Greg Gilmore went corporate for a while, working for Merrill Lynch in New Jersey and New York City, but came home to Louisiana to start his own business. At age 13, the Albany-native says he sometimes worked 50 to 70 hours a week during the summer at construction sites, which he admits may not have been strictly legal but nevertheless taught him the value of higher education. Gilmore maintains that same work ethic today, often arriving to work at 5:45 a.m. The owner and CEO of Northshore Concrete Products finds relaxation on the water, whether out in his boat for a pleasure cruise or angling for catfish with his sons. Read the full Q&A here. Here’s a sample:
If you could have any job other than your own, what would it be?
“Guiding 10- to 12-day fishing and rafting trips in the Alaskan wilderness. It’s a place that brings the true character of an individual boiling out of the top. It’s intriguing to see how people respond to self-reliance and being unplugged. I wish I could take every prospective employee on a trip as part of the interviewing process. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. If I were ever to retire, that may be my next business: taking prospective upper-level management employees and employers on a discovery excursion. I could certainly do it for less than the cost of a 90-day probationary period.”
