The first time Brian Rist went to college, he, well, survived. “I wasn’t necessarily the best student in the world,” he says with a laugh . “But I graduated.”
Forty-two years later, he returned to the University of Massachusetts Lowell and got a master’s degree in entrepreneurship. There he was, with 25 years of experience running a successful storm shutter business, in a classroom with students decades younger. In some cases, he could probably teach the classes. But that wasn’t the point. “I truly believe that learning is a lifelong process,” he says.
It’s the reason why education is one of the pillars of The Rist Family Foundation, which he started in 2020 before selling his controlling interes t in Storm Smart last year. He started the hurricane protection company from scratch in 1996 and grew the business until it made Inc. magazine’s list of fastest-growing companies multiple times and employed more than 250 people. “I thought I had taken it about as far as I could really take it,” he says.
From there, he went about the business of giving away much of his wealth to help others. Since launching, the foundation has donated millions to UMass Lowell, including a $3 million donation to start the school’s first endowed deanship. Locally he’s given to Florida Gulf Coast University and Florida SouthWestern State College, including $2.5 million to support FSW’s cybersecurity program and $4 million for the Rist Family Foundation Institute for Entrepreneurship at FGCU, where he’s also now teaching as an adjunct professor. “We are doing what we can to make education a little better, a little stronger,” he says.
Throughout his life, Brian embraced opportunities to lend a hand. He recalls seeing a news story of a woman whose water got shut off because she couldn’t afford the $272 water bill; he quietly paid it for her. When he met the young women of the now-popular wedding music group Jade Strings, he gave them money to buy a car through FGCU’s entrepreneurship Runway Program. He helped another woman who had gotten pregnant young and had to drop out of school return to her studies, and she’s now working with Lee Health.
Brian can see the value in supporting everything from social services to local business associations. Still, to make his giving more effective, he focuses on certain pillars: the community (“Southwest Florida has been very good to us”), entrepreneurship (“because it’s who we are”), education (“the only true way of solving problems”), health (tackling issues like hunger, because he can’t stand the idea of kids going to bed hungry) and veterans (“We can’t say thank you enough for people who gave up their lives so we can live the way we live”).
His motivation is simple—he knows every life touched makes a difference. “You can’t take it with you when you go,” Brian says. “I’ve already taken care of my family, so from there, all you can do is try to make the world better. It’s all our jobs to make the world a better place.” —J.P.