Great Promise

Paul Trapp knew it would be a hard Christmas for the Trapp kids that year. His once lucrative real estate investments had recently gone under, and though he knew bankruptcy was the best professional decision he could make at the time and that his naturally resilient nature would triumph soon, he knew they would have to go without that Christmas season.

Financially, it was the hardest time of his life—a reality that weighed heavily on his heart as he came home one day to find a FedEx envelope on his doorstep. Noticing that, curiously, the sender’s address listed his own, he opened the envelope to find a Christmas card. “I’ve been watching you all year long, and I like what I see,” said a note scrawled on the inside of the card. “You’re a good man and you do good things. Please accept this gift.” In the card, along with the note, was a thousand dollars. “I was shocked,” Paul recalls today. “I played detective trying to find out who had sent it, but I ultimately had to give up.”

The legacy of that gift, however, lives on. Now the cofounder and CEO of FederalConference.com, Paul still keeps a running list in the card of every time he’s paid the gesture forward by giving anonymously. It’s a tenet that permeates his business, as well. Every year, the company allots each of their 50+ employees $1,000 to give away to charitable organizations of their choice, with a brief explanation of their decision. “We learn so much about our employees this way, and I believe they learn about themselves as well,” Paul remarks. “When we empower them to give back like that, it prompts them to really ask themselves the question, What’s important to me? To see that goodness course through the veins of the organization and the positive outcomes it engenders is extremely rewarding.”

This approach to life was perhaps solidified in Paul by a mentor named Major General Ronald O. Harrison, who challenged him, as a leader, to find people of great promise and enable them to become.  “That has stayed with me always,” says Paul. “At 53 years old now, I see my life not in terms of defining moments, but defining people—those who saw promise in me and enabled me to become. I’m thankful for them, and I feel compelled, as part of my life mission, to give that back.”

Though there was a time he didn’t see it in himself, people have been seeing great promise in Paul and enabling him to become since he was a young boy growing up in Everett, just outside of Boston. His parents divorced before he was born, and his father was absent all through his childhood, but his mother worked hard as a waitress to raise him right. With an entrepreneurial spirit of her own, she owned three restaurants over the years, and that mindset rubbed off on her son. When he was ten years old and his mother said they couldn’t afford to go to the county fair, Paul decided to try his hand at raising the money himself by selling leftover inventory from her days as an Avon makeup saleswoman. The young boy went door to door selling lipstick and perfume, and when he finished with one box, he came home for another. “It was my first adrenaline rush with sales,” he laughs. “I earned a hundred dollars, and we used that to go to the fair and have a great time together as a family.”

Around that time, Paul’s mother married the man that would serve as his father figure—someone who would coach his Little League team, lead his Boy Scout troop, and stand in line with him to pick the fastest go-kart. Despite the excellent examples set by his parents, however, Paul saw himself as a bad boy. “My grades were good when I chose for them to be good,” he recalls. “I was more concerned with beer and girls and riding around in muscle cars with my friends.”

Most people dismissed Paul as just another problem kid, but not his ninth grade English teacher, Ellen Barol. “She would constantly challenge me to be better, and her efforts bled outside of English,” he says. “I remember she grabbed me in the hallway once and told me I was a good man—that she saw something in me I didn’t see in myself. For some reason, even when I didn’t listen to my parents or anyone else, I listened to her. She made me see that I had potential—that I was a good kid who just hadn’t found his way yet.”

Paul thought he found that way when he saw a friend join the Army and completely transform into a fit, self-sustaining adult. He convinced his parents to grant permission for him to enroll early, and on the day he turned seventeen, he dropped out of high school and went away to basic training. The first thing he did was set about earning his GED, and once he earned his first paycheck, he bought a set of encyclopedias for Ms. Barol’s classroom.

Paul served on active duty until he was 20, when he decided to come home and join the National Guard. His parents had sold their restaurants and moved to Florida, so he joined them there and got a job as a correctional officer. After two years, he went back on active duty and became a recruiter, which keyed into his natural affinity for sales. “I was one of the top producing recruiters in the state of Florida for five years in a row,” he remarks. “This is because I asked every person what they wanted to be when they grew up, and I helped them chart a course to that goal.”

