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After 14 years as a banking industry executive and 18 years of successfully building a global banking technology company, Bruce Carpenter ’69 is using his experience to help other entrepreneurs grow successful companies.
Carpenter is now president of Mirabilis Ventures’ investment banking arm, Pacific Atlantic Capital Corp.
In 2003, he and a partner founded Harbour Bridge Ventures, which quickly accumulated a portfolio of outstanding companies.
“In 2005, one of our portfolio companies received an investment from a rapidly growing Orlando private equity group, Mirabilis Ventures,” Carpenter says. “After meeting them, I became enthused by their vision, ambitions, and portfolio model, and my partner and I accepted offers to join their team.”
“Mirabilis Ventures is an investment company seeking to acquire companies across many diverse industry sectors. We provide capital funding and merger and acquisition advisory services to our portfolio companies and other clients,” he says.
Carpenter hopes to continue working with the talented and energetic people around him to launch what he believes will become great companies of tomorrow. This interaction is a model to which he was first exposed at Lafayette.
“Success in anything and everything is the product of good fortune, surrounding yourself with outstanding people, and sound preparation,” he says. “I had the good fortune to attend an outstanding institution of higher learning at Lafayette College, where I was surrounded by exceptional professors and students, and I received sound preparation for the experiences and opportunities I would face in my life.”
A geology graduate, Carpenter credits two people with helping to prepare him for his future.
“While many of my Lafayette professors provided memorable and enriching experiences, Richard Faas, who served as my faculty adviser in my major as well as adviser in an independent studies course, helped me better understand the value of independent study and lifelong learning,” he says. “Also, my high school swimming coach, Victor Liske ’33, served as a role model and life coach for many years. His constant reminder to ‘set your goals high enough so as to be proud of your failures’ is a lesson that I will always remember.”
Carpenter says that Lafayette taught him the importance of lifelong learning and achieving balance in life.
“Every day brings new learning experiences and opportunities if you are open to them and actively seek them out,” he says. “I have especially vivid memories of early-morning and late-night study sessions, working at numerous jobs to help support my educational expenses, all my friends, varsity and intramural sports, fraternity life, and my involvement in the Easton YMCA.”
Carpenter continues to serve on local and regional YMCA boards. He also participates in United Way community activities. Both are parts of the life balance he seeks.
“Life is not a dress rehearsal for the real thing,” he says. “Get engaged and enjoy what you do. Look for opportunities to make a difference. Surround yourself with people who are talented and who truly care also about what is important to you and what you are doing together. Then work hard and have fun with it. Remember to balance your life across everything that is important to you.”