Dan served 5-years in the Marine Corps. He started in the aviation ordinance and missile technician in VMA-214 Black Sheep Squadron, 3 rd MAW at MCAS El Toro, Santa Ana, California. He went the Navy’s “AO” Aviation Ordnance School for 6 months in Jacksonville, FL for additional training. After one year at El Toro, the squadron commander approached Dan. The captain wanted to send two of us to the most elite independent duty in the Marine Corps called Embassy School in Washington DC. He said that less than 1% of the entire Marine Corps is eligible for the program. There are less than three hundred embassies worldwide.
The Marine Security Guard school was 3 months long and incredibly challenging mentally, physically, and academically. Statistically, less than half of all students make it through the school. We studied the mission and purpose of the school since the school was established in 1948 by congress. U.S. Marine Security Guards work closely with the State Department and “DSS” Diplomatic Security Service to protect and safeguard all embassy personnel, property, and sensitive information at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. All embassy guards need a top-secret clearance!
For the next 3 years, Dan worked at the American Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia for one year. The second year was Guatemala City, Guatemala and the final year in Georgetown, Guyana. It was an honor working with all the ambassadors and U.S. State Department personnel at every embassy. Living in South America for three years also helped to be very proficient in another language which helped me working in the construction industry all these years!
Dan graduated with a BSC in Accounting and Finance from George Washington University. He also has an MBA from Keller School of Management. Dan was a controller and CFO in the construction industry for 22 years. Dan worked 10 years with a large family-owned local general contractor named Hitt Contracting. The company grew fast. The CFO, at the time, was a perfectionist. He wanted operational and accounting SOP documentation for every
task and procedure for all locations. In 30 years, the company has grown from one location of $100M to over $5B now in over ten locations throughout the United States.
The next 12 years Dan worked with two more family-owned subcontractors named W. L. Gary and Hann and Hann.
Both company owners committed to reorganize their companies to strategically grow for the future. Both companies had operational policies and procedures that needed changing. Well documented processes and employees who
worked well unsupervised resulted in both companies growing more than two and a half times in the next 5-to-
seven-year period.
As a fractional CFO/Consultant for the last 10 years Dan has worked with over thirty-five different companies in different industries such has IT, medical, safety, lobbyists, auto body shops, government contracting, restaurants,
and custom home builders. Outsourcing CFO’s can enable companies to grow faster by focusing on the big issues.
