On Saturday I competed in the Grand Rapids Urban Adventure Race with one of my good friends from college.

More than 375 two-person teams spent four hours running and biking around Grand Rapids in search of hidden checkpoints and completing challenges ranging from rock climbing to egg launching.

But it wasn’t all fun and games, you wouldn’t believe the communication challenges it presented. Working with a map, you had to quickly work with your teammate to figure out the best route, decide if you wanted to bike or run first and establish your roles for the day.

I overhead more than a dozen teams yell, scream, and call each other names. As one teammate said to another, “Today has been a complete failure in communication.”

Halfway through my teammate said to me, “I’m surprised we haven’t killed each other yet,” and it hit me that we really did make a solid team.

My teammate grew up in the area and has far better navigation skills, so he handled the maps. My role was best served with the physical challenges like rock climbing. We succeeded because we utilized our strengths, accepted our roles and stuck to our gameplan.

That same teamwork is being applied at Truscott Rossman. Our team has a wide array of skills and experience. It isn’t too often I have to go outside of our team to get the information I need to serve my clients. In addition, we all know that our work product is better with lots of input because you never know who will have the next great idea.

That’s just one of the reasons we’ll miss our Senior Writer Charlie Cain who died over the weekend. I had the privilege of working with Charlie over the past couple of years and not only did he bring an invaluable skill set to the table, he was a great colleague, a consummate professional and a great friend. You will be missed, Charlie.