Parker Davis ’21 is accustomed to being busy. Besides pursuing the demanding international studies major, he was involved in many activities, such as Special Olympics, the Cadet Investment Group, and the Ethics Debate Team. He played lacrosse at the NCAA and club level. He was on the S-5 staff and served as regimental S-5 captain during his 1st Class year. He worked closely with VMI Communications & Marketing. He even sat on a committee of the Board of Visitors, producing a 43-page report on cadet attitudes toward memorials and commemorations on post.
It wasn’t a hyperactive nature that motivated him to do all this, but rather his experience during his 3rd Class year when he returned on academic probation. “I needed to do well academically to stay at VMI. So, all I did was academics. I barely spent any time in barracks. I was constantly in Preston Library. Often, I wouldn’t get to bed until 0200.”
When he returned from Christmas furlough in January 2019, Davis had a 3.2 GPA and was off academic probation. He also, as he put it, “hated life. It was just a grind.”
Resolved to get some fun out of life, he began what he calls a “club a day program,” and checked out one club or activity every day. “I figured that I would eventually work out what I enjoyed, and it turned out I enjoyed several things.”
There is an adage that if you want something done, ask a busy man. Being a busy man, Davis received many requests for help. “I quickly got used to saying, ‘Sure, I’ll do that,’” he recalls. Yet, he never regretted it. In fact, he drew two crucial lessons from his activities. It’s hardly surprising that one was the need for strict time management. The other: Get used to failure.
“I was a perfectionist. Everything had to be done correctly from the very beginning. By giving many different things a try, I knew I’d succeed at some things and fail at others. And when I did fail, I was less hard on myself. I realized that, in the future, people won’t remember where I messed up; they’ll remember me.”
His days as an exceptionally busy cadet serve him well in his new role as an exceptionally busy entrepreneur. About five weeks after he graduated, Davis formed his own business, Coastal Clean. The company partners with property managers in the North Carolina vacation spot Wrightsville Beach to clean beach rental properties to the highest standard. It now services dozens of properties and employs 20 workers.
Asked what prompted this rapid transition, Davis said, “Failure. I looked for a job during my 1st Class year, and nothing worked out.” The final straw came when, after completing the U.S. Secret Service’s lengthy application process, the agency determined he was too young. “Their letter stated I was ‘qualified, but not accepted.’” After that, Davis thought, “If no one will hire me, I’ll hire myself.”
This was when Davis applied something he learned at VMI—before he matriculated. “When I was on an overnight visit, the barracks fire alarm went off at 0200, and the Corps was ordered to go to Memorial Hall. In about 20 minutes, an impromptu talent show broke out. At most places, nothing would have happened. Here, these people decided to use that moment. I saw that a lot when I was a cadet. People filled an otherwise empty moment with something because doing something was better than doing nothing.”
And what did Davis see as needing to be filled? “I had a job with a property management company in my hometown of Wrightsville Beach, inspecting vacation properties before renters arrived. The cleaning often was so bad that, if these places were rooms at VMI after a formal inspection, everyone in them would be on conduct probation.”