Long-Term Business Relationships: What a 40-Year Reunion Taught Me About Trust
The Relationships We Never Really Lose
Yesterday, I received an email from my cousin that immediately caught my attention.
A man had stopped into the office of Geo. S. Patey & Sons Plumbing & Heating in Dedham and asked an unusual question:
“Are these Pateys related to Stan Patey who went to UMass Amherst around 1980?”
My cousin was seven years old when I graduated from UMass, so he didn’t recognize the name. But he managed to reconnect us.
His name was Mike.
At first, I could barely picture a blond guy I hadn’t seen since a roommate’s wedding sometime in the mid-1980s. Curious, I picked up the phone.
What I expected to be a five-minute call turned into a 30-minute conversation, with plans to get together in Rockport.
An Unexpected Reunion After Forty Years
As we talked, memories I’d forgotten began coming back one after another.
Classes.
Parties.
Evenings studying on the 27th floor of the library.
Weekend flag football games.
Parties.
Softball.
Basketball.
Cheering on UMass Minutemen sports.
The Blue Wall, The Pub, The Drake.
One name led to another. One story sparked another. It felt as if someone had opened a door to a part of my life that had been quietly waiting for more than forty years.
Then Mike reminded me of something I’d completely forgotten.
He laughed and said,
“Once you met Jean, we didn’t see you as much.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Meeting Jean changed the course of my life. Over forty-seven years later, she’s still my best friend, my partner, and the person who has shared every chapter since those college days.
Hearing Mike tell that story made me smile because he remembered that moment from the outside looking in. Beyond our families, there aren’t many around who knew us then. It was a memory I hadn’t revisited in years.
The Relationships We Never Really Lose
As I shared our conversation with Jean at dinner, I realized Mike and I weren’t just talking about our college years.
We were talking about life.
More than forty years have brought marriages, careers, children, grandchildren, successes we never imagined, and disappointments we never expected. We’ve celebrated weddings and birthdays, mourned parents, and said goodbye to friends who should still be here. Each of us has taken a different path, yet somehow those shared memories were still waiting for us.
Robert Hunter captured it perfectly when he wrote, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
Yet somehow, after all those years, one unexpected phone call made it feel as though no time had passed at all.
Why Long-Term Business Relationships Matter
That realization stayed with me this morning as I sat down at my desk.
At Slingshot Information Systems, we spend our days helping businesses navigate technology. Cybersecurity, Microsoft 365, cloud services, backups, business continuity, and artificial intelligence continue to evolve at an incredible pace.
The technology we support today barely resembles what businesses used twenty years ago.
But one thing has remained remarkably consistent.
Relationships.
We’re privileged to support several businesses that have trusted us for more than twenty years, and many others for well over a decade.
Think about everything that’s changed during that time.
Servers moved into the cloud.
Windows 95 became Windows 11.
Email became Microsoft 365.
Cybersecurity evolved from installing antivirus software to defending against ransomware, business email compromise, and sophisticated cyberattacks.
Now we’re helping clients understand how artificial intelligence can make their businesses more productive and more secure.
Everything has changed.
Except the reason those clients continue to work with us.
Trust Is Still the Best Technology Investment
It isn’t because of a firewall.
It isn’t because of a backup appliance.
It isn’t because we happen to recommend one software platform over another.
It’s because trust is earned over time.
It’s built by answering the phone.
By telling the truth, even when it’s difficult.
By showing up during emergencies.
By helping clients make decisions that are in their best interest.
By being there through both the good times and the difficult ones.
Technology will continue to change.
Relationships are what endure.
Yesterday, one unexpected question brought more than forty years of memories rushing back.
It reminded me that while technology will always evolve, the things that matter most never really change.
The measure of a life—or a business—isn’t simply what you accomplish.
It’s the people who are still glad to hear your voice after all these years.
At Slingshot Information Systems, we’ve been helping New England businesses build secure, reliable technology environments—and lasting relationships—for more than two decades. If you’re looking for an IT partner who values trust as much as technology, we’d love to start a conversation.
