got a gig as a park ranger for the final two years of law school.

Charlie’s first case as a law student involved a horrible two-car traffic accident, where he served as the park ranger investigating officer. He testified on the case before the Federal Magistrate, and each party was represented by a judge because a later civil case would depend on the outcome of the hearing. Much to his surprise, he was called by one of the judges a week later, who offered him a job based on his presentation of the Park Service’s case and his demeanor during cross examination. He passed his bar exam and seized the opportunity, working in a small practice in Williamsburg, Virginia for a year.

Just before graduating law school, he married Tricia, his college sweetheart, and the couple planned on settling down in Williamsburg. The Army, however, had different plans for Charlie, as he was quickly summoned to active duty to pay off his ROTC two-year obligation. Begrudgingly, he closed up the law practice and packed his bags for Okinawa, followed by an airborne unit in Vietnam.

Despite his initial resistance to the military, however, Charlie found he appreciated the Army much more than he anticipated. He was amazed at the quality of leadership and the feeling of unit dependence on each other. If nothing else, he quickly realized just how naive he had actually been. Early on in Vietnam, his unit captured a significant volume of Chinese weapons, including distinct Chinese hand grenades. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit came in to disarm the weapons so they could be transported for military use, but several of the grenades had handles that were too degraded from moisture to be tampered with, so the EOD left them in the jungle. Being the curious young soldiers they were, Charlie and his comrades decided to try their hands at disabling the grenades once the other units had left. “We were successful, but I think back on that and shudder,” he says. “I now keep one of those grenades on my desk to remind me of the stupidity of youth.”

He had been lucky that day, and all the other days he served in Vietnam, but the illusion of immortality that so often came with youth was quickly shattered for him as he watched many of his comrades perish. He witnessed Sergeant Larry Pierce, the leader of his patrol, throw himself at a mine, hoping to deflect it and protect his unit. He was successful in saving his men, but he was a few seconds too late to save himself. The image haunted Charlie for the rest of his life, though he was able to honor the Sergeant’s memory by writing him up for a Congressional Medal of Honor.

By the time he returned from Vietnam at the end of his two-year obligation, Charlie found he had changed his mind about military life. “I was very inspired by the commonality of purpose, the camaraderie, and the team effort,” he recalls. “It convinced me that I was working with some very good people, and I decided to sign up for another two years in the Army working in personnel in the Pentagon.” Consequently, after his second two years, he was invited to earn his Masters in International Relations, accruing another three-year obligation, which he went on to fill as the Chief of the International Affairs Division in Heidelberg, Germany. When that assignment was up, he returned to America to teach at the Judge Advocate General’s School at the University of Virginia for another three years.

After ten years in the Army, Charlie was sent to the First Cavalry Division in Fort Hood, Texas to serve as the Chief Legal Advisor. During his time in Texas, he worked for three distinguished generals that solidified his decision to stay in the Army indefinitely. “I always took the position that I was a soldier first and a lawyer second,” he said. “I had the privilege of working with two three-star generals who each started out as a Private E-1. One General would climb down into a grease pit to chat with a solider who was fixing the military truck, getting his hands covered with oil too.”

After attending the Army War College, he returned to Europe for another three years of service, and then came back to the states to work in the Department of Defense in the Pentagon, where he served as an Inspector General for Intelligence Operations for Secretary Casper Weinburger. “We looked over all the Military Services and the National Security Agency, ensuring that the government wasn’t spying on U.S. citizens,” he explains. “We were trying to determine if the military was collecting the conversations of Americans. That was in 1984, and is especially interesting given that this same issue is all over the headlines today.”

After 20 years in the military, having graduated to the rank of full colonel, Charlie found he was ready to retire, but with little direction of what to do next. Charlie Murray, who had become Charlie’s best friend in the Army, had retired shortly before him and gone into financial planning in Tampa, Florida. During a visit, the two sat down at a restaurant to discuss their options.  “Charlie suggested we go into business together, and I figured I’d accomplished college, law school, and the Army, so maybe it was time to try something totally new,” he says. Over dinner, they brainstormed what their company would look like and drafted out their business plan on the back of a Tequila Willie’s cocktail napkin. Several months later, in 1983, they started Business Leasing Associates, Inc., and where joined by their third partner, Joe Fellona. “It was a new challenge,” he laughs. “We had no idea what we were doing, but it was a lot of fun.”

