Mayor David Fried with his son Brett, wife Kitt, and daughter Ashley. (Photo courtesy of the Fried family.)
Kickboxing leads Fried to business career
Robbinsville Mayor David Fried’s business career started with kickboxing.
He picked up the sport as a 12-year-old in East Windsor because the strategy reminded him of chess. It has stuck with him ever since.
“I definitely think the martial arts got me into business,” he said. “Business is really just another game of chess. You have to be constantly thinking and playing and understanding what your next move is going to be. As I got older, my body could no longer kickbox anymore. I think I got more passionate about running businesses. It’s really the same thought process.”
Fried, 46, said both kickboxing and business require constant thought. It’s taught him planning, strategy and discipline, all qualities he said are essential to a business mind. Fried is one of two candidates for a four-year term as mayor of Robbinsville. Election Day is Nov. 5.
It seems to have worked for him. Fried started his first business while he was still a student at Glassboro State College, sold it in 1998 and retired for a short period of time at age 30. After a few years, though, he had the itch to get back to work.
“It seemed like a really great idea at the time,” he said. “The challenge is none of your friends are retired. The first year, you travel and do all the things that you wanted to do. You exercise every day. By the second year, you’re kind of looking for something to do. Most of us define ourselves by what we do as our jobs. When you’re 30 and you don’t have a job, it’s a little mind-numbing after awhile. I was playing way too many video games, so I said it was time.”
One of his first post-retirement business ventures was founding TriCore nine years ago, a payroll and outsourcing business of which he is currently the CEO. In addition to Robbinsville, the company has two other offices in Texas and Florida and recently made the Inc. 500 list of the county’s fast-growing companies.
“I like helping businesses get started, get founded,” he said. “I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. I do a lot of coaching. I’ve got minority interests in a few other startup businesses. That’s really what I like to do. That’s kind of my thing.”
Before TriCore, Fried helped a number of businesses get on their feet. Watching a company flourish, he said, is more play than work.
“I do a lot of coaching online,” he said. “I do a lot of consulting. It’s really kind of neat, just working with different business that I may not know a lot about. I can actually help them understand how business works. I really, really like to see them grow. It’s a good opportunity to see how different businesses work.”
Fried’s coaching skills aren’t limited to the office, though. His children Brett and Ashley are both active athletes, so he and his wife Kitt stay as involved as possible. He coaches basketball, baseball and soccer, but when it comes to the sports, he prefers to stay out of the spotlight as an assistant coach.
The martial arts are still a part of his life, too. He teaches kickboxing and muay thai once a week in Robbinsville.
Needless to say, Fried likes to keep himself busy. He said time management is his biggest daily challenge.
“He doesn’t know the definition of the word relax,” VC Salon owner Angela Pantaleone said. “Even during his time off, his activities tend to be high energy and slightly obsessive. Ultimately, he’s passionate about his family and finds happiness in contributing to the community because he loves to help others grow.”
Fried manages to keep everything—politics, his family, his job—balanced because he stays local. TriCore is only a couple of miles from his home. He used to work for Fidelity but decided to leave due to constant weekday travel.
“I didn’t want to miss my kids growing up,” he said. “I made a conscious decision to open the business in Robbinsville so I could be here, go to all their games, go to all their events. I really want to be part of their lives growing up because it goes quick. It won’t be long before they don’t want to talk to me anymore. I’m enjoying the years while they still like me.”
Pantaleone said Fried is constantly active and involved no matter the venture.
“He can always figure out what the situation is and what needs to be done to achieve the preferred result,” he said. “He’s also very good at knowing what motivated people. He’s very much a forward thinking, extremely innovative, and a great problem solver. But, Dave is also about having fun and knows how to shape any environment to keep people engaged. The time I’ve known Dave has been an amazing learning experience. It is rare to find people who think the way he does.”
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