A day in the Domincan Republic.

On about my 2nd or 3rd trip to the Dominican Republic, I had already made up my mind to sell my construction business in West Palm Beach, Florida.

‘Style Right Developers’, a multi-million dollar project I had be working on for years, would be sold and I would head out to Santo Domingo.

So I set out to own property and set up a business in this exotic place.

Very different than anything I had known in the United States, I started my quest while I was staying in a Hotel Cervantes, just blocks from the famous Malecon in Santo Domingo.

One day as I was leaving my hotel, I saw an important looking man in full military dress, complete with an entourage walking past me on his way to a meeting hall inside the hotel.

I asked the shoe-shine boys and taxi drivers parked outside of the hotel as to who this man was and why he traveled with an entourage. The taxi cab driver replied; "Oh, that's Captain Collado, and he is in charge of the security detail of Presidente,..he is an important man inside the government with a lot of connections."

So I thought to myself; “Hum, this is the kind of person I need to meet if I am to get ahead in this country.” So I waited outside between the parking lot from were he had emerged and the sidewalk leading to the hotel and waited several hours while I continued to ask about the man and learn all I could about him. Finally when he emerged from the hotel, I was determined to intercept him, so I stuck my hand out and said; “Pardon me, my name is Raul Fernandez, and I am a business man from the U.S. and I would like very much to meet you."

Surprised and a little taken a back with my forwardness, he finally smiled, put his hand out, and said, “ I am Capitan Collado.”

We got into a conversation about the military and I told him that I had gone to a military school in the U.S. and that I admired the career of the military. Well, one topic led to another and we found ourselves talking about the business world. He mentioned that he admired businessmen, “but had very little time to become one", so I invited him to lunch and after lunch he gave me a card with about 5 different contact numbers for him.

A week or so later, I called him and set up another lunch date. While having lunch in the restaurant, the Captain asked me what type of business I was conducting in the Dominican Republic, so I looked around and saw a finance company sign next to the restaurant, and I said; “ I'm in the Finance Business." Captain Collado then mentioned how convenient that was for him as he had just received a new car from the U.S. and needed money to pay the import tariff on it and that maybe he could give me his business.

So on a napkin over lunch we worked out the details of the loan, a $2,500 loan with a comfortable 24% down from the customary 60% for these type loans and that proved to be the start not only of a long relationship, but of my new finance company.

I had recently sold the assets of my construction company in the U.S. and had some money to placed ads in the paper and soon the phone started ringing, and before I knew it, I ended up going into the Real Estate business which served as a jumping point for my other ventures.

A friendship began with the captain and I often went to his house for dinner and he treated me as part of the family. He also prepared an I.D. with his signature requesting any authorities that I came across for any reason, to treat me with the utmost respect. Any appointments that I had that were difficult, I would ask him to go with me and he would walk straight in into any situation and resolve the issue before I could say Santo Domingo.

The Captain and I had a very mutually rewarding relationship for many years until the government was replaced by a new democratic elected government.

A short time later my father suffered a stroke and I returned to the Unites States. I have since developed new relationships in the Dominican Republic, however, the memory of this relationship will stay forever etched in my mind as one of the most rewarding and spontaneous friendships I had ever made while in the Dominican Republic.