"text": "Cole West and John Baker met in high school band. That was the beginning. What came after was two careers spent building the kind of operational and financial instincts that make a business last, and a friendship that eventually became a partnership with a name: Cambridge Avenue Partners.",
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"text": "Cole comes from a family that builds things. His grandfather was a funeral director in Florida. His father ran a medical practice for over twenty years. His aunt still runs the family funeral home today. When Cole started a grocery delivery service in college, humbling himself on the realities of door-to-door sales and supplier relationships, he was following a bloodline. After Deloitte and years leading software product launches at Indeed, the pull back to something personal and rooted was inevitable. He's an avid golfer who still takes annual trips with his dad, which tells you something about his reverence for what came before. Not many millennials still take annual trips with their dads. Fewer still end up in the business of continuing their family’s legacy.",
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"text": "John grew up in Michigan with Cole, watching his father and uncle build a direct mail business from scratch. At Babson, he co-founded a company of his own, learning hard lessons about co-founder dynamics and financial planning before he'd ever heard of a cap table. He spent seven years at Wells Fargo rising from analyst to Vice President in commercial real estate, underwriting and structuring debt across multiple asset classes. These days he channels his grandfather's carpentry spirit into weekend home improvement projects and tinkering with his car. The results, he'll tell you, suggest he absorbed more of the passion than the skill, but we bet he's being modest.",
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"text": "We sat down with them while their search was still underway. Since then, they've acquired Betzler Life Story Funeral Homes, a community bedrock that requires something of its leaders that most industries don't: genuine care. TBD backed Cole and John because that's exactly what they bring to the sacred work of celebrating life in times of loss.",
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"bio": "Cole West and John Baker met in high school band. That was the beginning. What came after was two careers spent building the kind of operational and financial instincts that make a business last, and a friendship that eventually became a partnership with a name: Cambridge Avenue Partners.\n\nCole comes from a family that builds things. His grandfather was a funeral director in Florida. His father ran a medical practice for over twenty years. His aunt still runs the family funeral home today. When Cole started a grocery delivery service in college, humbling himself on the realities of door-to-door sales and supplier relationships, he was following a bloodline. After Deloitte and years leading software product launches at Indeed, the pull back to something personal and rooted was inevitable. He's an avid golfer who still takes annual trips with his dad, which tells you something about his reverence for what came before. Not many millennials still take annual trips with their dads. Fewer still end up in the business of continuing their family’s legacy.\n\nJohn grew up in Michigan with Cole, watching his father and uncle build a direct mail business from scratch. At Babson, he co-founded a company of his own, learning hard lessons about co-founder dynamics and financial planning before he'd ever heard of a cap table. He spent seven years at Wells Fargo rising from analyst to Vice President in commercial real estate, underwriting and structuring debt across multiple asset classes. These days he channels his grandfather's carpentry spirit into weekend home improvement projects and tinkering with his car. The results, he'll tell you, suggest he absorbed more of the passion than the skill, but we bet he's being modest.\n\nWe sat down with them while their search was still underway. Since then, they've acquired Betzler Life Story Funeral Homes, a community bedrock that requires something of its leaders that most industries don't: genuine care. TBD backed Cole and John because that's exactly what they bring to the sacred work of celebrating life in times of loss."
