FORDE LLC
BOYTNON BEACH, FLORIDA

Brian Forde is the only candidate with hands-on experience building companies and shaping national policies that empower our families, build our future, and defend our values. It’s where I built my first computer, started my first company, and took my first college course. But I understand where my parents are coming from. My mother was born in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Scotland, immigrated to the U.S. when she was nineteen, and worked as a nanny while studying to become a secretary. My father owned a small real estate appraisal business and regularly bemoaned the regulations and red tape that made it hard for him to hire and grow. They believe in hard work and self-reliance. I share these values, which is why I started my own company in high school, helping local businesses build out their IT infrastructure. I continued running it during college at UCLA and planned to devote myself to it full time after graduation. But then, during the fall of my senior year, 9/11 happened. As I watched the Twin Towers fall, scaling my business no longer seemed like the most important thing I could be doing. . I was sent to Nicaragua, where I taught business skills to high school students in a small town four hours outside the capital. I founded a phone company with a local friend , and together we installed 80-foot internet towers across the country. The Skype-like service we provided lowered the cost of calls to the U.S. by 90%. Our business quickly became one of the largest phone companies in Nicaragua, saving people millions of dollars a year. But new technologies often run into roadblocks with government. The technology we were using, known as “voice-over-IP,” was essentially unregulated, much like Uber and Airbnb are today. What we were doing was legal, but since our company presented a threat to the established phone companies, we were always worried that the Nicaraguan government would intervene to shut us down. . And it made me wonder, what could I personally do to ensure startups like mine had a fighting chance to succeed? I decided I wanted to work on this issue from within the U.S. government, helping elected officials and civil servants understand how emerging technologies can solve big problems. By this point, President Obama had begun looking for new ways to get things done. He wanted to use technology to make government more innovative and efficient — something people of all parties can get behind. So when his Administration began recruiting technologists like me to provide the expertise he needed, I agreed to come on board. I’ve spent my entire career finding ways to bring government policies and business models into the 21st century , making them serve people the way they expect and deserve to be served. Brian Forde is the only candidate with hands-on experience building companies and shaping national policies that empower our families, build our future, and defend our values. It’s where I built my first computer, started my first company, and took my first college course. But I understand where my parents are coming from. My mother was born in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Scotland, immigrated to the U.S. when she was nineteen, and worked as a nanny while studying to become a secretary. My father owned a small real estate appraisal business and regularly bemoaned the regulations and red tape that made it hard for him to hire and grow. They believe in hard work and self-reliance. I share these values, which is why I started my own company in high school, helping local businesses build out their IT infrastructure. I continued running it during college at UCLA and planned to devote myself to it full time after graduation. But then, during the fall of my senior year, 9/11 happened. As I watched the Twin Towers fall, scaling my business no longer seemed like the most important thing I could be doing. . I was sent to Nicaragua, where I taught business skills to high school students in a small town four hours outside the capital. I founded a phone company with a local friend , and together we installed 80-foot internet towers across the country. The Skype-like service we provided lowered the cost of calls to the U.S. by 90%. Our business quickly became one of the largest phone companies in Nicaragua, saving people millions of dollars a year. But new technologies often run into roadblocks with government. The technology we were using, known as “voice-over-IP,” was essentially unregulated, much like Uber and Airbnb are today. What we were doing was legal, but since our company presented a threat to the established phone companies, we were always worried that the Nicaraguan government would intervene to shut us down. . And it made me wonder, what could I personally do to ensure startups like mine had a fighting chance to succeed? I decided I wanted to work on this issue from within the U.S. government, helping elected officials and civil servants understand how emerging technologies can solve big problems. By this point, President Obama had begun looking for new ways to get things done. He wanted to use technology to make government more innovative and efficient — something people of all parties can get behind. So when his Administration began recruiting technologists like me to provide the expertise he needed, I agreed to come on board. I’ve spent my entire career finding ways to bring government policies and business models into the 21st century , making them serve people the way they expect and deserve to be served. Civil rights are the bedrock of this 241-year-old startup we call America. We are defined by how hard we fight to protect these rights and freedoms. As a Senior Technology Advisor in the Obama White House, Brian worked to help solve some of the nation’s most critical problems using technology. Brian co-founded a national phone company in Nicaragua that lowered the cost of international phone calls by 90%, saving rural Nicaraguans millions of dollars and helping fight against poverty. Brian served as a small business and technology volunteer in the remote town of Jinotega, Nicaragua, where he worked as a high school teacher and taught business and IT skills to aspiring young entrepreneurs.