Brian Muscarella’s new road to adventure
By Mike Savicki
Speaking with Charlotte’s Brian Muscarella, it’s hard to imagine that there was once a time that he was intimidated by driving with hand controls. But for those first six months after his highly rare, C7 level, spinal stroke at age 53, he certainly was. Yes, even as he was learning to do so much in life all over again, and adding the new dimension of adaptive sports, he didn’t think he could drive.
To put it in perspective, to say the former managing director of New York Life, who was used to no less than 120 flights and 160 to 170 nights a year in a hotel room while serving clients up and down the East Coast, was comfortable being on the move would be an understatement. Travel, rental cars, and living a mobile lifestyle was just what he did.
“I basically spent the first nine years of my marriage home only on weekends,” he tells me by phone while visiting his 95-year-old father in Florida.
Since Brian did not feel comfortable behind the wheel, he did what most executive minded types might do, he made a spreadsheet that paired his ride needs with willing drivers, [...]