Sheldon “Shelly” Altman, MBA, BSME, CIMA, is Chairman and Co-Founder of Altman Advisors. Raised on the west side of Chicago, he is the son of immigrants who married an immigrant, all of whom came to America because it is the land of opportunity. In a telling lesson from their past, his parents insisted he get an education because “they can’t take that away from you.” He remembers asking his future father-in-law why he emigrated from Cuba to the USA and getting an answer in a combination of Spanish and Yiddish: “Esta loco? Ich bin frei.” (Are you crazy? I am free.) Inspired by that ethos, Shelly became enamored with the economic theory of Milton Friedman, author of Capitalism and Freedom,