Portrait of music composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein at a piano, during the development of their new musical 'Pipe Dream', 1955. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
On the evening of March 31, 1943, American musical theater entered its Golden Age. That was the night the curtain at Broadway’s St. James Theatre rose on an old woman churning butter and a cowboy praising the beauty of the morning. It was the night “Oklahoma!” proclaimed the arrival of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II as a writing team and theatrical force.
The show wasn’t expected to be a hit. “No gags, no girls, no chance,” was the infamous response of a critic who saw “Oklahoma!” in out-of-town previews. Musicals at the time were expected to exhibit a certain degree of glitz that this one lacked. Through the magic of Rodgers’s music and Hammerstein’s words, however, “Oklahoma!” made audiences—and critics—forget all that. It ran for an unprecedented five-plus years.
(Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
“Rodgers and Hammerstein,” as the team quickly became known, went on to define the span of the Golden Age they initiated, which for most commentators ends with Hammerstein’s death in 1960. These years, 1943–1960, were the era of the “book musical,” the blending of musical, lyrical, dramatic, and choreographic elements into a seamless whole, each contributing to the tone and meaning of the story. That may seem old-fashioned in a time of jukebox musicals and pop star tributes, but in the 1940s it was the leading edge of innovation.
Debuting at New York’s Niblo’s Garden in 1866, “Black Crook” was a hodgepodge of song, dance, and story that set the stage for the first American musical. (Public domain)
The Birth of the Musical
The American musical began as a hodgepodge of song, dance, and dialogue loosely strung together to tell a story—or sometimes not. The first example is said to be “The Black Crook,” an 1866 grab-bag of tunes and jokes linked to a thin plot. Over the ensuing decades, the American musical painstakingly crawled its way toward the integration of music, dance, and story line into a sophisticated whole. Two giant steps in that direction were “Showboat” (1927) and “Pal Joey” (1940). Hammerstein wrote the dialogue and lyrics for “Showboat” while Rodgers was the composer of “Pal Joey.”
Original Playbill cover for the 1949 production of “South Pacific,” starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza. (Public domain)
Prior to 1942, Rodgers had been working with lyricist Lorenz “Larry” Hart on musicals that slowly advanced the notion of an integrated whole, culminating in “Pal Joey.” But Hart was plagued with personal problems, drank heavily, and was increasingly difficult to work with. Rodgers, intent on turning a little comedy called “Green Grow the Lilacs” into a musical, knew Hart wasn’t up to it. He asked Hammerstein, whose work on “Showboat” he admired, and Hammerstein said yes.
It was a match made in theatrical heaven. Rodgers, tired of the urban style he used with Hart, turned to a more broadly lyrical, operetta-like musical language flecked with American folk elements. Hammerstein’s poetic lyrics matched this and evoked atmosphere, character, and sensibility in a way no popular lyrics of the time did. He could dream into the hearts of a young couple and find them fantasizing about a “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” or imagine the plaint of an outcast (Judd) in his “Lonely Room.”
BLACK CROOK’s plot involved a fairy queen, and evil count, treasure and a lovely village girl. More importantly, the play integrated music, dance, and spoken lines in a new format similar to that of the modern musical comedy. Poster for an 1882 production. (Public domain)
American Stories Told Through American Music
“Oklahoma!” and the three remaining Rodgers and Hammerstein shows of the 1940s concern American characters. “Carousel” (1945) finds us in New England, witnessing the tragic yet transcendental romance of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan. “Allegro” (1947), the only box-office failure of the four, traces the life of an American doctor. “South Pacific” (1949) considers the lives of American servicemen and women in World War II.
Mary Martin with children in mountain landscape. Martin played the leading role, Maria, in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music. (Toni Frissell)
In the 1950s, however, the musicals moved beyond American shores. The two biggest Rodgers and Hammerstein hits of that decade focus on an English lady tutor in 19th-century Siam (“The King and I,” 1951) and a singing Austrian family fleeing the Nazis (“The Sound of Music,” 1959). Their only ’50s box office success set in America was “Flower Drum Song” (1958), considered “minor” Rodgers and Hammerstein. Their TV musical “Cinderella” (1957) used European fairy tale material.
The fading of the book musical is not surprising, given the nature of contemporary song. Traditional popular song, the framework for Rodgers’s music, was harmony-based, whereas current pop is largely beat-based and harmonically much narrower than the earlier type. Harmony was central to creating the appropriate musical language for a book show.
Original poster for Flower Drum Song.
Creating a Musical Universe
All the songs in “Carousel” have a certain melodic gesture in them. This gesture, based on a specific interval between notes (the augmented fourth) generates shared harmonies among the various songs. That’s why numbers as rhythmically distinct as “If I Loved You” and “June Is Busting Out All Over” belong to the same universe: Their harmonic structures are related. But one song is an exception: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” That’s the hymn Carrie sings to comfort Julie when Billy dies, and the reason it feels transcendent, separate from the others, is that it is harmonically unique. Rodgers and the other composers of the Golden Age didn’t just make up tunes willy-nilly. A deep craftsmanship informed their art.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s catalogue is today a frequent target of critics who bandy about words like “conventional” and “bourgeois” as if the values represented by them are automatically to be dismissed as out of date. But the clock, as G.K. Chesterton once observed, is a human invention, and humans may set it back any time they wish. Perhaps it’s time to dial our musical theater clocks back to the era of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
On August 21, 2010, Chad Robichaux stood in the middle of the Toyota Center before thousands of cheering fans. He had just finished a fight for Strikeforce, the second-largest mixed martial arts (MMA) organization at the time. The three judges submitted their scorecards. It was a split decision. After the third scorecard was read, he was still undefeated at 13–0.
From the outside looking in, Chad Robichaux seemed to have the world on a string. This moment in the octagon seemed the emblematic story of his life: enduring a hardscrabble childhood, joining the Marines and quickly rising to its special unit Force Recon, starting his own highly successful MMA gym, and now marching through his competitors one-by-one. But that was on the outside. That was the man on paper. It was not, however, the man himself.
Since World War II, the Robichaux family has given 84 years of service to the American military. His family has bled patriotism since before he was born, but the family has bled in other ways too.
