Well this is the first of what should be many articles from the mind of me, Bryan Holley. I retired as President & CEO of Proteon / OpenROUTE Networks (Westborough, MA) at the end of 1999 upon the completion of the sale of the company to Netrix Corporation. Like most of my career assignments, it was a "turnaround" (a company that needs "fixing"). Somewhere along the way, I was anointed a "turnaround CEO"- much to my chagrin! While the work was extremely stressful, the financial reward, when successful, was beyond ridiculous. I just calculated my hourly wage from that company for the first time as I'm typing this - $6,666.67 per hour. Now THAT is ridiculous! But such was the NASDAQ technology ride through the 80s and 90s.
After we sold the company, I suddenly realized that I was living in New England during a cold winter and, for the first time in my life, I could live wherever I wanted to! This revelation became apparent after a family visit to Austin during the Easter break. On my first day here, I played golf at Barton Creek Club with country music star Larry Gatlin and former UT football coaching great Darrell Royal. The grass was so green, the deer were "frolicking", the flowers were blooming. What the hell was I doing living in that winter hell-hole of New England? I immediately started looking for (and finally found) a house and bought it. I've been here ever since.
