Founder’s Note

I spent the summer after my freshman year operating 400-ton haul trucks in an oil sands mine as a heavy equipment operator. What stuck with me most was that the people closest to the work understand it better than anyone looking at it from a spreadsheet. I absorbed more that summer from seasoned superintendents and foremen in the field than anything I'd learned in a textbook, and it gave me a deep appreciation for the critical needs of a complex industrial operation. I spent another summer in West Africa in the gold mining sector, then moved to Calgary, Alberta for a full-time engineering job out of school with Imperial Oil (ExxonMobil) 

After four years at Imperial, I earned my MBA and moved to Houston to work as an investment banker in natural resources. Great experience, brilliant people, and deep expertise in getting a deal across the finish line. But I was always one step removed from the businesses themselves, and I missed the agency to actually impact business performance. I consider myself an ops guy who happened to learn finance, not the other way around.

A few years back, I became CEO of a family-founded electrical conduit manufacturing company here in Texas. The company experienced its largest growth period in its history, and I thoroughly enjoyed putting my technical, operational, and financial skillsets to work. Learning a whole new industry didn't feel like work.

That experience is why I started Northcliff. I'm not looking for a transaction or a portfolio company — I'm looking for one exceptional, founder-led business in Texas that I can step into and run for the long term, the way I'd want someone to run mine, if I were the one exiting. My wife and I are raising our two daughters here in Houston — Texas is home. Outside of work, you'll find us spending family time together with our girls and our two Australian Shepherds.

If you're a founder thinking about what comes next, I'd welcome the chance to talk. I know how much rides on that decision, and I don't take lightly the trust it takes to even have the conversation.