“When my father came home from Vietnam, he was a train wreck and was until the day he died,” Robichaux said. “He was a very angry guy. A very violent guy. But the one thing that made him light up and made him proud was the fact that he was a United States Marine.”
Robichaux and his brother, who are a year apart, decided as teenagers to become Marines. They devoured books about 3rd and 4th Recon Companies and Special Forces in Vietnam. Robichaux said the very idea of becoming Marines helped them escape the dysfunction of their childhood.
But just one year into their decision, his brother was killed after an argument with their stepbrother. Though it was never discovered if the killing was accidental or intentional, it was ultimately the tragic product of a dysfunctional family. The tragedy drove his mother to pursue psychiatric help, though she would never recover. His father left to work overseas. At 15, Robichaux moved in with his older sister.
Robichaux with his commanding officer from USMC School of Infantry–West. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
The death of his brother hardened his resolve to become a Marine. As a high school athlete, he did his best to maintain his strength and conditioning, not for sports, but for his future in the military. He worked long hours while attending school. Pragmatically, though, he knew he was never going to graduate. At 17, he pleaded with his Marine recruiter to let him join the Marines earlier than usual. The recruiter eventually complied and helped Robichaux write a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps explaining his circumstances, with Robichaux pledging his loyalty to service, and also to get a GED, which he did. He would later attain a master’s degree in business. “I’m very fortunate looking back that I had that opportunity, took advantage of it, and made the best of my situation,” he said.
That situation took a turn on September 11, 2001. He had already been in the Marines for eight years and was a sergeant in the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. He was also married with children. “When I saw those planes fly into those buildings I knew my life was about to be different,” he recalled. “I wanted to go and serve. I wanted to go and make that wrong right for our country and for our national security.”
Over the course of four years, he would be deployed eight times to Afghanistan as part of the elite Joint Special Operations Command. Robichaux would find himself constantly in the heart of combat. He would witness not just the death of comrades and enemy soldiers, but the evil and cruelty of his enemies who relentlessly tortured and killed innocent civilians. He and his fellow soldiers would be tried by fire in the heat of battle and emerge closer and stronger together. The vulnerability of friendship in battle, however, would lead to emotional devastation, as he buried 15 friends, including his best friend of 10 years. “It’s hard for that not to shape you,” he said. “Either you grow from it or it crushes you. I think ultimately I grew from it. But in the interim, it crushed me.”
The Crushing
The crushing began with feelings of anger and frustration, but those emotional issues went unaddressed and soon developed into physiological symptoms of anxiety and stress. One of the physical symptoms Robichaux experienced was numbness. His arms would go numb. His face would go numb. He would experience severe panic attacks where he would feel like he was on the verge of asphyxiation.
Graduates of the Mighty Oak Foundation’s program are presented with rudis swords. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
He remained silent about his symptoms. He feared his peers would consider him weak and that if he admitted himself into the military’s mental health resources, it would compromise his security clearance and ultimately remove him from special forces. While he struggled with the ever-worsening symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tragedy struck when one of his teams was captured by the Taliban and killed. His shelter in Afghanistan was later blown up by a vehicle-borne IED (improvised explosive device) by the same Taliban members. “I kept trying to operate in that environment, but ultimately I had to speak up,” he said. “I was brought home, just as I feared, diagnosed with PTSD and removed from my job.”
He was given medicine to treat his symptoms, but he said the medicine turned him into a “zombie.” He added that he also felt immensely embarrassed and ashamed to have been removed from his duties.
Success at a Cost
His wife Kathy and his counselor advised him to get into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He began competing in the martial art and turned professional. He rose through the MMA ranks and won a world title, ultimately ranking 19th in the world for flyweight and 11th for bantamweight. His success and popularity led him to open a Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy that quickly blossomed to 1,000 students. “When I got on those mats, it took my mind off of Afghanistan and those bad memories,” he said. “I took something that could be good for me and I dove into it. I was successful at it, but in that success, I never got well.”
Robichaux said he still suffered from severe panic attacks and continued to struggle with the medicine prescribed by the Veterans Affairs system. His marriage quickly fell apart after an affair. “I was a completely toxic human being to my wife and kids,” he said.
Chad Robichaux successfully fought his inner demons with the support of his wife, Kathy. Here, the couple is photographed in Temecula, Calif. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
He and Kathy sold their house, and he moved into an apartment. While he turned to partying and competing in martial arts as means to cope with his PTSD, Kathy began attending a local church. “She began praying, ‘God, let me see Chad the way You see Chad. Let me love Chad the way You love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way You forgave Chad,” he said. “She was fighting for me spiritually.”
It was during this time that Robichaux won the Strikeforce fight at Toyota Center. When he returned home that night, he lay in bed contemplating his life. While the world viewed him as an unquestionable success, he knew the world was wrong. “This thought came over me that of all the people I had blamed for everything, I was the problem. I was the common denominator,” he remembered. “My family was so devastated and I thought that if I wasn’t in their lives, it would be better for them. Maybe they would be sad without me, but they would be better off.”
For several weeks, Robichaux began contemplating suicide, at times sitting in his closet holding a Glock in one hand and a family photo in the other. In one of those darkest moments, Kathy knocked on his door.
“I remember I was so mad that she had interrupted me killing myself—which sounds twisted—that I started yelling at her,” he said. “She’s not a very calm arguer, but in this moment she was, and she asked me a question that became this axis point in my life. She asked me ‘How can you do all of this—recon, MMA schools, training for fights, deployments—and when it comes to your family, you’ll quit.’ And she was right.”
Her words cut and echoed in Robichaux’s mind. To be called a quitter and to know it was true was enough to create a mind-shift, and he decided in that moment to work toward putting his life back together. He began formulating a plan. He had been living a life without accountability. The people who had been in his corner had only been telling him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear.
The Path to Change
He asked Kathy if she knew anyone whom he might talk to about his plan and whom he could be accountable to. She mentioned a man from her church by the name of Steve Toth. He wasn’t a veteran or into MMA. But he was outside of Robichaux’s circle, and he was a brutally up-front person. When Robichaux slid a piece of paper over to him that outlined his plan to change his life, Toth didn’t even look at it. He simply slid it back over to him and told him he would fail if God was not in the plan. God was not. “There is probably nothing more powerful that I could have heard in that moment because I knew deep down inside I had tried everything,” he said.
