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How Private Equity Investor Edward Crawford Balances Mission and Margin

September 20, 2024

D Magazine

By: Ben Swanger

The first job Edward Crawford ever had was serving as a volunteer Peace Corps. officer in the Dominican Republic. At 23 years old, he worked alongside the locals to launch a coffee farm, helping them source coffee plants and score microloans to fuel the business.

Despite reaching a breaking point after losing 40 pounds due to tropical illnesses, what began as a three-farmer operation, 19 years later, is now a cooperative that boasts more than 400 coffee farmers. The initiative was Crawford’s first foray into a career marked by the balance of the mission and margin.

“My grandfather’s advice through his actions taught me to serve others and follow your heart, not money,” Crawford says. “Each decision I’ve made to serve was often advised against but has been profoundly fulfilling, proving the wisdom in my grandfather’s example.”

A handful of years later, shortly after his wife gave birth to two children, Crawford left his post at Goldman Sachs to join the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer, serving from 2008 to 2016. He was deployed in Afghanistan for a year and later earned a Bronze Star Medal.

Today, Crawford leads Coltala Holdings, a local private equity firm that invests in essential service businesses ranging in size from $10 million in revenue to $100 million. The firm has a portfolio of three businesses, which includes home health company Choice Health at Home, air conditioning business Paschal, and real estate due diligence firm Pond Robinson & Associates.

Raising capital on a deal-by-deal basis, Crawford expects the number of assets to double in the next five years.

“We’d rather have a few businesses that do really well and focus on them than have 20 and earn a management fee off of a big AUM,” Crawford said. “We are not an AUM shop. We’re an eat-what-you-kill firm.

“I’m passionate about companies that contribute to our country’s national security, so we’ve looked at a lot of aerospace opportunities that we might get into,” he adds.

Fellow U.S. military veteran Todd Boeding, president of Tribe&Trust Leadership Academy and podcast host for Carry The Load Podcast, could sense a difference in Coltala from the time they first met. “Most PE firms come into a business, look at a balance sheet, look at the cash flow, and they decide if an investment makes sense,” Boeding says. “And these firms invest without really giving too much thought to the people behind the businesses.”

Ed’s big thing is balancing the mission with the margin,” Boeding adds. “Obviously, the margin is incredibly important. But if a business doesn’t have a good purpose and mission, and it doesn’t have the right people delivering that, then the margin really becomes immaterial.”

As part of Crawford’s business values—having two bottom lines—Coltala contributes a portion of its financial returns to local nonprofits Bonton Farms and Carry The Load. Crawford also spearheads service opportunities for his team to take part in and support both organizations. Coltala employs seven full-time people and about 20 contractors.

“Our partnership with Bonton, which we go out to a couple of times a year, allows us to work on the farm,” Crawford said. “We bring our kids out and we bring all of our interns out and just work our butts off on the farm and get to know the people there.”

For Carry The Load, Crawford has helped the organization expand its awareness. The Dallas-based nonprofit has an impact nationally through programming and events that honor and remember fallen soldiers.

At a recent march to do just that, Crawford brought along the vast majority of his YPO chapter members—and their families—to participate in the remembrance walk. In all, 150 people marched alongside Crawford.

“Edward has gotten his entire circle of influence involved,” Boeding says. “We need people donating time, talent, and treasure—that’s what keeps the nonprofit world going. What I can tell you is that Ed’s firm is very involved in all of those and, obviously, financially, they do contribute.”

“Instead of going to a game or instead of going to the country club or playing tennis or whatever these executives could do, they all go march,” Crawford says. “We go to [Carry the Load founder] Clint Bruce’s facility, and we listen to stories about the heroes who have died for our country and what big sacrifices they and their families have made. Clint Bruce is always there with us talking about it.

“And then we have 50 kids—we’ve never had fewer than 50 children—decorate a brick,” Crawford adds. “The brick will have the name of a service member who was killed. They will put it in a bag, and then we will walk in the hot sun while listening to patriotic music. And we will celebrate their lives, and then come back and have a little workout competition. It’s just a really beautiful moment.”

Crawford, who has lost 10 people in his life to suicide, also volunteers his time at the Suicide Prevention Hotline fielding phone calls. Not only that, he is the founder of War Veterans Fund, an organization that is dedicated to electing first-time Republican U.S. House candidates who are military veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

To date, Crawford’s organization has helped candidates Dan Crenshaw, Jake Ellzey, and Mike Waltz win seats in the house. The organization currently is aiding five candidates who won their primaries in 2024: Derrick Anderson of Virginia, Tom Barrett of Michigan, Troy Downing of Montana, Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, and Rob Mercuri of Pennsylvania.

Additionally, Crawford is serving a seven-year appointment by Gov. Greg Abbott on the Texas Product Development and Small Business Incubator Board.

“Had I made some of these decisions where I didn’t serve others, I would probably have more money in the bank and a little more stability,” Crawford says. “And I know it’s [similar for others throughout Dallas.] I see people across the region not only giving their money but giving their time.”

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