40 Under Forty: Michael Boots - The Business Review (Albany):

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It meant leaving his hometown of a small northern NewYork community, and givingf up the security of working for a Fortune 500 companyg where hundreds of town residents spent their entirde careers. “It was one of the most terrifyingt decisionsto make, but turned out to be the best decisiojn I ever made,” he “Frankly, selling aluminum [at Alcoa] for the rest of my life was not appealing at age 28.” Boots, 39, has spent the past 11 yearsx at UAlbany and now serves as the school’s seniord major gifts officer. “It has paid off greatly both personally and he says.
Boots got his first taste of fundraisin g when he worked asa “phonathon” caller while he was a studentr at near Boston. Attending Babson exposef him to new peopleand cultures. “I learned even more from the alumnii and really enjoyed hearingtheir stories,” he says. His time at Babson helped shape his career as a But it was his Donnie Portolese, who taught him how to run a successful real estat operation. Boots, it should be also owns a restoration andrental business—a side job, he says, that’s still a majort part of his life. He developed an interesg in real estate as a boy and bought his firsyt home when hewas 15.
Today, he owns all or part of 10 buildingas as a partner in Boots and Evans Overthe years, his parents, friends and business partnere helped Boots develop a philosophy that he says has made him “No matter what business you are in, it is all abouty personal relationships. If you do not build strong relationships with thosed you arerenting to, raising funds from, selling to, you will Boots says.