Robichaux gives an interview on the Situation Report podcast. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
Robichaux said that for the next year, Toth discipled him, which is a Christian method of mentoring through accountability, biblical study, and prayer. He gave his life to spirituality and began healing the wounds he had suffered and those he had inflicted. He and his family reunited, and by one year’s end, he and Kathy had formed a nonprofit called Mighty Oaks Foundation to help veterans who struggle with many of the same issues he did. The foundation is based on Robichaux’s personal experience with what works in the healing process.
“I don’t think God did those things to me,” he said. “But He has the ability to protect me from those things, so why wouldn’t He? I think the answer is that He trusts at times with these situations. He trusted what I would do with this. And I’ve taken the hardships in my life to not just help me, but to help others.”
Since the organization was launched 12 years ago, Robichaux has spoken to nearly half a million active duty troops. He is only one of two speakers to speak at the Marine Corps boot camps. He has authored and co-authored eight books, the latest one about the rescue mission to save his interpreter in Afghanistan after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal. He has donated approximately 350,000 copies of his books to troops. He has spoken before Congress numerous times in support of faith-based approaches to dealing with PTSD. His foundation has established five ranch facilities around the country to help veterans suffering from PTSD. Approximately 4,500 have graduated from the program, including active duty military, veterans, first responders, and their spouses. These programs are conducted free of charge, with the number of graduates steadily increasing to about 1,000 per year. Mighty Oaks is now spreading its programs throughout the world with military allies.
A Proven Method
Robichaux and his team developed a method for helping veterans recover and heal, based on what is known in the military as “the four pillars of resilience.” Mighty Oaks Foundation focuses on a veteran’s mental, physical, social, and spiritual needs.
Robichaux speaks to students at a convocation for Liberty University in Virginia. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
“I believe we are created to be holistic human beings. We cover at Mighty Oaks the spiritual side, but I don’t think that is all you need,” he said. “If you were only dealing with the spiritual side, you would have an imbalance. When I’m speaking to the troops, I point to their chairs and tell them that those four legs represent each of those pillars of resilience. If that chair has a weak leg it could probably remain standing, but the moment you sit on it, you’ll go crashing down. I think that’s our life. On the surface, we look like we have all four of those pillars, but if one of them is weak, as soon as the weight of life comes on it, we’ll come crashing down.”
Robichaux noted that it was his spiritual pillar that was weakest for him. He said it left a giant hole inside of him that he filled with hate, rage, anger, and bitterness, which allowed room for anxiety, depression, guilt, and hopelessness to engulf him. Robichaux’s rise from what he calls “a darkness” has enabled him to do what he has done for so long: serve. In a way, he still serves his country by serving his fellow countrymen, specifically those in the military.
“I don’t think I get the platform because of the successes I’ve had,” he said. “I think the platform I have is because I’ve been at the high and at the very low and I have felt the need to be honest about that.” He regrets that he didn’t have someone to show him how to be vulnerable when he was struggling. “I wish someone would have been that honest with me about their hardships and struggles because I know that would have helped me. I’m thankful I was allowed to endure those low points because it gives me an opportunity to speak to others.”
What does it take to forgive someone who tried to kill you?
To Virginia Prodan, it was simple. Being a woman of Christian faith, she lived her life by the principles expounded in the Bible. What she wasn’t prepared for was how the assassin sent to kill her reacted to her plea. Not only did he put down his gun, but he ended up changing his entire course of life afterward.
Prodan met her killer’s eyes and asked, “Have you ever asked yourself, ‘Why do I exist?’ or ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ I once asked myself those questions,” as she recounts in her memoir, “Saving My Assassin.”
He slid the gun back into the holster. Prodan proceeded to describe God’s capacity to forgive all who have sinned. The man softened, and eventually inquired about the faith that gave her the power to face him so bravely. “I will come to your church as a secret brother in Christ. I will worship your powerful God,” Prodan recalls him saying.
Prodan’s supposed offense, which led to her inclusion on the hit list of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, was defending Christians who were not allowed to exercise their freedom of belief. As a Romanian lawyer, she took on dozens of cases involving Christians who faced persecution for their faith during Ceausescu’s regime of the 1970s and 1980s. Some had their work licenses revoked or were charged with crimes because they had a Bible in their possession. Others turned to Prodan when the land that churches sat on was in danger of getting confiscated by authorities. During a time when Ceausescu only allowed citizens to worship himself, Prodan’s courageous defense of citizens with faith brought the attention of international reporters and U.S. officials monitoring the situation in Romania. Her court cases showed the world that religious freedom was absent in Romania. It angered the dictator so much that he hired a hitman to finish her.
Prodan with her son Emanuel and daughters Anca and Andreea, at a private ceremony for Prodan’s gaining U.S. citizenship, held at her law school in February 1994. (Courtesy of Virginia Prodan)
Years later, after Prodan made a daring escape to freedom in America, she would meet him again in the most unexpected of circumstances. “We are not enemies to each other,” she said in a recent interview. “God changed my assassin; God can change everyone. … God changed Romania through me.”
Seeking the Truth
Prodan grew up in an abusive household that did not cherish her. Prodan’s book describes a childhood in which her mother constantly reminded her that her freckles and red hair meant that she did not belong. She was often left at home to do chores while the rest of her family was gone on vacation. If she did not do them correctly, she would be punished with beatings. “As a child, in order to avoid punishment—for every single situation, I learned to find solutions,” Prodan said. She reflects that this was perhaps her training ground to learn how to rise above the circumstances and gain the resolve to overcome anything. “In life, sometimes we don’t understand why we go through tough times and why we have to endure those things. But those hard times will prepare us for something really, really wonderful that otherwise we will not be prepared for,” she said.
