My family laughed when I pulled up to Thanksgiving in a twelve-year-old pickup truck. Then my sister found out I owned the company she’d been bragging about working for. Suddenly, everyone wanted to call me family. My name’s Reed.
I’m thirty-four, and for most of my adult life,my family treated me like the cautionary tale you tell kids to scare them into finishing college. Don’t end up like Reed. My mom, Diane, has actually said that out loud at dinner more than once. Here’s the thing, though.
I did drop out of college, sophomore year, mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech. My dad, Glenn, still brings it up like it happened yesterday. What nobody in my family ever seemed interested in understanding was why I dropped out or what I did after. I’ll get to that.
First, some context on the family. My older sister, Nora, is two years ahead of me. She was always the golden child. Honor roll, sorority president, graduated with a degree in communications,and pivoted into marketing.
She married a guy named Marcus about six years ago. Marcus is the kind of guy who introduces himself by telling you what car he drives. Their whole identity is appearances. The house, the vacations,the carefully curated Christmas card.
You get the picture. Growing up, I was always a little different. I liked building things, not school things,actual things. I fixed my neighbor’s lawn mower when I was twelve.
Rebuilt a dirt bike engine at fourteen. By the time I got to college, I realized I didn’t want to study systems. I wanted to build them. So, I left school, worked a series of warehouse and logistics jobs,and started learning everything I could about how supply chains actually function[mehr…
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