Still in the Game (cont.)

THE ROOKIE

Drew Bledsoe

Drew Bledsoe, 36, is not easily intimidated. The 6-foot-5-inch quarterback built a 14-year career in the NFL on his ability to stay focused even when 300-pound defensive ends were running straight for him. But last spring, as he headed into a meeting with oil-and-gas giant Devon Energy, Bledsoe felt some of those pre-game jitters. He and his business partners, Montana attorney Chad Wold and Ecosphere Technologies founder Dennis McGuire, had flown to Texas to pitch a pilot program for a water-filtration system developed by McGuire’s company and backed by Bledsoe and Wold. The experience was surreal for the former football star, in part because the name of the executive he was about to meet, Jay Ewing, bore an uncanny resemblance to J.R. Ewing, the Texas oil man in the television series Dallas.

After playing nine seasons—and winning a Super Bowl—with the New England Patriots, then going on to play three years with the Buffalo Bills and two years with the Dallas Cowboys, Bledsoe had hung up his cleats only a year before. He had a few ideas about what he wanted to do with his life after football. Spend more time with his four young children and wife, Maura. Work on his golf game. Rip it up on the ski slopes near his homes in Bend, Oregon, and Whitefish, Montana, without worrying about violating his contract.

As one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the league, Bledsoe had enough money in the bank so that he didn’t have to ever work again. But the thought of spending his days without working just didn’t appeal. “I’m proud of what I accomplished as a football player, but I don’t get a big bang out of people who want to shake my hand because of what I did five years ago,” he says. “What I need, personally, to feel satisfied is the chance to be excellent at something new.”

Bledsoe had a pretty good idea that that something would be business. What kind of business exactly, he wasn’t sure. In fact, he likens his first year of retirement to his first offseason in the NFL. “I did everything … went to every charity appearance and every golf tournament to see what things I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy,” he says. “I did the same thing my first year out of football. I said yes to everything.” One such venture was a coffee roasting company he co-founded with a friend. Bledsoe, once a four-cupsa- day drinker, was intrigued with the idea of making “killer” coffee, and he saw it as an opportunity to learn about business on a small scale. “I treated it like business school.”

Bledsoe also spent more time tending to his winery near his hometown in Walla Walla, Washington. Bledsoe, who calls himself a “farm boy,” still enjoys a cold Budweiser, but over the years he’s developed a palette for good wine. Bledsoe bought two parcels in 2003 and 2004 and hired Chris Figgins, winemaker of the highly acclaimed Leonetti Cellars, to help him grow the winery from the ground up. Bledsoe has been actively involved in the production and marketing of the debut of his Doubleback label—in 2010. “The wine business,” he says, “is a slow business.”

Less than a year in retirement, Bledsoe’s plate—or rather, glass—was already pretty full, but he was open to other business ideas—and there was no shortage of opportunities coming his way. He stopped counting after 150 proposals hit his in-box. They ran the gamut from golf course developments to stereo shops. “A lot of the ideas were kind of laughable,” says Bledsoe. “But there were a few that looked interesting.”

To deal with the deluge of proposals, Bledsoe teamed up with Wold and formed Bledsoe Capital Group in 2007. A business partner and a formal structure for analyzing ideas made it easier for Bledsoe to say no. Bledsoe and Wold dismissed most of the original ideas almost immediately, put about a dozen through an initial sniff test, and were left with one proposal that could actually work out: a chemical-free system to purify high-volume wastewater, such as that used to break up shale and pressurize natural gas. “Natural gas companies use millions of gallons of water, and it comes out looking like sludge,” says Bledsoe. Ecospheres Technology had developed a system for cleaning the water, but it needed investors. That’s where Bledsoe Capital Group came in. Fortunately for them, Jay Ewing wasn’t a Dallas TV character, and Bledsoe’s first big business meeting proved successful: Devon Energy agreed to open its wells to a 90-day pilot program, and the water came out as clean as bottled water. “We even drank some of it,” says Bledsoe, whose partnership is now in talks with other energy companies.

The thrill of playing professional football in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans is tough to beat, but business has its moments, too. “Part of what gets my blood pumping is the fact that I could fail miserably,” says Bledsoe. Bledsoe is taking every step to prevent that from happening. He recently sold his half of the coffee-roasting business to his partner in order to focus his efforts on his wine business and Bledsoe Capital Group. At home, he logs onto his computer at 6 a.m. to stay on top of his growing to-do list. “It’s a far cry from the rock-star life of an NFL player,” he says. “But it’s exciting to try to be successful at something because of what I can do with my wits as opposed to what I can do with my arm.”

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