Charlie's "Why"

My passion has always been to help people. This is a trait that has been passed down from generation to generation in my family.​

My grandfather, Oskar Holzbauer, was part of an underground railroad that smuggled Jews out of Eastern Europe where they were being killed in pogroms and expelled from their towns. He owned the general store on the main square in a little Czech village on the Austrian border. Families would come to them and sometimes stay for months until word came that it was time to cross the border and head to the Alps, crossing them on foot to freedom. Unfortunately, they did not always make it. One family who had stayed at my mother's house for months had a little girl who my mother would play with. After that family went on their way, my mom got word that they had frozen to death in the Alps. At 96. my mother still cries when she tells that story.

As owner of the general store in a small rural village of farmers, Grandpa often extended credit on a handshake and was known for his kindness and honesty.​These are the values I inherited from my family.

My mother, Edith Holzbauer Kalech, escaped from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia (Watch the video for her extraordinary story). While my mother certainly faced many hardships when she arrived in America as a German-speaking penniless Jewish ten-year-old immigrant in 1939, she also received help from immigrant organizations like HIAS, from kind teachers and from many others. She dedicated her life to helping others, as she had been helped. She became a clinical social worker for over 50 years, helping children and immigrants. And I learned my values from her.

​In my profession, as the owner of a digital agency, a mentor, a teacher and presenter, I happen to help people with their businesses, in marketing themselves, in defining success, achieving their goals, and learning technology. The main inspiration is that I help people.​

BAMM affords me the opportunity, not only to help people integrate different parts of themselves so they become more completed, whole and happy as human beings, but also will hopefully create better businesses, work environments affecting customers, employees, suppliers and ripple its effects throughout the world one person at a time.