We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jack Trottier a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jack, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

On May 20, 2023, I left my driveway in Tyngsboro, MA on a handcycle journey to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, GA. It had been ten years since I was in inpatient at Shepherd from a spinal cord injury when I was seventeen. With the recent start-up of my foundation, we wanted to begin a new chapter of life while doing some good for an organization that needs support. We planned to raise funds over the four-week trek down south to benefit the adolescent program at Shepherd. I was out for a ride the summer before when I began planning my trip back to Atlanta. Once I realized I could handle the physical demands, I partnered up with the High Fives Foundation — an organization that reintegrates people with life-altering injuries back into the community of adaptive action sports. We also set out to find corporate sponsors to help cover the ride costs and received commitments from organizations like the Numotion Foundation and the Boston Red Sox. Life is about calculated risk — at some point, there comes an opportunity, change, or idea that will scare you. I believe you’ll never be truly ready to do something that scares you. Eventually, if you want it badly enough, you do it scared. I find that I work through mental laundry best when I’m active. In sorting through negativity while out riding I found a goal to set, and a path towards accomplishing it. I didn’t know if I’d be able to ride fifty miles per day, six days a week. I didn’t know if I could raise enough money for it to be worth it. I didn’t know if I had the mental capacity to be on a bike for one hundred-plus hours by myself. I decided to take the risk, and I’m grateful I did. We arrived at Shepherd on June 16th and raised $30,000 for the program.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was in a snowboarding accident in 2013 when I was seventeen. I spent three months at the Shepherd Center, a specialized facility in Atlanta, GA for neurological injuries and impairments, before returning to Massachusetts for my junior year of high school in a wheelchair. I broke my C6 vertebrae which caused a spinal cord injury (SCI) and paralysis. In 2021 I created the Jack Trottier Foundation, which gives quality-of-life grants to victims of traumatic spinal cord injury in New England. We have been growing slowly, and have approved grants to eight individuals for modifications and equipment to aid in independence following SCI. We plan to triple that number next year.

I’m most grateful for meeting our grantees. Most of the time I’m meeting them when they are at the lowest point in their life. The overwhelming gratitude for our help drives me to continue providing our services. It’s a great feeling knowing that a grant from us can change someone’s life, and seeing that they won’t have to go without necessary equipment from a lack of funding reassures me that we are needed in this community.

I try to be a resource at the very least. You learn a lot navigating a SCI for ten years, and I feel an obligation to give some insight to someone new to that life. Our organization hopes to be more than just a financial support system. We’d like to provide services that make a spinal injury more manageable, and reduces the time to reintegrate and return to a sense of normalcy. Access to resources and information is a big factor in our mission.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

For the past seven years, I have sold wheelchair-accessible vans and adaptive driving equipment at a small dealership in New Hampshire. When I started, we didn’t offer any adaptive driving equipment, but we quickly realized the need for an alternative to the usual big, corporate dealerships. I started our AE program that now provides equipment for 75-plus individuals annually from all over the northeast. I’ve grown my client base and network through years of outreach to local hospitals, funding sources, government agencies, and other groups. This made for a nice transition to my foundation.

I just recently began working with the foundation full-time, while still consulting for the dealership. For two years the foundation was something that I spent nights and weekends planning for and working on. We have nine volunteer board members that have also shaped our mission and direction.

The foundation has now reached a point where it cannot be secondary. The programs, events, funding, and services need full attention and I am in a position to do that now. It’s a great feeling to be able to do something that you love to do. It started as something we wanted to do to give back to a community that desperately needs help. We thought we could make a small impact on the local level and see where we could take it. The support has been incredible and, more importantly, the energy around philanthropy for this demographic is heartwarming. I didn’t imagine this two years ago, but constantly remind myself who we do this for.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’m not sure if this counts, but it is how I started at my first “real” job.

I was a 20-year-old junior at UMASS-Lowell majoring in Business Administration and Psychology. I was commuting and broke like most college kids. I was three years in to living with a spinal cord injury and using a wheelchair to get around. I had recently begun driving using a bunch of adaptive equipment and I needed a way to support myself while in school.

I went to a dealership that specialized in accessible vans, with the hopes of selling them my old van that I no longer needed. While negotiating that deal, I asked if they needed help with marketing or social media. The GM told me they did not, but they wanted to start selling adaptive driving equipment and getting funding from Vocation Rehabilitation and the VA. He asked if I wanted to try and break them into that market.

In short, they took in a kid that had no business experience and trusted me to start a division of the dealership independently. I’ve been there for seven years.    

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jacktrottierfoundation.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacktrottierfoundation/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JackTrottierFoundation
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/86634479/admin/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@jacktrottierfoundation2519