When I set out to create this Firm, I grappled with two big questions: how do I distill into a word or phrase everything that I wish to convey about my business? How do my personal values translate into a name meaningful enough to transmit everything that is important to me out into the world? I wrestled with this process until I remembered that my beliefs, vision and values had all been embodied by one, highly influential person in my life: my Papa Key.
My early years were spent side by side with my grandfather, soaking up his views, stories, and early evening guitar folk tunes. From a place of intention and decency, he modeled the algorithm that through education and hard work, we can do what is right and achieve our goals. I have collected numerous, lengthy letters over the years outlining what he perceived as truly worthy goals (and rules) in life. He famously signed off on these letters with his most treasured quote from the poem Invictus: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Papa Key was a child of the Great Depression, a WWII Vet, a teacher, and a life-long learner. I realize now that the time, effort, and care spent on my upbringing resulted from the love and attention that my grandfather received from his own father - Paul Landon Key - my teacher's Teacher. My great-grandfather built the foundation for my outlook and drive well before I was even born. A man of the Great Depression, he labored through one of the most precarious periods in our nation’s history. He taught my grandfather the lessons that he learned from that experience, and my grandfather passed those lessons on to me. Against the grain of his generation's thinking about girls and their place, Papa Key insisted that I grow into a strong and independent woman.
