Of late, I’ve been focused on setting conditions. In military operations, leaders complete the planning, equipment preparation, and asset positioning long before first contact. The execution is what's visible; the positioning—the unseen—is what makes success possible. May and June were months of exactly that. What I’m working on A proprietary deal that I've been working since last summer made meaningful progress. I received initial financials in the fall of '25 and things were progressing well when the owner went silent. I stayed persistent and got him back to the table. It turned out the company had brought in a new president, and the owner was delicately trying to balance bringing the president into the conversation—he wanted to make sure there would be compatibility between the new second-in-command and me. I sat down with the president in late May and got his buy-in. We now have updated financials and a preliminary valuation view. We're meeting in the next two weeks to determine whether the numbers support a deal. A proprietary lead on a geospatial information systems business in the Pacific Northwest is under NDA, and we should have financial data in hand shortly. The language training services business mentioned in March is in a holding pattern due to a sudden contraction in its largest customer relationship—a federal funding shift unrelated to the business itself. On the brokered side, an aerospace parts finishing business in the Pacific Northwest, as well as an environmental services business, are in early diligence. Pipeline health Monthly intake averaged 17 deals across May and June, down from 28 in April. This was largely driven by a lower volume of deals on-market and more aggressive teaser-stage screening. I'm passing on more deals at the teaser stage to avoid the full cost of a CIM review. More significant than pipeline volume is where the deals are coming from: proprietary deals now account for 37% of the 19-deal active pipeline, the highest share of the search to date. Top pass reasons: key person risk, valuation expectations too high, and insufficient historical financial performance. Looking ahead My top priority is to quickly and efficiently get to the financial data and formulate a valuation view on proprietary deals. Proprietary leads tend toward long sales cycles. It's my job to compress that timeline. Three forces are now in motion to expand proprietary capacity, all at zero fixed cost. The first is a business development associate on a pure success-fee arrangement. He’s an experienced sales operator that will be placing cold calls to proprietary targets in parallel with my own outreach. Cold calling is the highest-yield proprietary channel I have, and the one I can't scale by working harder. The second is a buy-side sourcing firm that does proprietary outreach for private equity firms and family offices. They routinely surface businesses that are too small, or are not quite the right fit for the current mandates. The relationship is contingency-based and provides a win-win scenario with access to additional quality deal-flow. The third is an unpaid intern from the military that is interested in pursuing search after their transition. None of this has paid dividends yet. But each initiative, at zero fixed cost, adds capacity where my personal bandwidth is the constraint. How you can help (my only ask) If you come across a business in WA or FL that provides essential goods or services and generates $750k–$3mm in EBITDA or pre-tax profit, I’d greatly appreciate an introduction. Alex