Legitimate Decades – From Guest Blogger Brian Suiter
Continuing our 25th anniversary blog series, in addition to Triad team members, we will also be sharing posts from clients, friends, and community partners who have been a part of our journey to reach this milestone. We hope to authentically uplift and represent their voices through stories, thoughts on our mission, and in any other creative way they can come up with. Kicking us off is long time Triad friend, Brian Suiter. Brian has maintained a friendship with partners Zach and Brent since an early ULI hard hat tour of our Yankee on High project. Brian also previously worked with our managing director, Todd, and they continue to ride together in Pelotonia. During the pandemic, Brian struck out to be his own boss joining Tom Vetter and Brenan Palma as a Principal at River West Partners. Please take a moment to read his thoughts on authenticity and what it means to develop partnerships in a meaningful way. Follow Brian for updates on his professional work, his journey as a cancer survivor riding for a cure, and mural enthusiast trying to bring more murals to Columbus.
To whom it may concern:
Decades. Legitimately decades. I’ve known Brent, Zach, and Todd collectively for more years than Triad has existed. I was introduced to Brent and Zach at a “hard hat” tour event at their Yankee Trader building. We shared a pint at Char Bar afterwards and talked real estate. Seldom, do I get to find people that can geek out while debating parking ratios and community engagement. I had found “like minds”.
A few years later, in a separate part of life, I got to know Todd and spent just as many hours with him collaborating in a conference room as on a bike, training for Pelotonia. Similarly, I had found a “like mind”. Fast forward a couple more years and Triad is looking to add to their team, Brent and Zach, unknowingly, described Todd to me as we discussed the new role. I’m a big believer in transitive law and the belief that good people should know good people, and in this case, “like minds” should know each other.
The connections between us individually, or the value in making connections to each other, are neither very remarkable occurrences though. Everyone should seek out “like minds” to debate with. Everyone should introduce friends to friends.
What is remarkable is that over the decades of time that I’ve known Brent, Zach, and Todd, they remain truly authentic to who they are, how they want to own, run, and organize their businesses and what they want from their work and their lives. Seeking that authenticity, during some of the most critical intersections in my professional life, I’ve sought out and found authentic, thoughtful, and meaningful guidance from them, individually and as a team. Despite some of that guidance being hard to hear, it was critical in my planning and strategy, to have an honest and direct perspective.
In a world where everyone is sold on 30-second video clips and instant reactions, authenticity suffers. Regardless of the location being on a bike while sharing a single lane road or in the basement wine bar of Denmark sharing a bottle of wine, authenticity is proven over decades. Legitimate decades.
