Aquidneck Island Living July Meet The Callahan Family

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Meet The Callahan Family
BY ASHLEY BENDIKSEN PHOTO BY SARA COONEY
Meet Paul and Alisa Callahan, their twin 20-year-old boys Mitchell and
Justin, and Newsome, their 4-year old black Labrador service dog.
Paul originally grew up in North Dighton and Falmouth, Massachusetts,
while Alisa grew up in West Boylston, MA. It was 1993 when Paul first
started spending weekends in Newport. He was learning to sail while working at
Goldman Sachs in New York City. Alisa, meanwhile, was also discovering Newport
while working in Providence in the Managed Assets Division at Bank of America.
It was on one of these visits to Newport that Paul and Alisa serendipitously
met. “My boss invited me to attend a Sail To Prevail fundraiser, the ‘Wall Street
Challenge Cup,’ utilizing 12-Metre sailboats,” says Alisa. “Ironically, my boss was
a member of the Sail To Prevail Board of Directors and had been one of Paul’s
college roommates. The following year, I coordinated a group of volunteers
for this event, and at the conclusion of the fundraiser, Paul invited me to the
Clarke Cooke House for a cocktail, and that started a 3-year romance,” she says,
“And, the Clarke Cooke House is somewhere we still frequent to this day.”
The two began dating and come 1997, Paul purchased a condo in Newport. “I very
much enjoyed the vibrancy of living
downtown so I purchased a condominium
that is centrally located, and I am able
to easily get almost anywhere in my
power wheelchair,” he says. Then, in
2001, Paul and Alisa got married in
downtown Providence at the Biltmore
Hotel. Today, they are now celebrating
nearly 22 years of marriage together,
living in that same Newport condo.
Most know Paul as the CEO of Sail
To Prevail. The role is one that his
younger self never predicted. Paul
unexpectedly became a quadriplegic
at 21 years old due to a sudden and
random accident during his junior year
of college. “I slipped on a wet floor
and, in an instant, changed my life.
I went from a fully functioning ablebodied
person to a quadriplegic. I
could not move anything for more than
six months in a bed, and never knew
that I would move again,” he says.
However, Paul continued on despite
these sudden and life-altering
changes. He graduated from Harvard
College ‘85, as well as Harvard
Business School ’92, and at the time,
he was the first quadriplegic ever to
graduate from each of these schools.
He subsequently worked at Goldman
Sachs & Co. in New York City for a
good part of the 1990s. This was
when Paul first discovered sailing.
“I was brought into the sport by someone
I’d met on the docks while in Newport.
This gentleman asked me if I wanted
to go sailing, so I took up his offer,
and jumped on the boat. I remember
sailing away from the dock, and driving
the boat as I was looking back at my
wheelchair with no one in it, and finding
it the most liberating feeling in the
world,” says Callahan. Callahan later
went on to compete in two Paralympic
Games for Team USA in 2000 and 2012.
Eventually, Paul left New York City and
even worked a short stint as an Assistant
to the Dean at Harvard Business School,
before eventually becoming CEO of Sail
To Prevail in 1997. “I enjoyed competing
in sailboats so much that I felt I had an
obligation to share this opportunity with
others, so I began focusing on building
the organization, starting with 8 disabled
people, to where it is today, serving
more than 1,000 participants annually.”
Located at Fort Adams State Park, Sail
To Prevail offers therapeutic sailing
programs for children and adults with
disabilities. It’s been designated as
Rhode Island’s Official Disabled Sailing
Center by Rhode Island’s General
4 AQUIDNECK ISLAND LIVING