Books were her escape from reality. She excelled at school. After witnessing how the Romanian regime persecuted her uncle and her next door neighbor, Prodan became determined to study law. Her uncle was forcibly taken to the psychiatric hospital three times for daring to speak up against the regime—though the family never spoke about what exactly he did that made him a target for the Romanian Communist Party. “A fire started to build in me to find and understand the truth and understand why adults will know the truth but be too fearful to speak the truth, and also how to be strong and courageous and speak the truth. … That became my mission in life,” Prodan said.
Discovering Her Mission
Prodan applied successfully to law school and passed the bar exam for working in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Her first solo case was a pro bono case to defend a university student accused of burning his Communist Party ID card. He faced a 10-year prison sentence. Prodan found out that her client was coerced into confessing to committing the offense. She persuaded the client and his parents to testify and admit that he was forced to confess. In the end, the judge sentenced him to two years of community service. His family continued to be harassed and interrogated by police after the trial. His father suffered a heart attack during an intense interrogation session and died. Soon after, the client hanged himself, and the rest of the family disappeared out of sight. Prodan felt lost.
Virginia Prodan at her law office in Dallas, Texas. (Alexender Simoes)
One day, a church goer asked her to represent him. The communist regime had confiscated his family’s land. While assisting him with the process to get the property back, Prodan was introduced to Christianity. The regime considered the Bible’s teachings as running counter to Communist Party doctrine, but in an attempt to appear like the country respects freedom of belief, the government still allowed churches to operate. However, Christians were routinely persecuted and could be arrested for having the Bible in their possession. Prodan soon found herself defending church organizations and believers in court. Her courageous defense, accusing Ceausescu of human rights violations, garnered the attention of observers in the American embassy and international media. “People all over the world found out that a young attorney in Romania, a woman under 5 feet tall, 82 pounds, is taking the dictator to court,” she said.
Danger Ahead
Prodan soon found herself directly targeted by Ceausescu’s government. One day, as she was leaving her office and getting ready to go to the courthouse, a homeless man followed her and pushed her into oncoming traffic. She was constantly followed by Securitate, or secret police. One day, several officers forced her into an unmarked black car and took her to the Securitate headquarters. They hit her and threatened to put her in prison for life. Though they released her that evening, the scare tactics continued. Officers would ransack her home and her office. She faced more interrogations in which she was beaten by Securitate officers. On some occasions, “they will come inside of my home, eat the food, and leave the dirty dishes, or move the furniture around, because they wanted to play a psychological game,” Prodan recalled.
There were days when she would let the tears run down her face. But she refused to cower before authoritarianism. She believed that it was her mission to defend religious believers. “You have to just trust God, when you know that he is the one who gave you that mission … if you look back, that he will give you tools and open doors for you to accomplish that mission.” She recalled moments when she would be searching for provisions in the arcane Romanian code of law that, at least on paper, guaranteed a Romanian citizen’s freedom of belief. She would flip open the book—and it would miraculously land on the page that contained the information she needed.
Prodan graduated from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in May 1997. (Courtesy of Virginia Prodan)
Assassination Attempt, Escape to Freedom
One day, after Securitate officers slammed her head against the desk repeatedly during an interrogation and threatened to harm her children, she returned to her office, shaken but pretending as if all was OK. Her legal assistant told her a man was waiting for her to discuss a case. When the man entered her office and closed the door, he drew a gun. “I believed that I would be dead the next moment,” Prodan recalled. “My knees were shaking. I heard my stomach. I heard my heart in my ears. I was shaking. I even thought that my kids will live without a mother. But in all this, I heard also the whisper of God saying, ‘Share the gospel,’” she said.
Prodan describes the next few moments in her book, as she calmly spoke to him. “‘You are here because God put you here, and he has put you to a test. Will you abide in God or in the will of a man—your ultimate boss, President Ceausescu, who requires you to worship him? God has given you free will to choose.’”
Moved by her words, the assassin quietly listened as Prodan recited passages from the Bible about the power of forgiveness. By the end, he told Prodan that he would start to explore Christianity, and walked away.
But this was not the end. The next morning, two armed police officers blocked Prodan and her daughters as they left their house. They informed her she was being placed under house arrest. For four weeks, Prodan was stuck inside, with food supplies dwindling. When all hope seemed to be lost, the American ambassador’s wife managed to sneak to Prodan’s house, letting her know that the American embassy knew of her situation and was finding ways to help her.
Prodan with her children during her private U.S. citizenship ceremony. Her daughters are now a counselor and an attorney, while her son is a rescue pilot for the U.S. Air Force. (Courtesy of Virginia Prodan)
U.S. President Ronald Reagan authorized Prodan and her family to move to America as political refugees. Prodan was released from house arrest and allowed to go to the local passport office to get her paperwork. After transiting through Rome, Prodan and her family arrived in Dallas, Texas, in fall 1988.
Life in America
Upon settling in Dallas, Prodan went back to school to receive a law degree from Southern Methodist University’s law school, then opened her own practice. To this day, she continues to take on clients who feel their freedom of belief and freedom of expression have been infringed upon. She feels blessed to be in America. “American people are like no one else. They will open their hearts, they will open their houses [to you]. They encouraged me to go on and rebuild my life,” she said.
One day in 2010, she received an unexpected visit. A man came to her office and explained that the church where his son was pastor had encountered some legal trouble while seeking to construct a building. Suddenly, he asked, “Virginia, do you remember me?”
It was the assassin. After stepping out of Prodan’s office in the 1980s, he’d studied theology and became a pastor in Bucharest following the collapse of the Romanian communist regime. Now, he pulled out his phone to show Prodan a photo of his newborn granddaughter, who was named Virginia in Prodan’s honor. It was an emotional reunion. Michael—the name he adopted in America—was eager to share with Prodan the impact that faith had in his life. They caught up over lunch, but when Prodan asked to keep in touch with him, he explained that he was worried about repercussions in Romania. There was a growing wave of people calling for former participants in Ceausescu’s regime to be brought to justice. “Lots of Romanians asked the government to punish those people,” Prodan recalled Michael explaining to her. He told her that “it’s better for me not to know about his whereabouts. Because the government might come against [him].”
(Alexender Simoes)
Have No Fear
Throughout the years, Prodan has received anonymous letters and emails about former Securitate officers being jailed in Romania. She also receives a Christmas card from time to time, with the name “Michael” signed. She suspects these were all from her former assassin, quietly signaling to her.
