When I was 11, my family moved into a neighborhood called Oakleigh Forest, a modest, multi-generational, suburban community near Annapolis, MD, made up of hard-working professionals, public servants, and small business owners. It also happened to be the same neighborhood where my father had grown up, and where my newly retired grandparents still resided in that same house down the street. I spent countless afternoons at my grandparent’s kitchen table eating cookies, playing cards, and doing homework until my parents returned from work.

As a lifelong elementary school teacher and reading specialist, my Granna inspired a love for learning and gave a palpable grace to everyone she came across. My Grampa, an accomplished mathematician, and public servant, demonstrated that there was so much more to life than professional achievement: like backyard baseball and bike rides with grandchildren, walking barefoot to the community pool, weeks at the beach with close friends, and service to his community and church.

This special relationship with my grandparents and this middle-class neighborhood shaped me in ways that I’m only beginning to understand. They combined the value of hard work with humility, demonstrated the joy of play, and revealed the riches that are only found in connections to loved ones and in service to one’s neighbor.  I named my business Oakleigh as a personal reminder of this place and these ideals, which serve as a lodestar when difficulties and distractions inevitably arise in business and life.