Wade was enlisted in the US Army Reserve during college and was assigned to a cold-weather light infantry unit in Minnesota that supported an active duty mountain unit in Alaska. He was an M-60 machine gunner and enjoyed the rugged training which included snow shoeing, downhill and cross-country skiing, pulling ahkios (man-drawn sleds used by Arctic warriors), over-white camouflage, and bivouacs in weather that reached more than 50 degrees below zero. He graduated from North Dakota State University (NDSU) as a Distinguished Military Graduate in ROTC and accepted a regular army commission as an Engineer officer. He attended the Engineer Officer’s Basic Course in Fort Belvoir, VA where he graduated at the top of his class. While at the training he was talked into applying for Ranger training by two of his friends. During the grueling Ranger training Wade lost 49 pounds on the meager rations and no scheduled sleep (meant to simulate the rigors of combat). He probably wouldn’t have made it through the training without the encouragement of his friends and the wild berries he gobbled up during the Mountain phase.

He went on to attend several other specialized training programs including atomic demolitions and munitions training, Airborne, Air Assault, and several explosives programs. His first assignment was commanding a 30-man special weapons unit that was trained to deploy regular and atomic demolitions anywhere in the world. He also helped develop new military doctrine for atomic demolitions and developmental liquid and slurry-based explosives. His assignments included serving as an executive officer for a 120-man engineer company.

His desire to return to special operations was met with orders instead to go to Turkey and build a dam as an engineer, so he resigned his commission and headed to the corporate world.

Wade continued his military service during his stint at Mobil Chemical by serving in the Army Reserves where he commanded a 160-person combat engineer company and held several facilities engineer positions. He re-entered active duty to fight in the Gulf War and was a facilities management operations executive for 600,000 soldiers and Arab liaison officer to the Northern Arab Command. He quickly learned just enough Arabic to endear himself to close Arab friends while landing in trouble on a few occasions that thankfully turned into humorous anecdotes rather than creating an international crisis.

His military decorations include the Bronze Star, Southwest Asia Service Medal with two bronze service stars, National Defense Service Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Ranger Tab, Parachutist Badge, Air Assault Badge, and ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate.

Wade held a top-secret security clearance with NATO cosmic atomal access privileges.

Wade left the military to climb the corporate ladder at the Plastics Packaging division of Mobil Chemical, a subsidiary of what was then the Mobil Corporation (now ExxonMobil). He held several positions starting as a territory Sales Representative for the state of Wisconsin, and was promoted to higher levels of responsibility including the roles of Regional Product Manager, Regional Sales Manager, Regional Product/Sales Manager, and culminating as a National Market Development Manager with executive marketing and product management responsibilities for a $150 million national product line.

His time at Mobil was interrupted for six months when he was recalled to active duty to serve in the Gulf War in 1991. While the pace of corporate life was intense and time consuming, Wade learned much from the comprehensive training and development programs and the five positions he held during his seven years at the company. While he was usually embarrassed to admit that he sold plastic trash bags, plastic grocery bags, and disposable foam plates, bowls, and meat trays for a living, the experience of sales, marketing, negotiation, and leadership equipped him well to be an entrepreneur later in his career.

Wade invests across multiple asset classes through Boldmore Growth Partners, his family office, and through several funds he co-founded, including Eagle Venture Fund, a global venture capital fund with offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Wade’s advisory skills were honed while at the Boston Consulting Group, one of the world’s leading strategy consulting firms where he consulted with clients on strategy, growth, and transformation. One of his most notable achievements was helping set the stage for the transformation of travel distribution by delivering the foundational strategy for the largest Internet-based travel agency and the strategy for the first ticketless airline process for the largest U.S. airline.

His current advisory focus is to help startup entrepreneurs via his business planning resources at Pro Forma, which are used by entrepreneurs in over 90 countries. The app includes all 161 global currencies and meets both IFRS and GAAP standards.

Wade is a serial entrepreneur that has founded in and invested in over 100 startups and completed scores of mergers and acquisitions.

He started selling door-to-door as a boy and worked full time most of his high school and college years at many jobs and at-risk ventures to put himself through school.

His startup and business building focus has been on software and tech-enabled services companies that have high gross margins, recurring revenue, and repeatable and scalable offerings. His startups have included:

• A tech-enabled investment banking firm that was sold to JP Morgan within just 22 months of launch
• A global SaaS-based big data firm that was capitalized with $75m in venture capital prior to selling to a public company
• A tech-enabled government services firm that was sold to Pitney Bowes.
• An Inc. 5000 nationwide SaaS-based real estate services company that has grown into the third-largest firm among several thousand competitors in its industry.

His awards include the following:

• The Inc. 5000 award for co-founding one of the fastest growing private companies in America
• The Minnesota Tekne Award for Application of Technology
• Finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award