As I’ve often stressed in this Family Legacy Planning blog, it’s important to identify significant lifetime moments, preserve them in some tangible way, and then pass them down to future generations as part of our story. Looking back on 2024, one of my most memorable moments was falling in love with my hometown at an event called Discover Fort Worth. In my upcoming year-end post, I’ll reveal more of the 2024 highlights that moved me. But I’ll start close to home with this one. As Dorothy discovered in “The Wizard of Oz,” and as I discovered too: “There’s no place like home.”
I am honored to serve on the national board of TIGER 21, an international peer learning network. Each year, we feature a city in a “Discover” program, a 3-day deep-dive into a city where important things are happening. This year, the featured city (at my urging) was Fort Worth. When we announced it, the membership’s reaction (as you might expect) was WHY FORT WORTH? For most of our 1,500 members, Fort Worth wasn’t on their radar. The registrations were trickling in until I began a big promo push. They were shocked to learn that Fort Worth is the 12th largest city in the US, and the fastest growing city too. When we announced the schedule of events, attendance picked up. We ultimately sold out and had a waiting list. After the 3-day “discovery,” comments went from “Why Fort Worth?” to “How can I invest here?” and “I want to move here.” Planning Discover Fort Worth and proudly showcasing my city was one of my top highlights of 2024. In fact, in TIGER 21’s 25-year history, Discover Fort Worth is the first event to score a perfect “5 out of 5” in the post-event member surveys.
We had to limit the size to 40 attendees, not only for intimacy, but also because one of the events (a behind-the-scenes tour of the F-35 fighter plane production assembly) had a strict cap of 40. Those 40 came from about 20 different cities, mostly outside of Texas. Our host hotel was the exquisite Michelin-awarded Bowie House, a perfect reflection of Fort Worth’s “Cowboys & Culture” moniker. Our first venture out was for a taste of Old Mexico with a mariachi-serenaded opening dinner at Joe T. Garcia’s patio paradise, a favorite of US Presidents and even Sir Paul McCartney. Dessert followed at Hotel Drover (also Michelin rated) in Fort Worth’s Historic Stockyards, featuring an all-out tribute to our Western heritage (even down to the longhorn steer and a branding station). We had a learning session with the team who recently redeveloped the area, making the Fort Worth Stockyards into the 15th most visited destination in America.
Day 2 started with an education program at Sotheby’s Realty on Fort Worth’s blossoming real estate industry, followed by a tour of the Modern Art Museum. Just the building itself is an art treasure, designed by Tadao Ando and designated by Travel & Leisure magazine as one of the World’s Most Beautiful Art Museums, and named by Architectural Digest as the Best Designed Building in Texas. After an outdoor lunch at Quince overlooking the Trinity River, we headed to a VIP tour at Lockheed Martin. There we discovered Fort Worth’s role in the international defense industry and our contribution to protecting the world. We not only toured the F-35 assembly, but also flew an F-35 simulator and discovered why you want me to plan your estate but not pilot your fighter plane. It’s harder than it looks.
That evening featured dinner at one of only two homes in the world designed by I. M. Pei, architect of the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, JFK Library, and dozens of other contemporary masterpieces. Our hosts, John & Cami Goff, opened up in a fireside chat where I coaxed John to tell of his remarkable rise from modest beginnings to prominence in the world of real estate and investing. They also revealed Fort Worth’s rising role as a TV and film mecca, as the night before John gave the speech at the Texas Business Hall of Fame to induct Fort Worth’s Taylor Sheridan (creator of Yellowstone, 1883, Landman, and other acclaimed shows starring the likes of Kevin Costner, Jeff Bridges, Angelina Jolie, Billy Bob Thornton, and Demi Moore). The Goffs are also spearheading efforts to create the Texas A&M Research Campus in downtown Fort Worth. John’s enthusiasm was so contagious that one of the TIGER 21 members from Chicago raised his hand on-the-spot and donated $100,000 to the project.
Day 3 concluded with a trio of Fort Worth Power Women: Mayor Mattie Parker, Rose Bradshaw (President/CEO of North Texas Community Foundation), and Elaine Agather (Central Region Head of JP Morgan). Mayor Parker revealed that, out of all US cities, Fort Worth has the second highest percentage of young families. During her tenure, Fort Worth has been named the most pro-growth city in America and the Best City in Texas for starting a business. By the way, while I’m unashamedly bragging, Texas is the eighth largest economy in the world and was named the number one state for business in America. Elaine Agather explained that the economic growth in Texas started in the 1970s with the Bass group in Fort Worth, due to what she described as “the Richard Rainwater effect.” Rose Bradshaw and Cullum Clark (Director of the George W. Bush Institute) put the cherry on top by spotlighting Fort Worth’s philanthropic story as we rank among the top for private giving in the country. In explaining Fort Worth’s success, Clark gave these five reasons why Fort Worth succeeds as an “opportunity economy:”
- We focus on education and innovation.
- We are commerce friendly—a great place to do business.
- We’re a great place to live and raise a family (affordable, but not super cheap).
- We invest in social capital and build a strong sense of community.
- We welcome newcomers to our city.
I’ve bragged about Fort Worth before (click here for my blog post of June 13, 2023 “I’m Fort Worth Proud!”). Forgive me for going overboard again today about my hometown, but Discover Fort Worth just left me bursting with pride. Even better, all those out-of-towners realize why we’ve earned the nickname of “The Unexpected City.” We’re proud to also be known as “Cowtown” and “Where the West Begins,” but as our group “discovered,” we’re a lot more than that. With only three days, we had to leave out a lot of local treasures, but the wheels in my head are already spinning to come back in two years for “Rediscover Fort Worth.” My only worry is that, in letting the secret out, we don’t want Fort Worth to change. But please come visit—I’m happy to be your personal tour guide!
Marvin & Laurie Blum kick off the 3-day Discover Fort Worth event on a longhorn steer at Hotel Drover. Hook ‘em Horns!
