CHAIRMAN’S NOTE 32 I t was an interesting, intellectual exercise for me. The preceding three to four years had been exceedingly difficult, and I was thrilled to think about business proactively as opposed to reactively; to think I was at least partially controlling the dialogue, and not just responding to it. By the end of that summer, my thoughts about the path to follow had begun to coalesce. Two months later, on November 3, 1993, Harbert Management Corporation was incorporated. Its President and CEO was a 34-year-old entrepreneurial investment manager with no prior experience running unaffiliated third party capital.   Today as I write this letter, HMC has celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday, and I have celebrated my sixtieth. My biggest takeaway from those two events is that we are still here, pursuing essentially the same goals that we set for ourselves twenty-five years ago. That is not to suggest that there have not been ups and downs or twists and turns in the path we chose to follow, or that there have not been any course corrections over the last two and a half decades. However, to grow and prosper, both individually and institutionally, you must be able to respond and adapt to the ever-changing world in which we live. One of the only constants in life is change, and you have to be willing to accept and embrace that if you have lofty goals, which HMC and I both had.   It was June 1993. We had just sold Harbert Construction Corporation — the original, largest and last of my father’s six construction companies. After that disposition, I began a summer of soul searching. What kind of business did I want to be in? What kind of business model should I structure? What were the barriers to entry? What were the odds of being successful? Raymond J. Harbert Oneoftheonlyconstantsinlifeischange,andyouhaveto which HMC and I both had.