Triumph Foundation

Back in 2015 Rick Hollman was trying to figure out a new and inspiring way to help the members of the Triumph Foundation Family and honor his brother Bill Hollman who suffered from a severe spinal cord injury back in 1995 and passed away in 2013.

In thinking about those things important to Bill, Rick remembered the many conversations they had together about people, all of us, needing to be productive in order to feel relevant, no matter what our condition or circumstance in life.  Bill was always very productive in his business life and beyond. After Bill retired from real estate he went on to get a Masters degree in Psychology and volunteered his time at the Beverly Hills Women’s center as a therapist. 

After his accident, Bill continued to counsel a select group of individuals and also went back to work trading currencies and stocks as well as working on real estate deals in order to help defray the huge burdensome costs of being a quadriplegic.

This brought Rick to the conclusion that Bill would love a grant given to those who want to work and be productive in order to give them just enough seed money to either start their own business or purchase something that would help them get or keep a job. This would help fuel their productivity  and boost morale.

The first recipient, Austin Whitney, was able to form his own Non-Profit organization called Accessible Festivals which impacted scores of people in wheelchairs to be able to go to festivals like everyone else and enjoy themselves. We could not have asked for a more deserving recipient. 

The next recipient was Bardo Ramos who was able to purchase power wheels for his wheelchair, which enabled him to travel long distances across the Veterans Administration property in West LA where he worked when his job changed and required him to travel much further across campus.

The next winner of the award was Rob Balucas to develop a new version of his Website design and Marketing Agency that he had prior to his injury.

This Grant has inspired a few of the larger Triumph Contributors to want to offer the same type of Grants and the award has now been rebranded as the “Employment Achievement Award”. It is spreading at a very rapid pace affecting the lives of many fortunate recipients. Bill would be thrilled to see how this has affected so many and helped create such positive results from so many worthy recipients.