Prodan said her experience not only allowed her to see how faith can transform even a cold-blooded assassin, but that there is nothing to fear in life. “Fear will just make you a slave. Fear will destroy your enthusiasm. But in order to conquer that fear, you have to confront that fear,” she said. She frequently recounts her story as part of motivational speaking engagements.
More importantly, she said, our actions are greater than ourselves—just like how she unexpectedly helped to change the course of Romania’s future. “My life and your life, it’s not only for us. What we do, what we accomplish, what we influence—sometimes we know, sometimes we don’t know. But we’ll reach beyond our imagination, [for] people, countries, generations to come,” she said.
Steve Case believes that all entrepreneurs should be afforded the opportunities to pursue their ideas to fruition. (Johnny Shryock)
What do an at-home water testing kit company, a luxury watchmaker, and an online farmland real estate investment platform have in common?
First, they were started in America’s heartland—Zionsville, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; and Fayetteville, Arkansas, respectively—far from the usual, bicoastal venture capital hubs. Second, their initial potential was spotted and funded by AOL co-founder Steve Case and his team of investors, as part of his Rise of the Rest Seed Fund’s efforts to find and invest in the most innovative startups outside of Silicon Valley. The watchmaker, Shinola, is one of the more familiar names, but hundreds of start-ups have flourished so far under Case’s initiative.
The premise behind his idea is simple: Local entrepreneurs know the problems that face their communities, and they know the solutions. What they need is funding.
For example, in 2016, the founder of the at-home water testing kit company, Megan Glover, simply wanted to find out if her local water was safe for her children to drink. When her local utility company proved unhelpful, and a local water testing company quoted a whopping sum of $3,000 for a test, she took matters into her own hands. Today, her company, 120Water, fills about 100,000 kits a year, each sold for $50 to $80, in use across 180,000 locations in the country. Government agencies, schools, and local water systems across more than 19 states use its products.
(Johnny Shryock)
When Case held a pitch competition in Indianapolis in 2017, a stop on one of his cross-country Rise of the Rest bus tours, Glover had taken the chance to present her pitch. Case was immediately intrigued. “The idea was simple to grasp, completely original, and it addressed a true need in the community,” he wrote in his new book, “The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream,” which documents his findings after his tours. Glover was chosen to win $100,000 to start her company.
Inspiring Transformation
After leaving AOL in 2005, Case launched Revolution to back entrepreneurs with growth, venture, and seed funds. Since 2014, Case and Revolution have traveled the country by bus, holding a pitch competition and awarding $100,000 to a winning company at every stop. In 2017, Revolution launched the first $150 million Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, backed by well-known entrepreneurs like Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Tory Burch, and the Walton family (Walmart); a second $150 million seed fund was announced in 2019. Today, the bus tours continue, but the majority of the Fund’s investments are made outside the pitch competition. The Fund has since backed more than 200 companies across 100 cities.
Through his tours, Case has witnessed how industries are being transformed and people’s lives made easier through inventive ideas—thanks to people like Glover who have the pulse on what’s going on in their communities and want to see them thrive. Tech hubs are emerging everywhere, spurring innovation in heartland cities and small towns that were once neglected following America’s manufacturing decline.
Case at the University of Nebraska’s Innovation Campus. (Courtesy of Revolution)
“A lot of places are struggling and feeling left out and left behind. If we can back new companies that can create new kinds of jobs and create more hope and opportunity in those communities, and do that in enough places, it also has the potential to help lift up, and maybe even in a small way, unite a very divided country,” Case said in an interview.
Over the past decade, 75 percent of venture capital has gone to New York, Massachusetts, and California. But that is steadily changing. In 2021, VC fundraising outside New York, the Bay Area, and Boston totaled $21.4 billion, compared to just $3 billion a decade ago, according to a joint study conducted by Case’s investment firm Revolution and the market research firm PitchBook.
Case hopes his Rise of the Rest Seed Fund will help further bridge that gap.
Believing in Entrepreneurs
Born in Hawaii—where TV show episodes could arrive a week later than on the mainland—Case knew the feeling of being left out. “That might have helped to inform some of my thinking and passion around Rise of the Rest … to create a more inclusive economy so that people don’t feel left out,” Case said. His upbringing gave him “more empathy for the communities around the country that, in this innovation world, feel like all the action is somewhere else and not in their own backyard.”
(Courtesy of Revolution)
He soon discovered that there were plenty of entrepreneurs in America’s heartland, away from the spotlight in major cities. They tend to be more impassioned than the Big Tech workers in Silicon Valley, Case said, because they feel deeply connected to their cause. Craig Fuller, for example, came from a family in the trucking business in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a hub for long-haul trucking. “My grandfather was a patriarch of long-haul trucking,” Fuller told Case in the book. “He was one of the first to put two people into a truck and drive across the country when the interstates were popping up.”
Fuller worked with his father on the family company, but after college, he became interested in starting his own business. He noticed that the trucking market was highly fragmented and lacked transparent information. That inspired him to start FreightWaves, a logistics data company, in 2016. Fuller mobilized the freight industry to come together—convincing local mayors and chambers of commerce to organize a first-ever industry-wide meeting in 2017 with 70 Tennessee companies. Five years later, in 2021, the company earned $32 million in revenue. In the last quarter of 2021, its revenue was a 103 percent increase year-on-year.
Carter Malloy, meanwhile, grew up on his family farm in the Grand Prairie region of Arkansas, a place he called “a big, flat, beautiful part of the world,” and knew he wanted to contribute to the farming community. After college, he went to work for a hedge fund in San Francisco and made buying and selling farmland a focus of his work. He had financial success, but he noticed that the transaction experience was always very difficult. He launched AcreTrader with the hopes of making farmland investment accessible to all. He had to build trust with farmers on the ground, and his upbringing, coupled with his company’s headquarters in Fayetteville, helped convince them that he wanted to help them prosper.
