Stories

It was in this hollow and searching season that a close friend introduced Angel to the 100x Forum — a community designed to help high-capacity leaders reimagine the second half of life through intentionality, generosity, and calling. Angel arrived still grieving, but with the same energy and determination that had fueled his entrepreneurial career.

What he discovered was both simple and profound: he had spent years building clear strategies, schedules, and goals for business — but almost none for the things that mattered most personally. Through 100x, he began applying his business instincts to his own life, creating a “life roadmap” that brought direction back into his days. “I reinvented myself,” he says. “And I’m having a very good time.”

That renewal didn’t stop with Angel. His three adult daughters, each gifted in different fields — psychology, real estate finance, and nutrition — stepped into the family enterprise with him. Together, they aligned their individual passions with the family’s philanthropic and stewardship goals. It became a living expression of the second-half life Angel was learning to build: purposeful, relational, and generous.

But Angel’s story didn’t peak there. It was only the runway.

During this journey, he felt a growing desire to create impact at a scale he’d never imagined — not through charity alone, but through multiplying the ingenuity, courage, and creativity of the next generation. That desire led him back to his alma mater, the University of Miami, and ultimately to an idea that now fuels him every day.

He helped launch a student-focused innovation and startup initiative — something far more dynamic than a typical university entrepreneurship program. The goal wasn’t just education; it was activation. Angel’s support helped establish a pipeline where students can pitch real companies, receive real funding, and bring real solutions into the world.

This year, 92 student teams applied from across eight different schools — medical, engineering, business, arts, sciences, and more. Twenty teams received initial funding. Five received a significant additional investment. Their ideas range from medical technologies to concussion tools to breakthroughs in mobility and vision — each with the potential to transform thousands of lives.

Angel lights up when he talks about the raw energy of these young founders. “There’s no better time to be an entrepreneur,” he tells them. He encourages them, challenges them, and lifts their confidence. And when the thank-you videos arrive — heartfelt messages from students whose lives and futures have been changed — Angel says it fills him with joy.

“I’m aligned with my God-given talents,” he reflects. “And that brings me great happiness.”

From the depths of loss to the heights of multiplied impact, Angel Alvarez has discovered a second-half calling not built on what he can achieve alone — but on what he can spark in others.

David began his real estate career in the early 1980s, learning the business from the ground up. He navigated economic cycles, layoffs, bankruptcies, and the significant downturn of the late ’80s. Those early years toughened him, sharpened his business instincts, and taught him to be prudently conservative in good markets so that he could withstand the storms to come. By the 1990s, he helped acquire and develop major assets in the heart of Atlanta’s Buckhead district — transforming suburban models of development into thriving urban environments where people could live, work, and flourish.

But while his company, Regent Partners, continued to grow, something deeper was forming in David. God was using those early decades — the hard-won experience, the financial margin, the leadership platform — as building blocks for a calling that would require everything he had developed by that point.

Through the guidance of mentors like Bob Buford, and the influence of leaders such as Lloyd Reeb and Chris Crane, David began to envision a second-half life that was not merely successful — but significant. Inspired by Ephesians 2:10, he embraced the idea that God had prepared good works in advance for him. His role was to go and discover them.

That journey led David and his wife Donna to Nicaragua, where they launched a holistically designed community development model — economic empowerment wrapped in dignity, discipleship, education, and local leadership. They partnered closely with Opportunity International and local families to determine what assets already existed among the working poor. In an agriculturally rich nation, the answer was clear: farming.

With patience and perseverance, they built a field-to-market strategy around cassava, developing a gluten-free flour business that now supplies major U.S. food companies and employs more than 250 people. For years, the profits from this business fully funded schools, a hospitality training center, community infrastructure, and spiritual formation programs — allowing the work to grow as a self-sustaining system rather than a charity dependent on outside donors.

The journey has not been easy. Political instability, tariffs, and even unjust government crack-downs have threatened the work time and again. Yet, in each dark moment, God has brought the right people — faithful board members, skilled business partners, and lifelong friends — to ensure the mission continues.

For David, the greatest rewards aren’t measured in EBITDA or development milestones. They look like farmers able to send children to school for the first time… mothers thrilled that their

families can access clean water… and the joy that comes from serving shoulder-to-shoulder with deeply trusted friends in meaningful work.

He describes life now with a mix of humility and perspective — grateful for what God has done, aware of his own imperfections, clear about what matters most. When asked what he would do differently, he speaks not of missed opportunities in business, but of wasted time… moments he wishes he had stewarded with greater intention.

David Allman has become a remarkable example for leaders entering their own second half: Invest deeply in relationships. Use your gifts to solve real problems. Build teams. Show up. Hold outcomes loosely. And trust God to produce the fruit.

His life reminds us that great impact is rarely loud or flashy — it is faithful, compounding, and anchored in God’s call. And when you stay the course, over decades, the return can bless generations.