From the Peace Corps to the C-Suite

As a young Peace Corps volunteer in the early 2000s, Edward Crawford MBA ’17 helped farmers in the Dominican Republic start a coffee cooperative. He lost about 40 pounds from the ravages of tropical diseases, yet he gained a deep appreciation for what people can accomplish when they work together to improve their community.

Nineteen years later, the cooperative is still thriving, and Crawford is putting the lessons he’s learned from a lifetime of service—including a combat tour with the US Navy—to work at Coltala, the startup he cofounded. A “purpose-driven” holding company, Coltala helps small- and medium-sized US enterprises provide essential services, such as health care and defense.

Such companies are “the backbone of America and often overlooked,” Crawford says. “They need money to scale; they need expertise; they need a partner. That is our job.”

A native of Louisiana, Crawford says several family members inspired his passion for service. One grandfather, who was Jewish and a doctor, escaped the Holocaust, became a naturalized US citizen, joined the Army, and treated war veterans. The other was also a doctor and a US Navy veteran. Crawford’s parents were both teachers and leaders in business and their community.

Service is “an inherited trait,” Crawford says with a smile. “Be the change you want to see in the world. That has, for better or worse, been my mentality.”

Crawford entered the Peace Corps soon after graduating from Texas Christian University with an English degree. After his tour ended, he earned master’s degrees in Latin American studies and global management at Tulane University. At the time, New Orleans was still recovering from the devastation of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, so Crawford helped rebuild a library for inner city kids. “It was tough to see the plight of people struggling in America,” he says.

Next Crawford enlisted in the US Navy Reserve, serving part-time as an intelligence officer. He also joined the investment bank Goldman Sachs, where he was working his way up when two friends from his hometown, both members of the US Navy’s SEAL Team Six, were killed in Afghanistan in 2011.

Crawford flew home for the funeral and told his wife during the ceremony: “I hope you understand I feel I need to go.” He volunteered for active duty and earned a Bronze Star Medal for combat in Afghanistan. “We had a very tough deployment,” he says, noting that his unit lost its commander. “That award was largely conferred just from the courage to take risks and make it through.”

After returning to Goldman Sachs, Crawford took on the role of vice president focused on advising business leaders in Florida and Latin America. But in 2016, he went looking for a new challenge. Hoping to one day run his own business, Crawford enrolled in MIT’s Executive MBA program. “At MIT, they teach you how to structure things so you can scale and scale sustainably,” he says. “It was a really valuable experience. I was able to get good advice on how to launch something.”

In 2017, Crawford founded Coltala with co-CEO Ralph Manning. “We’ve been off to the races ever since.”

Coltala’s holdings include an HVAC services company, a home health-care enterprise, an engineering business, and an aerospace and defense company. At each company, Coltala evaluates staff and roles and works to establish standard operating procedures “so you aren’t reinventing the wheel every time you solve a problem,” Crawford explains.

Crawford cites Coltala’s health-care business as one example of the company’s success: It has seen exponential growth since the acquisition and is providing more jobs for nurses and reaping better ratings from customers—an important criteria for Coltala, which is based in Texas. “The better service you give, the better company you are,” Crawford says.

And while Crawford is no longer in the military himself, he hasn’t forgotten his fallen comrades. In his free time, he volunteers for Carry the Load, a charitable organization dedicated to fostering appreciation for the sacrifices made by the US military, veterans, first responders, and their families.

Photo courtesy of Edward Crawford MBA ’17