Case awards a check to the winner of the Rise of the Rest pitch competition in Chattanooga, Tenn. (Courtesy of Revolution)
Leaving a successful career in San Francisco to start up in Fayetteville was a real risk, but Malloy told Case in the book, “I felt that it was really important we be close to the farmland in the middle of the country.” AcreTrader proved that with risks also came promise. This year, the company grew to 70 employees—with staff relocating to Fayetteville from all parts of the country—and received over $60 million in Series B funding, including $20 million from an Ohio-based venture capital firm.
Helping start-ups navigate risk and reap the rewards is central to Rise of the Rest Seed Fund’s mission. Case recognizes that the entrepreneurial journey can be filled with uncertainty, but “you need to believe in yourself. You need to believe in your idea and you need to believe in your team. … Sometimes success comes from not just you, but somebody else that helps you, or being in the right place at the right time.”
(Courtesy of Revolution)
In his book, Case tells the story of how he and his team saw the potential in Shinola, the Detroit-based watchmaker, during their first tour in 2014. His investor partner and Revolution co-founder Ted Leonsis had just bought a Shinola watch. While there, a salesperson spoke passionately about the company’s mission to create good-paying jobs for Detroit workers. The company understood that millennials who care about a connection to what they wear would want to support a brand championing American manufacturing. “Wearing the watch would be a patriotic gesture, symbolizing the revival of the nation’s heartland and its beloved city of Detroit,” Case wrote. The city in turn “had a chance to symbolize a particular American resolve to do something, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard,” he added. Today, the company has 450 employees, with over $100 million in revenue annually, and has evolved into a luxury lifestyle brand demonstrating the quality of American manufacturing.
Sean Henry of Stord, a supply chain software company, expressed a similar sentiment about the workforce in Atlanta. He said in the book that, compared to people in Silicon Valley who constantly want to leap over to the next big thing, “the talent here is very mission driven. They want to be at companies for a long time and build them into something very successful.”
There’s also a growing trend of people who left their hometowns in search of tech jobs in major cities, only to come back home because of the affordability, burgeoning opportunities, and proximity to family. Case observed that the trend has accelerated since the pandemic. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a building in the Innovation District (a tech hub established in 2014) includes fully-furnished units, communal kitchens, and organized activities—ideal for both returnees coming home and new hires wishing to be connected to the local community.
Case at a location of the outdoor gear brand Cotopaxi, in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Courtesy of Revolution)
Cities Transformed
Case’s investment work is inspired by case studies all across America, especially where heartland cities and small towns have used technology to grow their local economies. He has observed that entrepreneurs thrive in places where there is a “tech ecosystem”—a network that can help bring their ideas to fruition. He compares it to a wheel with seven spokes: startups, investors, universities, government, corporations, startup support organizations, and local media all synergize to create an environment that nurtures innovation and entrepreneurship. In cities with strong research universities, such as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tech innovations have revived the local economy. Long known as being part of the rust belt, a place that has already seen the end of its glory days of manufacturing most of the world’s steel, Pittsburgh has become a center for robotics and AI development thanks to strong research programs at Carnegie Mellon. The university is one of the top five in the country attracting venture capital in companies started by its graduates.
In Phoenix, Arizona, then-mayor Greg Stanton spearheaded an effort to transform the deserted Warehouse District—a shipping and production hub during the late 1800s and early 1900s—into a tech center. Funding and support came from Arizona State University, the city government, the Marriott hotel chain, and local sports teams. Columbus, Ohio, is also enjoying startup success due to public and private sector investment, as companies realize the city’s low cost of living and local talent pool make it an attractive choice for setting up headquarters. Intel announced this year that it would build two semiconductor plants near the city, bringing thousands of jobs and making it the largest semiconductor manufacturing center in the world.
Startup job creation has allowed local economies to prosper. A study by the Progressive Policy Institute found that the country’s top 25 metro areas averaged 11.9 percent private sector job growth over the period from 2007 to 2016, compared to rates less than half of that in areas with lower levels of startup activity. The symbiotic relationship between startups and the communities that support them illustrates the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. Case cites an African proverb in the book: “If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you must go together.”
Case meeting with innovators and entrepreneurs in Madison, Wis., as part of his Rise of the Rest tour. (Courtesy of Revolution)
Believing in America
Ultimately, Case believes that anyone who has an idea for a new business should be able to pursue it, regardless of his or her background or social network. “That’s what will ensure America remains the pioneering country that got us here, and preserve our lead as the most entrepreneurial nation on Earth,” he wrote in his book.
Case said our country itself is similar to a startup. “It was just an idea of a new nation, with a different approach to democracy, and it led to people choosing to be part of America and coming over from various countries to be part of building what we now think of as the American dream,” he said. Although there were times when it seemed the experiment would fail, “people stuck with it. Eventually, the republic survived and then thrived, and we led the way as a nation in the agricultural revolution 200 years ago, led the way in the industrial revolution 100 years ago, and have led the way more recently with the technology revolution, the digital revolution. And that’s why we’ve gone from this kind of fledgling startup nation to being a leading economy and the leader of the free world,” he said. To ensure we maintain the country’s edge, he believes we must continue to back entrepreneurs everywhere.
He thinks back to his time at AOL, when he was trying to provide internet access to every American. With Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, he has a similar goal of “leveling the playing field. But the difference is, now we’re trying to level the playing field in terms of opportunities, so anybody with an idea can create a company, and every community can have a potential to rise up and be a more vibrant community that’s growing and creating jobs.”
Keith Krach in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, an iconic symbol of San Francisco, the city he calls home. (Ian Chin Photography for American Essence)
Keith Krach, former undersecretary of state and current billionaire entrepreneur, first started working at his father’s Ohio mechanics shop when he was 12. As he worked alongside his father, those valuable lessons his father imparted became the principles by which Krach has conducted business, from the time he was the youngest vice president of GM to his Silicon Valley ventures. They also inspired the goal Krach wanted to achieve during his time in public service: propelling America’s tech innovations so that she can continue to be the world’s foremost economic power.
