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American Dreamer
Glenn Stearns built a financial services firm that funded more than $2 billion in mortgage loans in 2002
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LESSONS IN LIFE
The Midas touch? Apparently. But Stearns says his success is due more to the people around him than any business savvy on his part.
"I'm a very good recruiter," he said. "That's the best thing I do."
That skill dates back to his years at Towson. Never the world's best student, Stearns nonetheless made his education a priority by paying his way through school. A job at T.G.I. Friday's and some student loans did the trick. And though he struggled to make grades, he was a quick study outside of the classroom.
"What I learned most (at Towson)," he said, "was how to survive, how to deal with people, how to listen to them, and how to find a goal and achieve it."
He also learned how to enjoy college — and how to take others along for the ride.
"I don't know if I can paint as lively a picture of Glenn as I should," said Steve Kettinger, who roomed with Stearns for three years at Towson. "He was always up and ready to do something, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Stearns' social skills sometimes helped pay the bills as well. Kettinger said he and Stearns occasionally took in a few extra roommates when they needed money for rent. And when Stearns convinced Kettinger to spend a summer with him in Florida, they lived rent-free in the Sunshine State with some of Stearns' friends.
"I met everyone I knew at Towson through Glenn," Kettinger said. "He knew everyone."
Even Stearns' social missteps — occasional though they might be — have a way of turning to gold. Take, for instance, the daughter he fathered when he was just 14. She was raised by her grandmothers while Stearns kept busy trying to grow up as well.
Today his daughter, Charlene Osborne, is 24 and works for one of Stearns' companies in California. "She's my best friend," Stearns said. "I was in eighth grade when she was born and I thought 'Oh my God, this is a terrible thing.' But it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me."
Osborne feels the same way.
"He's very much a businessman," she said. "But he's also a giving and caring man who always thinks of his family first."
The child he fathered when he was just a child has changed his outlook on life, Stearns says.
"I don't look at problems the same way anymore. When something bad happens I'll say, 'What are you going to take out of this, Glenn?' I'm determined to find something good in anything that happens."
NEXT PAGE: On the horizon
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