The fledgling company enjoyed enormous success within its first six months. Charlie handled the administrative side of the business, while Murray took over financials, and Joe covered sales. They opened offices in Annapolis, Tampa, and Alexandria, bringing in countless clients. Over time, they started getting ninety transactions a month, so they brought in funding from Palmetto Savings and Loan out of Clearwater, Florida, which encouraged them to open seven more offices to take in a larger volume of orders and to strive for $6 million a month in business. Five months later, however, Palmetto Savings and Loan was bought out by GOLDOME from Buffalo, New York, who suddenly decided to terminate all funding. “They gave us only $1 million to shut the whole operation down,” Charlie recalls. “We had $300 thousand going in the pipeline that had been approved, but they cut us off.”

The team of three decided their only option was to keep their reduced funding efforts solely in Florida for the time being until they could figure out what to do with their other streams of finance. But then, the Challenger space shuttle blew up tragically, and there were no activities or tourists arriving around Cape Kennedy. For the next two years, the company was stagnant, with no new transactions until the disaster passed. “It was a hard time for everyone,” he says. “Hotels and plumbers went out of business. A third of our leases went delinquent. We had to move to brokering our deals and from profit margins of 13 percent to only 4 percent.”

The three partners quickly realized their company was not going to survive under its current circumstances, so they began searching for the next step. They took long walks along the docks of Alexandria and Annapolis, feeding the ducks and trying to imagine every possible solution. Over time, the best answer became obvious: the other two partners would have to leave and find new ways to support themselves and their families, but Charlie would stay. They closed down all their offices except the administrative branch in Alexandria, and for the next eight years, with his wife’s blessing, Charlie focused on paying off the outstanding leases, without taking on any new business. “That was a very tough time, but I learned a lot about business,” he recalls. “We made some mistakes four or five times, but eventually started regaining our footing. I picked up several individual investors and managed to pay off the original investors in Tampa, which allowed me to continue. Fast forward to today, and we’ve made a full recovery, having accrued close to 120 investors and doing over $9 million in loans at any one time.”

Looking back on his success in the company and his ability to pull it back from the brink of disaster, Charlie credits his experiences in the Army for having prepared him to make tough decisions and serve as a leader.  “I worked for a three star general in Europe who would say, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, and don’t let me do anything stupid.’ He was fair and no nonsense,” he recalls. “He taught me that if you’re willing to do the grunt work and take direction and advice from other people, people will follow you. You need to treat the people following you well and trust them, because at the end of the day, they are the ones watching your back and the business.”

While the Army gave him the greatest lessons in leadership and hard work, Charlie also developed a false sense of trust in his colleagues, so that he learned the hard way just how aggressive the business world can be. “In the military, if someone says they are going to be somewhere, they will be there. When they say it, they mean it. The system is built on trust and integrity,” he says. “That’s not how the business world operates, though. People might say something is a done deal, and that they just need this, that, and the other from you, but once you jump through those hoops for them, they act like they don’t know you, and you lose your end of the deal. It’s something I think everyone transitioning from the military to the business world experiences, and it can be very disheartening.”

Despite these cautionary words, however, Charlie is quick to acknowledge that Business Leasing Associates, Inc. was exceedingly fortunate to have business partners like Carol Fuhrer, Debbie Pearce, Hilton Smith, and others, who were integral to developing the vision and supporting the goals of the company. “If it were not for their ethics, hard work, and dedication, both to the company and to our clients, success would never have been possible,” he avows. After nearly 30 years in the business, the partners are now passing the torch to another set of dedicated professionals at One Degree Capital—individuals who share the same values, dedication, and work ethic that were present at Business Leasing Associates, Inc. “They have the same zeal and innovative spirit to help others that we started with,” Charlie says. “And they have one huge advantage over our generation: technology! It takes them less time to do the same tasks, which makes for even better service.”

With this focus in mind, Charlie is committed to bringing integrity and honor to his work—the kind that have been shaped over a lifetime of transformative experience and thoughtful reflection, and the kind that acknowledge trust as the fundamental building block of success. “The key to any successful partnership, be it in the military, in business, or in marriage, is the ability to trust and lean on each other,” he says. “That takes strength of mind, and there must be trust in the common goal. With those things, no challenge is too great to take on.”

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