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Image: My Heroes - Learn about Andrew's heroes and the people who shaped his life while growing up & now

Favorites My Heroes Back in the Day My Education Things That Changed My Life

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Image Quote: When I was growing up, my heroes were sports figures and racers

Ayrton Senna:
I always thought that Ayrton Senna was "The Man". He was awesome in the rain, always very
serious and made some of the sickest passes I have ever seen. His qualifying lap at Monaco is
by far one of the most amazing laps ever. He also did so much for the people of his country.
If you talk to Brazilians today, they still talk very highly of him.

Rick Mears:
He was always patient and always in the hunt. His track record at Indianapolis is amazing and something all racers should strive to achieve. I also know one of his crew members who is
still a part of Penske Racing and I still speak with him to this day.

Image Quote: Now that I am older I have added others to this list, but for different reasons

Benjamin Franklin
Yes, he was a Founding Father and yes he is credited with discovering electricity, but that is not
why he is a hero of mine. If you read some books on him you will see how much he was a part of making America what it is today. He was way ahead of his time, and even in the face of adversity,
he still pushed forward with what he believed to be right. Many times, he went against the grain
and prevailed because of his approach.

Theodore Roosevelt
He is the forgotten President of the 20th century. He is the only man to be awarded both The Noble Peace Prize and The Congressional Medal of Honor . If you look into his life, both as a President and elsewhere, you will find that a lot of what he did and talked about apply directly
to some of the issues we have today: Energy and Resource Conservation, Women’s Rights,
Dirty Business Practices and many more. The reason why he is a hero of mine is because he
stood up for what he believed regardless of what other people thought. He also lays out a
pretty good outline of what it means to be a good American citizen.

Charlie Munger
Most people have no clue who Charlie Munger is. Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett’s business partner at Berkshire Hathaway. I have had the luxury of listening to Charlie speak one time a
year for the past 4 years. In my opinion, Charlie is probably the most rational thinking man
alive today. He can be very abrupt in his statements, but is usually right. The main reason
why he is a hero of mine is because of the way he thinks about things and his teachings on
mis-judgment and human behavior. There are plenty of books available that explain Charlie
and they are well worth reading in my opinion.

Warren Buffett
Yes, he is extremely wealthy, but that is not why he is a hero of mine. Warren goes against the grain when it comes to money and investing. He has outperformed the market for the over 30 years and has done so in a way that 95% of the financial world does not use. He is very
rational in the way that things work and in his approach. The way that he thinks about things
and the way he treats money is something everyone should strive towards. There are also
many books about Warren, that in my opinion, are well worth reading.

Image Quote: Heroes do not have to be the most glamorous people out there. They just have to be people that can help you navigate life without having to meet them. There are two more people on my list that I have met.

My Grandfather
He was a navigator on a B-24 bomber in WWII. He was credited with 49 missions flown, including Ploesti twice. He was also
awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on his death bed in 2004 when I was racing at Sebring. The reason why he was awarded
this was for his last mission. He was the lead navigator when, at the time, bomber groups were making the final turn then dumping
tin foil out of the planes to deflect the German radar and then proceed to the target straight ahead. The Germans had caught onto
this and made adjustments. My Grandfather made the call to dump the foil and then make the final turn, which would make sense today, but on that mission every plane came back because of it. He juked the Germans!

After the war, he went on to raise 9 kids, working for a construction company and helped build a number of the buildings in NYC.

My Great Grandfather
I was born in 1981 and he died in 1985. Before he died, he showed me a computer. This doesn’t seem like much these days but
for an 89 year old man to have an Apple computer in 1985, I think that is very impressive. He had a career in the military dating back
to WWI as an air photographer. Basically, he hung out of bi-planes and took pictures of the enemy lines, so he was the first spy plane. He traveled all across the country for his whole life, many times going to Alaska. He wrote three books on his travels and what is
scary is that I look exactly like him when he was my age. Exactly! Learning about his travels has inspired me to travel as much as I
can and to see as much of America as I can. I don’t think I would have seen as much as I have, if it were not for him.

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