Toward the end of those five years, Paul happened to befriend the youth minister of a Catholic Church. He had seldom been to church since he joined the Army, but he decided to attend one of their meetings in the interest of meeting potential recruits. “I went with the intent to recruit them, but they recruited me,” he laughs. “I fell in love with the feeling of offering guidance to those kids in that setting, and I started getting a fulfillment out of giving my time and my talent that I had never gotten before.”

Through that experience, Paul’s understanding of God evolved to become among the most character-defining forces of his life. Indeed, he was born in a Catholic environment, but for the first 25 years of his life, religion was more about showing up and going through the motions. “It was something I was supposed to do, not something I wanted to do,” he remarks. “I felt like I was standing outside a party where I could hear the celebration through the door, but couldn’t find the doorknob. I was there, but I wasn’t really there. But through discernment, relationships, prayer, and the times I felt there was more to life than what I was doing, I came to understand that what you are is God’s gift to you, but what you become is your gift to God.”

Up to that point, Paul had used his God-given gifts the way many people do—for personal gain. But when he was challenged by close friends to do something more, it was like finding the doorknob. “They opened the door to the party for me and made me realize the gifts I had been entrusted with came with great responsibility,” he remembers. “When I started using them for the benefit of others, I noticed a distinct change in my life. I was blessed more in everything I did. It felt better, cleaner, smarter, and more sincere.”

When Paul changed the code of conduct underlying his behavior, his entire life followed suit. For the first time, he understood that leadership was not about personal gain, but about taking care of those he was leading. Living life for the betterment of others led him to pursue different goals and meet different people. Over the next several years, he transitioned off active duty, attended Army Officer Candidate School to become an officer, and pursued a higher calling to attend Seminary.

During this time, as he served in the National Guard and prepared to start Seminary, three instances of what might be considered divine intervention took place. First, as a favor for a family friend, he agreed to serve as a temporary nightclub manager. When a gun was pulled on the dance floor one night, Paul’s path crossed with Steve Davis, the Catholic police officer who was initially skeptical of a nightclub manager who was bound for Seminary. “We bonded immediately through our mutual faith, belief, and values,” Paul remembers. “He’s like a brother to me now.”

Paul was out on the town one evening with Steve several months later when a second pivotal person walked into his life—an incredible girl named Kimberly. And shortly thereafter, Hurricane Andrew hit Southern Florida, prompting a humanitarian deployment that would cause Paul to miss his Seminary start date. “Kimberly stole my heart and I knew I wanted to marry her, so I opted out of the seminary and found myself in need of a job,” he remembers. “I became a cop in Central Florida and was named Police Officer of the Year, and I like to joke that I went from the backseat of a police car at age 15 to the front seat of a police car within a decade.”

After multiple deployments, Paul decided to return to active duty and finish his military career. As he thought of other ways to supplement his Army exit strategy, in addition to delving into the real estate market, he considered building a business—one that would service a need that he, himself, had personally experienced. While in the Army as a senior leader, he often found himself planning events, which launched him into the convoluted process of government contracting. “First, I’d need a venue, so I’d request proposals from hotels,” he recalls. “I’d have to review bids, select one, justify it, award the contract, lock it down, and then repeat that entire painful process over and over again for speakers, charter buses, caterers, what have you. So I thought, what if there were one company I could contract with that could do all of that for me and send me an invoice at the end? It would simplify my world immensely.”

Paul had taken this need to big companies who said they could solve all his problems, but because they weren’t event planners by specialty, they were really only making things up as they went along. Conversely, real event planners were generally too small to undertake the magnitude of event the Army required. “I realized that, if I could build a company where I could commit to a project, bring the talent to the table to deliver on that commitment, pay the bills, and wait 45 days to get reimbursed by the government, I could offer a very valuable service,” he remarks. “When I see a situation like that, my business mind immediately kicks in. It’s a creative process—if I see greatness and beauty in something, I consume myself with it. I’m addicted to the entrepreneurial mindset.”

