| Today he works in management for a national coffee chain, living part of the year on an island in Florida. He’s able to afford his island home because Mormons don’t fish. Let me explain. It’s a journey that begins on the Bering Sea.
Billy was 23 or 24 and had attended – and dropped out of – two colleges in the early ‘80s. His goal then was to work in the hospitality field. He’d been a collegiate downhill skier. His love of skiing contributed to his departure from the two schools. He liked skiing more than the classroom so he decided to crisscross the country from Vermont to Alaska.
 In Alaska he found odd jobs while applying for work on fishing trawlers – without success. Money was tight so he moved from a small apartment he shared with friends to a tent in a forest on the outskirts of town.
At the local pub, a stranger, hearing Billy’s hard-luck-tale, said: “Billy, a friend of mine works on a trawler captained by a Mormon. The captain hired a few Mormons and discovered that Mormons don’t fish; they just aren’t good at it. He needs deckhands. The boat leaves the dock at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow and I think there’s a job for you if you can pack up and get there before the boat departs.” Billy departed that night.
He worked 18-hour days spending weeks at sea: tending lines, cleaning fish, lubricating equipment and repairing cables and ropes. The way it worked was that deckhands shared in the profits of the boat. The more fish caught the greater the rewards. (Like traditional real estate agents, the higher the home sale price the greater the compensation to the agent.)
(Maybe buyers who don’t use an Exclusive Buyer Agent are like those fish in the Bering Sea – caught…but that’s another story.)
 Billy worked that boat for 8 years and then decided to become a boat captain. That part of the story becomes a bit hazy. We were on our third beer. As I recall, Billy wanted to pilot a 90-foot trawler. To do this he had to pass a test that included celestial navigation. According to Billy, he studied the stars by sitting on top of a Miami apartment building.
He eventually passed his test and met the licensing requirements to captain a trawler. As the story goes, after 5 years captaining Billy encountered some issues with Russian fishing fleets to the point Billy is hesitant to visit Russia. He soon left the sea behind.
The quick story of how Billy morphed into logistics and supply chain management for a Fortune 500 company is a story of smarts, organizational ability and communication skills, skills needed to needed to run a 90’ trawler.
He’s no longer at sea but is surrounded by water. He lives on a Florida island for the peace the water provides and the privacy. He bought the home soon after Hurricane Charley using the money he earned from his time at sea.
 If there’s a real estate lesson in all of this it’s this: Life is a journey…from tent to apartment to island home and – don’t be a fish and get caught working with an agent who doesn’t work for you. Use an Exclusive Buyer Agent.
Every journey requires a first step. Contact us if you have real estate related questions and we’ll meet over coffee. We’ll offer some truth, no fish tales.
Thanks for reading,
Michael D. Holloway
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