Krach’s father and uncle were World War II veterans who were proud to serve their country. “They love telling stories about how America’s manufacturing might was a decisive factor in the war, and he also taught me that the key to America’s manufacturing prowess was fair competition in the marketplace. And that’s what drives productivity, and that’s what increased the standard of living throughout the world,” he said in a recent interview. That respect for America as a place that rewards hard work and integrity, coupled with his own boldness, led him to Silicon Valley. Krach turned cutting-edge tech startups into multi-billion-dollar public companies, such as DocuSign, the popular platform for signing agreements on electronic documents, and Ariba, a software offering businesses a more straightforward way to procure goods and services. The latter went public in 1999 as one of the first e-commerce companies geared toward businesses to do an initial public offering.
Later, while serving as undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment, he spearheaded a campaign to protect American 5G innovations from authoritarian states that refused to play by the rules, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. A group of academics nominated him for developing a new model for countering unfair competition. Krach reflected that though he was sometimes advised against making such unprecedented moves, he felt that he had an obligation to serve his country. “I think sometimes people are afraid of consequences that aren’t really even going to be there. Besides, at the end of the day, you’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ That’s the most important thing.”
Integrity and Trust
Growing up in Rocky River, Ohio, Krach learned “the beauty of free enterprise” from his father: small businesses like his were the economic engine of American manufacturing, he often explained. He also said, as Krach recalled, “‘The American dream is when the student surpasses the professor.’ … His goal was to have me be better off than him and my children better off than me.”
After graduating from Purdue University and Harvard Business School with full scholarships from GM, Krach entered the auto company with fresh ideas. At the age of 24, he gave a presentation to the board of directors, proposing that the company start a robotics division, a relatively unexplored area at the time, around the 1980s. He convinced them to enter a joint venture with Fujitsu Fanuc, the leader in programming the “brains” of robotic machinery.
Krach with his wife, Metta, during during a White House state dinner in Washington, D.C., September 2019. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
Through selling robotics to Silicon Valley, Krach was inspired by the risk-taking spirit of tech entrepreneurs. “[Silicon Valley] looked like the West Point of capitalism. You know—a United Nations, a total meritocracy.” He decided to go work for a software company. But on the second day of the job, he learned a hard lesson about what it meant to keep his integrity. “The CEO goes, ‘Keith, I want you to say this at the board meeting.’ I go, … ‘I won’t do that. That would be lying.’” His experience at the company went downhill from there. But it was a critical lesson that motivated him to start his own companies based on trust and integrity. “Those values are the most important thing in any company, because people can say, ‘Hey, I don’t like how you look. I don’t like where you went to school.’ But they can’t take away your integrity.”
His experience in Silicon Valley taught him that trust should be the basis of every relationship, business or personal. “You do business with people you trust, you partner with people you trust. You love people you trust, and so the most important skill is your ability to build that trust, and your biggest strategic asset are your trusted relationships, particularly when you’re starting a company from total scratch, right? And because they have to trust in you, they have to trust in your product, your processes, your company, how you’re going to treat them as a customer,” Krach said. He further explained that trust is like a “four-legged stool.” Within the idea of trust is having integrity, the capability to perform well, good judgment, and empathy. Instilling these principles enabled the staff at his companies to work together smoothly.
Krach speaks with Brent Christensen, then- director of American Institutes in Taiwan, September 2020. (HSU CHAO-CHANG/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
At DocuSign, where he was CEO and chairman for 10 years until he was confirmed undersecretary of state in 2019, the same values held true. During a meeting with employees, he told them, “We’re not in the software business. We’re in the trust business. We deal with people’s most important documents. … Trust is sacrosanct.”
Serving America
He carried this idea with him when he was appointed to the State Department. He called it “the fastest decision I’ve ever made in my life, probably.” His father’s auto shop, and thousands of other small businesses in the Midwest, were gutted by China’s predatory trade practices. In Silicon Valley, he experienced first-hand having intellectual property stolen by Chinese state-backed companies. His father taught him to act if he witnessed something unfair. “It’s easy to sit back and think, somebody else can do this. But if everybody thinks that way, what do you got?”
Krach developed a new model for foreign relations, especially to target adversarial nations like China that don’t follow the rule of law—one that would leverage America’s strengths as an economic superpower and driver of entrepreneurship. Called the Clean Network, it created an alliance of nations and international telecom companies that promise to follow standards for transparency and not to use distrusted Chinese vendors that threaten data privacy. These countries and companies would be encouraged to partner with each other for 5G technology. Krach said he wanted to beat the aggressors at their game. “I would just harness the U.S.’s three biggest areas of competitive advantage: by rallying and unifying our allies and our friends, leveraging the innovation and resources of the private sector, and amplifying the moral high ground of democratic values—those trust principles,” he said. After all, America always played fairly.
Krach is sworn in as Under- Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, September 2019. (Public Domain)
His approach was seen as risky by some—many companies and countries are afraid of upsetting China for fear of retaliation, or because it may impact their China market. But Krach said he again believed in the importance of building trust among like-minded partners. By creating an alliance, “it gave them a security blanket, because there’s strength in numbers and there’s power in unity and solidarity.” For this approach to diplomacy, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year. He believes more tech executives should work together with the federal government—so they can counter foreign threats more effectively. In July 2021, he founded the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University, aimed at exactly this cross-section between foreign policy and tech. The institute conducts research on cutting-edge tech that could have implications for national security.
Mentorship
Krach firmly believes that entrepreneurship is what makes America the leader in innovation. And at the heart of it all, Silicon Valley, “the secret sauce … I think is mentorship.” He recalled that after he took Ariba public, the board recommended that he seek out advice from then-CEO of Cisco, John Chambers. Krach was surprised that Chambers agreed and invited him to ask any questions. One day, Krach asked Chambers why he was willing to teach him. Chambers said that he was mentored, too, by then-CEO of HP Lou Platt. Chambers said, as Krach recalled: “‘So Keith, I don’t ask for anything in return. I just asked you to do it for the next guy.’”
In 2019, Krach founded the Global Mentor Network, a program that matches young entrepreneurs with top Silicon Valley CEOs to teach them leadership skills and provide resources for succeeding. He hopes to inspire the next generation. “People go, ‘What do you think your legacy is going to be?’ And I go, ‘Well, it’s not the companies I led. It’ll be the people that I mentor.’” He thinks back to something his father said. “‘You never know if you’re a good father until you see your children’s children.’ You also don’t know if you’re a great leader until you see your mentees’ mentees, right?”
