Built on Trust: How Four Knights Reunited to Build Coastal Investment Company

One arrived at UCF with a passion for music. Another as a student athlete playing football. A third did not fall in love with UCF until he experienced it as a student. And the fourth found community and developed his leadership skills as a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon. 

At the time, none of them imagined they would someday build a company together.  

Carey Sobel ’09, Travis Barr ’09, Tyler Bloechinger ’09 and Keith Ahrens ’08 met as students, remained friends while pursuing separate careers and eventually reunited with something more valuable than a business plan: trust cultivated over decades. All four of the partners graduated from the UCF Barry S. Miller College of Business. 

Today, they are the partners behind Coastal Investment Company, one of this year’s Ever Upward honorees. 

“We all had separate careers,” Sobel says. “Then we got the band back together.” 

Before making his mark in business, Sobel spent nights curating music and performing as a DJ throughout Orlando, where success depended on reading a room, connecting with people and creating memorable experiences. Those lessons would later shape his approach to marketing, fundraising and business development. 

“I’ve always loved bringing people together,” he says, a passion that continues to define his work. 

For Barr, the path to entrepreneurship began at home. Growing up, he watched his father run a small business. While his friends’ parents sometimes missed school programs or sporting events because of work, his father rarely did. 

That example taught Barr that owning a business was not simply about financial success. It could also provide the freedom to be present for the moments that mattered most. Years later, that lesson inspired him to pursue entrepreneurship for reasons that had everything to do with family. 

Bloechinger’s inspiration reached back another generation. His father came to the United States from Germany after World War II and built a successful company from the ground up. His example shaped Bloechinger’s understanding of risk, resilience and the value of building something lasting. 

Ahrens brought a different strength to the partnership. A Sigma Phi Epsilon member at UCF and now Coastal’s chief operating officer,he helped turn the group’s vision into day-to-day operations. His steady leadership and organizational discipline helped create the structure the company needed to grow. 

The UCF-alumni led team at Coastal Investment Company embodies the bold thinking behind Go For Launch, turning knowledge and experience into ideas that strengthen communities, advance industries and improve lives.

Join UCF’s next mission and help build a future the world has only begun to imagine at advance.ucf.edu/go-for-launch. 

Although their careers took different directions after graduation, the friendships they formed at UCF endured. Years later, those relationships became the foundation for Coastal Investment Company. 

Each partner brought something distinct to the venture: Sobel’s ability to connect with people, Barr’s entrepreneurial drive, Bloechinger’s long-term perspective and Ahrens’ operational leadership. Together, they created a company shaped not by one personality but by the combined strengths of all four. 

“I planted myself with the right friends,” Bloechinger says. “Your mom tells you when you’re growing up, ‘Pick the right friends.’ It’s very important to pick the right friends, and we got lucky. We’ve really developed some pretty great relationships here at UCF.” The partners say that chemistry is no accident. 

“Who you surround yourself with and who you work with is one of the most critical decisions you’ll make,” Barr says. 

That philosophy extends beyond the office. The partners remain active supporters of UCF and believe some of the university’s most valuable lessons happened outside the classroom. The friendships they formed as students, they say, proved as important as the business principles they learned in lectures. 

Looking back, they see Coastal not simply as the culmination of four successful careers but as the continuation of relationships that began decades earlier. 

Their advice to current students reflects that perspective: Work hard, take risks and invest in meaningful relationships. The classmate, teammate, fraternity brother or friend beside you today may one day become the person who helps you build something greater than either of you imagined. 

The four arrived at UCF with different experiences, ambitions and ideas about the future. Together, they built something none of them could have accomplished alone. 

Because sometimes the greatest investment is not in a company. It is in the people you trust to build it with.