The solo around the world yacht race and other sailing related items.
Why do it?
After a long night in bed, I have finally shaken some of the tiredness off. The emotional drain of preparing for the race, plus the physical demands does leave me exhausted. We are staying ashore for a few days and I am pacing myself. This afternoon I will be driving to Clinton, SC to Presbyterian College where I will be addressing the SC State Chamber of Commerce sponsored, Youth Business Week. Governor David Beasley speaks earlier in the day. I am not paid for these presentations. They take a full day out of my schedule, place me under more time pressure and place demands on my financial resources. But it is important to our organization and me. We are part of teaching and helping the future leaders of our State.
My entry in the race is more than just to participate in a sport I love. The Neal Petersen mission is to complete the 27,000-mile racecourse. A subset of my participation in the event is the opportunity I have to impact many lives. Our organization, the No Barriers Education Foundation, has many active role models. We are people who are trying to show youth opportunities, broaden their horizons and expose them to varieties of experiences. We are not retired people who have done it all, but young people who too are still striving to realize our own dreams facing progress some days and set backs on other days.
The Around Alone gives our customers a global event to latch onto and provides our Foundation with a marketing platform. We have defined our customers as youth who need to become self-directed, life long learners, teachers who are looking for creative ways to educate these youth, and volunteers who want to make a difference in the lives of others. In the years to come, our youth and teachers will grow into our volunteer base. The SC Ports, Phillips Industrial Services, Prudential and Passport International are companies who want to be aliened with this customer base and our commitment to the community. They aid us in achieving our objectives and are our fourth customer.
Each day, my time is spent between meeting the needs of our customers, building our organization and race preparations. In building the Foundation, we need to prepare for the 21st century. My partner, Bob Richard is a Washington lobbyist and was the Chief of Staff for a Texas Senator. His distant vision is to provide an operations package for selected colleges who are at risk of loosing their creditation. My job is to build an organization that over the next two decades will transition to implement Bob's vision and provide the stability for major organizations to support us, based on the impact we are making on our youth. This race is a part of our marketing strategy to help develop not only our programs, but also the visibility for both our customers and organization.