Through the Fires: An American Story of Turbulence, Business Triumph and Giving Back

This is a triumphant story of comeback in life and business. Robert Owen Carr experienced decades of struggle that took him to the brink of home foreclosure at age fifty. He would later make a fortune in the card payments industry, only to lose almost everything in 2009, after one of the most devastating data breaches ever. Daring to go public about the cyber attack, Carr saved his company from ruin and fought his way back to prosperity. Along the way he kept a promise to devote his financial success to young people from modest backgrounds, founding the Give Something Back Foundation as an expression of gratitude for the $250 scholarship he received as a high school senior. Unflinchingly revealing, Through the Fires describes one man’s rise from an abusive, hardscrabble Illinois youth to success as an entrepreneurial idealist who overcame setbacks to ultimately thrive and do his bit to make the world a little better.