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
A polo player must have great control not only of his body, but also over his horse. The two must be able to turn together on a dime. In the ancient game of polo—one of the oldest-known team sports, originally crafted as a mock battle for training cavalry—the speed is fast, the strategy is sharp, and the maneuvers are precise.
With horse power driving the action, the players’ lives are at stake. “People don’t understand … that we literally put our lives on the line every time we step out on the polo field,” said Nic Roldan, current captain of the U.S. national polo team.
He balked at discussing further the dangers or injuries he’s witnessed. “I never like to talk about it or even think about it,” he said. He compared polo players to NASCAR drivers; neither can afford to be paralyzed by fear. “The moment you start thinking about those things and having that fear, it’s probably the moment you need to quit,” he said.
Roldan keeps a tight rein on his thoughts. He directs them toward positivity, gratitude, and achieving his goals. At the age of 15, he became the youngest player to win the U.S. Polo Open. Now, at 39, he not only continues with polo, but also models, has his own apparel line, and founded a property development company. He spoke of the perseverance that’s key to his success.
“There have been challenging moments in my career—where either I’ve lost a job, or I didn’t get hired one year, or I wasn’t on a really good team—and you get really frustrated. You just go through it. I’ve always dug deep and had faith and a strong belief that I could do it. The mind is a very powerful muscle.”
An Early Start
Roldan starts his busy days with meditation and prayer. He takes an hour and a half of peaceful time to himself, and it’s his favorite part of the day. But going to the “office” is pretty good, too.
“Coming to my barn every day and knowing that this is sort of like my office and being able to hang out with these incredible animals, … I’m obviously incredibly blessed,” he said.
Roldan at a meet-and-greet with the champion racehorse California Chrome. (Courtesy of Nic Roldan)
As a fourth-generation professional polo player, Roldan has been around horses for as far back as he can remember. His father, Raul Roldan, played polo for the Sultan of Brunei. His father is Argentinian and Roldan was born in Argentina, though he has lived most of his life in Wellington, Florida.
“What I learned the most [from my father] was his dedication, his passion for the sport,” Roldan said. “He was always extremely humble. I think that was a really great quality of his. He was always very kind. I think at the end of the day, those are the most important things.”
Roldan’s account of what led to his success shows humility as well: “It’s a little bit of luck; it’s having the right team, the right organization, and the right horses under you.”
He says that the relationship with horses is one of the most important parts of playing polo. “What defines an elite polo player is being at-one with your horse, … flowing with each horse in sort of an artistic way, like a ballerina.” It’s not easy to learn that level of synchronization, Roldan said. It’s partly innate, and it also develops naturally by spending a lifetime with horses.
The Horses
A game of polo typically lasts more than an hour, and players switch horses every several minutes. A player must thoroughly understand each horse’s unique characteristics, Roldan said.
For example, some are light in the mouth, so the player must be mindful of how hard he pulls to have the horse respond as he needs. Some horses have more stamina than others. He must be aware of how the horse is feeling that day. “You could have your best horse, but that day he doesn’t feel that great,” Roldan said.
He describes what it’s like taking all this into consideration in the moment: “It’s the relationship with the horse you have to have, the speed and the intensity, the understanding of each horse and the control of each horse—all while you’re trying to hit a ball 25 to 30 miles an hour, [and] you’ve got four other guys trying to chase you. It’s incredible.”
Roldan added: “We don’t just get out onto the polo field and run around like a bunch of chickens without heads. Every play is thought out. … It is really like a chess game.”
Holistic Life
Polo works the mind and the whole body. “The most important thing for polo is having strong legs, strong core, and strong shoulders and upper body,” Roldan said, laughing as he admitted that he listed pretty much every part of the body. “It’s the whole body. … If you look at most polo players, we’re not bulky. You need to be lean, flexible.”
Roldan also exercises his creative side. His mother, Dee Roldan, is an interior designer, and Roldan began working with her on flipping houses as a side project during his 20s.
“My mom has always had an artistic palette. She’s always been very unique and very distinctive in the way she’s dressed and in her designs,” Roldan said.
He set his mind to excelling in this pursuit and started building from the ground up. He founded a development company, Roldan Homes, and recently became a realtor for Equestrian Sotheby’s International Realty.
The polo player is committed to keeping his mind and body in peak condition at all times. (Courtesy of Nic Roldan)
His equestrian experience melds with his real estate ventures. His hometown of Wellington is a large equestrian community, with many housing developments centered on equestrian facilities. One of his projects was a horse barn in the Grand Prix Village that sold for $8.8 million. The stalls are a clean, crisp white, contrasting with black wrought iron. Neat cobblestones pave the passageway through the barn. The staff accommodations are modern and roomy, and the owner’s lounge is centered around a large fireplace.
“As an athlete, your career ends at some point. Thankfully, in polo, you can play until your late 40s at a competitive level. As my career starts to wind down, I have to have other things to do,” Roldan said. “I love to stay busy. I love to work hard.”
Gratitude
He also loves to give back. Roldan has dedicated himself to philanthropy, including working regularly with the Boys and Girls Club in Wellington and Kids With Cancer.
“First and foremost, my motivation is what life has given to me. I feel deep down in my heart that, because of what I was given, that I should give back,” he said. “For me, anything to do with kids is really important.”
At the Boys and Girls Club, he spends time with children who are less fortunate, who need extra support as their parents struggle to provide for them. “We throw pizza parties there. I love going over there and seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces and playing ball with them. We do karaoke. It’s a lot of fun,” Roldan said.
Through Kids With Cancer, he spends time with children who are either going through treatment or in remission. He recalled a boy named Johnny who was in remission. “He was an entertaining little boy to be around. He was always smiling and having fun.”
Roldan keeps his mind on gratitude. “I’m obviously incredibly blessed to be where I am today, to have had such a great career. I get to travel the world, and I get to do something I love, I get to meet incredible people,” he said. It has taken hard work to excel to the level he has in polo, and “there’s the gray times and struggles,” but in the end, “it’s built me to who I am today.”
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
