Chris McQuade

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City and watched my Dad commute into The City every day. Little did I know that I would be doing the same routine years later as I started to raise my own family. During my youth, I had several jobs, which included mowing lawns and caddying at a nearby country club. While working these jobs at a young age I was able to see the value of hard work—and how it pays off. Both my early job experience and watching the examples my parents set instilled me with a strong work ethic. And it is something that I have passed down to my kids.

I continued working hard while in college and was able to get an internship at a brokerage firm in New York and caddied at the country club on the weekends. After graduating Niagara University, in which I studied marketing and finance, I used my experience from my internship to secure a full-time position with the same brokerage firm. My earlier experiences which enabled me within 6 months to land a position working the night shift trading fixed income products in the Asia market. From there my career had several twists and turns as I switched from trading fixed income to trading commodities specifically energy futures.

Along the way, through both high school and college, I always had someone in my corner who would turn out be my future wife. Mireille and I were friends all through high school and college and shortly after college we were married. Our wedding occurred 3 days prior to the events of September 11, 2001. As with many people the events of that day have stuck with me for a long time, as I lost several friends and former colleagues. Those events helped reaffirm within me the need for strong family values, which Mireille and I pass along to our children.

The idea of moving to South Carolina started for us in 2004 as were vacationing in Charleston for the first time. From then on, it was always something we considered. In July of 2015, we finally made the move to Daniel Island with our 3 kids, Matthew, Andrew, and Megan.

Matthew attends Savannah College of Art and Design, while Andrew and Megan are in high school.

Mireille and I seemingly spend most of our time attending our kid’s events or assisting with their social activities and caring for our golden retrievers Finn and WInston, but we would not have it any other way. We are forever grateful for the joy that our children bring to our lives. I am especially grateful for Mireille, my kindred spirit, you know things are good when your spouse is also your best friend.