Wanna share this pic. These are George and Debbie Hamberger of Buffalo, NY.

George is a legend in the Buffalo community and recently stopped cancer treatment after three years. I talked with him today and he sounded *amazing,* but George isn't dodging what is a fact.

I've lost both my parents since 2016 and I've become comfortable with the idea end-of-life decisions are personal and varies. George is facing this with humor and honesty, which are his trademarks.

George was one of the original FM radio jocks in Buffalo and was born around 1950. He has always had an easy presence, on-air and office. Everyone loves George -- women, men, children, old people. Whoever. Because the Berger is one of those special people who radiates good.

I was working in radio at talk/classic rock combo, WGR-55/97 Rock, starting in 1988. I was an engineering assistant, doing whatever the real engineers needed. Which included going out to Jim Kelly's house at 7 a.m. Monday and Thursday mornings to set up a remote pickup

transmitter for The Jim Kelly Show on 97 Rock. A RPT is a device that allows for wideband transmission of a radio signal with a limited aperture and power output. It made it sound like Jim was in the studio, but Jim was usually in his bathrobe. And as my friend Janine Talley

would attest, Jim on a Monday morning was almost coming off a *very* full Sunday.

I also handled all the RPT assignments at 1 Bills Drive for the Marv Levy Show and The Bill Poloan Show. Marv was cool, but really busy. Bill was cool and certainly busy, but he always

made time to chat. Bill was awesome.

Anyway, George saw I liked studio production and running the board on weekends and overnights. I liked the responsibility and the creative roles.

The Berger was selected in 1989 to host a giant reboot of the morning show on GR-55

and asked me to be the board op and producer. This legend was investing in me, entitled sh*t of a kid, to handle something I had never done at that level. I was 20 at the time.

But George wasn't concerned. He invested in me because he saw the passion and maybe task dedication. And I took to it -- it fit my skill set. Lining up guests, doing pre-production, keeping stuff together when things were blowing up, juggling 5-6 things at a time. It just worked.

So George and I sat in a studio for two years and a cast of all-stars all worked in the broadcast, from Peter Weber on sports to Ray Marks on News to Marti Casper in the traffic plane. It was a hot broadcast with smart, fun people all around.

George was unfailingly gregarious and even-tempered, as was the whole team. Lots of stories, but I'll skip to the lessons.

1. Invest in younger colleagues. Don't be scared. Set them up to succeed *and* fail. Smart people learn from mistakes and get better. You won't know

until you've given that person a chance. Wall Street is *really* bad at withholding a P&L from younger people. You can't learn in our biz without a P&L.

2. Because of this, I've applied this to younger colleagues since. I've even underwritten their decisions when I was

quite confident whatever decision they were advocating was not swift. Because if you're managing people are teaching people, you can't helicopter them. They have to learn from making their own decisions. I don't know how others see their roles as leaders and talent developers

but I like my system. It lets people grow and it engenders lifelong goodwill. Not only did my parents teach me this, but George Hamberger also taught me this.

3. George also figured out ca 1991 radio was starting to fall apart as a business. Private equity was consolidating it

and just squeezing the life out of air talent. I know a number of people in radio that are making less today than they were 30 years ago. Not in real terms -- in nominal. So George always had a side hustle cause homeboy could sell. Not in a "I'm gonna trick you" sense,

because that's not selling. In the sense of being a listener and someone who could empathize and figure out what the customer needed. That's sales.

4. So one morning, I invited a local commercial estate broker on the program to talk about the S&L crisis and what was happening

in real estate. Buffalo was an epicenter of the S&L crisis because two local banks, Gold Dome Bank and Eastern Savings Bank ("The Big E") had incredible deposit franchises but lesser local demand for credit. Buffalo wasn't exactly a growth market at the time, but generated

tons of cash from established businesses. So these two banks bought all sorts of shared national credits, Michael Milken shitco paper, and all sorts of junk. So when the tax code changed in the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1987, real estate and all sorts of stupid tax dodges

blew to smithereens. That echoed back to Buffalo with the failure of both of these. Bob Wilmers' M&T Bank as well as HSBC's Marine Midland mopped the floor with these things (MTB is one of my biggest positions).

Anyway, getting off on a tangent -- I booked this big local

commercial real estate broker on to talk about this. And of course George made this nebulous, desiccated subject understandable and entertaining.

After the show, this commercial real estate eminence liked George so much they had coffee or lunch.

5. Flash forward 20 years.

I arrive back in Buffalo after being away for 20+ years to start up Charlotte Lane. I think George was one of the first three people I looked up. And George had by that point amassed one hell of a career in CRE. 1-2 years later, he was inducted into the Western New York

CRE Hall of Fame. George credited *me* with what flowed from that first meeting. I didn't do a darn thing but my job and George did the rest with landing that position and then executing on creating value for clients over the ensuing quarter century.

But George shared the

credit, whether deserved or no (he deserves all the credit). So the lesson there is: Share the credit. Whether or not it's wholly deserved. It makes people feel great, it communicates to others you're a team player, and it's almost always true: No person is an island.

7. Not sure which number we're on and trying to wrap it up. But always face danger and uncertainly with a smile and with courage. George does and did back then. And he's gonna leave so many people and family who love him, including me.

George is a good Catholic boy and I

studied under the Jesuits, who got to me with the Catholic / Rawlsian social justice ethic. George has lived his life in the way of Jesus. Not the sanitized Jesus of the Bible, but the loving, generous real historical man, Jesus Christ. The Berger is a loving, caring person.

Being a boater, George always told me to watch my lower unit, which comes in handy on the upper Niagara River, what with 3' depths that run at 13 kts before plunging over the falls. Yeah, you don't F around with the upper Niagara.

So, to George, who gave me so much, in the form of trust and friendship and who gave so many that same thing (most especially his loving wife, Deb, his beloved daughter Heather, and her husband and kids), I say:

George, watch your lower unit on the next plane. Love you.