In a text exchange just a couple of months ago, Brian said, “Life always reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit. “When you’re tattered and your stuffing starts showing, you know you’re real.” While we had discussed his illness over the years, it was the first and only time he hinted that his time, like all of ours, is borrowed. Having been fortunate to catch his rising star from the beginning, I always imagined he would wind his way through a myriad of attacks like the superhero in any one of a million scenes he had helped curate, and he would dust himself off and smile walking away unscathed. But as Brian reminded us this week, life is all about the story, it has to grab you, move you through countless emotions and then, if it’s great, leave you screaming for more. Brian’s story did that and so much more.

Like so many, I was incredibly blessed to have minor part in the early scenes of his thriller. In 2000, Brian was coerced gently by Alan Hassenfeld to join Hasbro.  While it was clear that Alan had a starring role with Brian’s name already on the script, he was initially brought in to run Tiger after our sale in 1998. Randy Rissman and Roger Shiffman,Tiger’s founders and my original mentors, were moving on to other things and Furby was still the rage with major new projects in the works. While it was to be a short scene with Brian living in Chicago, measured in months not years, to me it was still tremendous.  Our kids went to day camp together and he and I started spending a lot of time together. He would talk of his ultimate plan to run Hasbro and how we would “Transform” the business into the biggest entertainment company the toy world had seen. Brian’s mantra then, and always, was “Dream Big and know nothing is impossible.”

Seconds later Brian began climbing in the company. He would talk about his wife Barbara and how incredibly smart she was and how she would help him see the vision and his place at Hasbro. With Hasbro and Brian, like Alan before him, it was very much a family affair. His son Brandon would craft amazing stories about things his Dad could do as a superhero and he was right.  In later years, his daughter Brooke shared in the magic as well feeling Brian’s connection to entertainment. He was thrilled by that as it was a way to make sure family was at the core of all he did.

After moving in short order to Rhode Island, Brian took on a larger role, I think his first major title was COO. At that time, he asked when I was moving to join in Pawtucket. I told him it was family first and I needed to stay put in Chicago.  I thought for sure I was done. Then came his greatest gift. Brian asked a couple of us to stay for a few years, commute, and help get things off the ground. I was charged with helping lead Marketing and pulling all of the 20 something agencies we had together.  It was a dream.

Pawtucket was a factory town.  Because of that, the halls of Hasbro were generally dark by 5:30, people heading home to their families. It was at that time Brian would come in to the office and go on these amazing rants about the potential we had. We would talk about reimagining GI Joe, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop and, of course Transformers. His vision was so clear you knew that there was no chance it wouldn’t work.

He would explain that we were blessed with this treasure trove of stories just waiting to be unpacked from their rest. He would constantly go on about “The Story Arc” and how without “The Story” you had nothing.  He would remind me that no technology stuck in a toy would matter if there wasn’t a story to connect and grab the child. Like so many times, he was so right.  I have often said that Brian was as close to a current day Walt Disney as anyone ever.  He could weave a great story into a show, toy, theme park ride and see a Grand Vision like no one else.

Selfishly, my personal favorite time with Brian was when he and I would travel. No matter where we were going it was special. Whenever we would go to LA, people would line up to meet. Studio contacts, licensors, inventors, or any number of others. Hasbro was on the rise and everyone wanted in on the magic. We would pack our days filled with meetings. Traveling with him was like watching a maestro conduct. We would make every second count.  But the best of all is when he’d say to me, “No dinners, enough meetings.” We would leave Burbank, or wherever, and head to Santa Monica and a store called Puzzle Jungle. The store was filled with Comics and great toys from around the world. Brian loved Comic Books.  We’d spend hours playing and then go grab sushi and hang at the Pier talking. We’d talk about things we’d make and how we needed the greatest 7 Layer Cake to make sure the marketing was as good as the product. We shared a passion for Marketing and would challenge each other to come up with ideas that no one else would try.  And, in recent years, we would talk about how fun it was discovering new paths to consumers and how we could connect in so many cool ways. Brian was always a fan of new ideas and breaking the mold.

Optimus Prime and Brian were very much one and the same. Leaders with a strong moral compass. He would challenge people to do more than they knew they could and they would do it. He’d find the way to bring out in us all only the best. Failures would come for sure, but the wins outnumbered them 10-1 and there were always learnings to come even from the tough ones.

Years after I had left, we were having dinner and he was telling me that he decided it was time to let “The Hub,” Hasbro’s tv venture, go. The company had made a massive investment in content and more, but it just wasn’t what he had hoped for. Still, he was so proud of the team, what they had built and went on to say that he knew the thousands of hours of content would be useful in so many ways. As always, he was on the money.  Not once did he waiver from taking the shot. 

And, best of all, each project gave him the chance to build the team further. He would open doors for all people in so many arenas when so many leaders failed to see the potential from everywhere. He knew that that was cheating the company and that’s why, under Brian, Hasbro led year after year, in every corporate rating poll done. Brian was incredibly proud of the diversity Hasbro embraced. He knew that to win, it had to mean winning for everyone. Each new chapter came with new people, partnerships and a chance to grow.

Late last week, I texted Brian, but there came no answer, not even a short one. I knew things were changing.  And then came the announcement that Brian would be taking a leave. Like everyone, my heart sunk. Surely there was a bolt of lightning to strike and he’d smile that smile. In sadness, the story has a different ending. 

But real heroes like Brian live on.  They endure the test of time in the stories he told, the people he loved and mentored, the family he adored. Brian’s message to everyone at Hasbro and all of us in the toy family is clear, “Dream Big and know that nothing is impossible.”  Thank you BG.  We’ll keep dreaming.