ABOUT LEATHER APRON
The idea came to Halden almost as soon as he started in his financial career. He’d spent years watching good owners and capable CFOs struggle, even with a room full of professionals around them. Everybody was in their own corner, siloed experience was abundant, diversified experience was scarce.
As a Trader, Adviser, Portfolio Manager, and Banker, his career spanned public capital markets to small business, investments, credit, and derivatives. So he started imagining a different kind of help. One independent person who could see all of it at once, and who worked for the owner alone. No referral fees, no salaries, no tiers, nothing quietly pulling him in another direction.
By 2023, the idea had a shape. In 2024 he proved it through a 1031 exchange, fast-moving, with an unforgiving clock, producing significant deal economics and an above-market performing asset. A small job that told him what he needed to know. Give an owner someone who’s truly in their corner, and good things happen quickly.
Bespoke analysis, always before execution.
He didn’t launch it then, and fate got in the way, disguised as an unsolicited job offer. He wasn’t ready, and he knew it. The idea needed more building, he needed more reps, and there were two little boys at home who took precedence. So he was patient, went back to what he knew best as a senior credit officer at a large institution, and sharpened the analytical edge the whole idea would stand on. He fathered, underwrote, and built.
Then a few people called, unexpectedly. They needed what he had. Answers, and effort. He has ethical lines he won’t cross, and disloyalty is chief among them, so he did the work for free, off hours only, building his infrastructure in moonlight. The work impressed. He also hit walls, and with a few owners came to an honest crossroads: he wasn’t the man for the job. That mattered as much as the wins. It showed him who Leather Apron is for, and who it isn’t. Sustainable businesses, curious owners, actually wanting the help. Helping the few who fit became too good to keep as a side thing. Something had to give. It was the job.
Beautiful plants often do the most growing while in the shade.
By the summer of 2025, three had become real, ongoing relationships. One manufacturer, two service firms, none alike, all built around the same two questions: free cash flow rising, cost of capital falling. A model that runs daily decisions where an in-house accountant and a reputable firm never produced one. A firm grown and funded without outside debt, its books finally telling the truth about profitability. An owner who invested with confidence, and doubled her revenue and tripled her run-rate profitability in twelve months.
Somewhere in those engagements, Halden noticed the piece that was always missing. Fifteen years reading financial statements, always for his own analysis, and now owners across the table who depended on those same statements every day, numbers that didn’t speak to them clearly. He’s not a CPA, and he’d never claim to be. The old way, a professional introducing their client and the accountant and hoping it goes well, leads to mixed outcomes. So he started facilitating things, more than just a hand off. Scope defined, budgets negotiated so the pricing tension leaves the relationship, extra diligence called for when it genuinely pays. Doing right by the owner and the accountant at the same time. It was new. It still is, and it works.
That’s when the Leather Apron name presented itself. Reading Benjamin Franklin’s bio (Halden loves bios), he recognized his clients. Franklin’s leather apron class, the tradespeople who build, restore, and hold up society. The modern version: self-financed, unprivileged, no parent company. Industrial, technical, earning their profit through unique craft and engineering. Sustainable, with customers who keep coming back, treating their employees, vendors, and customers with honesty and the utmost respect.
That’s who this is for. The modern-day leather apron class.
Craft finance, measured true, for the craft business owners it serves.
PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
1. Halden served as Portfolio Manager and Analyst for the Bank’s most complex deals and business structures, involved in numerous lending and capital provision decisions.
2. Cash flow lending, Sponsor Acquisition, A/R and Inventory lending, Telecommunications.
3. Experience guides our knowhow on institutional decision making and risk taking.
Built to understand the current regime and predict new ones.
MARKETS AND SECURITIES
1. Seven years on the securities side: Charles Schwab, New York Life, JPMorgan Chase.
2. Traded, advised, and originated over $2B, across securities markets and diverse clients.
3. Experience provides Leather Apron its unique expertise in Markets and Risk Management.
Making markets for our clients, price discovery is continuous.
EDUCATION
1. Bachelor of Science in Financial Services Management, Summa Cum Laude, Johnson & Wales.
2. International MBA from the University of Denver.
3. Used Post-9/11 GI Bill to fund education, approximate cost of $5,000.
Value creation, executed early.
MILITARY
1. Six years aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship out of San Diego.
2. Auxiliary Division: emergency diesel generators and small-boat search and rescue.
3. Two Persian Gulf deployments. Rose to E-5. Surface and Air Warfare designated. Six medals.
Pressure, accountability, and incomplete information: standard military evolution.
For now, this page has one face on it.
That’s on purpose. Leather Apron is built to serve a handful of owners completely, not a hundred of them halfway. As the right people join, you’ll meet them here.
Built to grow, in no hurry to.