He saw greatness in the idea, and with that, he partnered with his best friend Steve and launched FederalConference.com somewhat casually in February of 2006—an opportunity for them to make additional income through a home-based business in the evenings. By May of 2006, Paul found himself filing his real estate venture for bankruptcy but committed to restructuring and paying off every cent of his debt. Thankfully, good ideas catch on quickly, and FederalConference soon caught fire. “I knew there was a need for the service I could provide, and the more we applied solution to that need, the more it was like adding gasoline to the fire,” he remarks. “And as the company matured, I came to realize that the art we had used to launch it—gut feelings, intuition, people skills—requires science as well, like systems, processes, and attention to detail.”

The company’s development has trended positively thanks to the exceptional working relationship between Paul and Steve, who have been each other’s sounding boards, support systems, and partners in combating crime ever since they met. As cops, they had each others’ backs on the street. In the National Guard, they deployed overseas together and spent 14 months working side by side in that capacity. Each was the best man in the other’s wedding, and each helped the other carry his mother’s coffin to the grave. And now, with the communication skills they developed through church peer ministry programs, they share ideas and work through problems constructively in the best interest of the business. “We put each other on pedestals and have mutual respect for each other,” Paul affirms.

As FederalConference has come of age as a company, putting on 3,000 events a year and enjoying an astounding 24,830% growth from 2009 to 2012, its success ties directly to its exceptional customer service. “In a sense, challenges are opportunities because they give us a chance to really do what our clients are paying us to do, which is to provide expertise and act as a buffer against the painful minutiae of event planning,” Paul says. “You can burn through government resources trying to find what’s right, or you can just hire us to bring in the right solutions and people. Indeed, our true success is the people and culture of our company, so everything we do is focused on that.”

Because of this goal, and because of his natural affinity for seeing great promise and enabling it, Paul is somewhat of a benevolent father figure in business. “Our company is very much about taking care of people and helping them along their journey in a very positive and personal way,” he affirms. “I like to know people and what their goals and needs are. I see great promise in them, and I help actualize that, whether it’s monetarily or through career or personal development guidance. In this sense, we are very much a community at FederalConference. I have 53 people, from those more advanced in their careers to those just out of college, and I really feel it’s my responsibility to help enable each one. This might mean losing people along the way when their paths diverge from ours, but we never stand in anyone’s way.”

Paul’s work advances the betterment of others not only through the company culture he’s created, but also through the fruits of his labor. Indeed, money has never been an end, but rather a means to other ends—ends that touch lives in ways that are as thoughtful as they are powerful, and as immediate as they are lasting. One such end was the construction of a science lab for a Catholic school in a low to medium income area, furnished with burners, microscopes, and skeletons. Others, anonymous but just as poignant, are chronicled in the Christmas card.

In advising young entrepreneurs entering the working world today, Paul stresses the importance of authenticity. “Be true to who you are,” he says. “I blazed my own path differently than everyone else did.  I didn’t fit into traditional leadership or academic leadership because I was much more about following my natural passions, and other people, in turn, seemed to follow that. Also, learn as much as you can everyday—not just about your world, but about everyone else’s worlds too. Choose the hard right over the easy wrong. Be open. Care about your people. Pay it forward.”

In following these principles through his journey through life, Paul often remembers a time when he served in active duty under Colin Powell. “He taught us that the day people stop bringing you their problems, is the day you stop leading them,” says Paul. “Maybe they’ve realized you don’t care, or that you’re incapable of solving them, but either way, it’s a failure of leadership.” Now, this life lesson is printed out and taped up next to his computer screen to remind him of his role every time an employee walks into his office. “This is where I’m supposed to be right now,” he says firmly. “Everything I am, everything I’ve been trained for, every person that invested time or money in me, has prepared me for this. This is my great promise, and I’m here to answer that call.”

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