John Grillo:  

I am semi-retired, and only visit the office several mornings each week. The only real work I do is managing the commercial real estate (office buildings and strip shopping centers) that I built and accumulated for my own account over the years. I seem to spend more time in board meetings than I like, and the highlight of most mornings is a senior black coffee from McDonalds! My college education came from North Texas State University in Denton, Texas, and LSU, in Baton Rouge, LA. I began college hoping for a Bachelor of Arts degree and my studies morphed (I was a slow starter) into Banking, Finance, Law, and Retail Marketing. I steadily became more of an entrepreneur over the years and was fortunate to only work for "the man" until I was about thirty five years old. I have been self employed since 1981. My endeavors have included banking, operating specialty retail stores, being a trustee in the Federal Bankruptcy Court, and building, owning, and managing commercial real estate. My first job out of college was teaching school and I was very glad when that one year contract expired. I fondly look at my career as being "from the class room to the board room." I have two daughters (I started late) who are continuing their advanced college educations (graduate level studies in Finance and Accounting) at the University of Arkansas. I love to travel and I can't decide whether I enjoy the mountains of New Mexico or the beaches of Florida more. In the fall I go to most of the Arkansas Razorback football games and man...Expand for more