LAS VEGAS — With determination and a dream, Christopher Gardner went from homelessness to president/CEO of Gardner Rich & Co., a stock brokerage, but that was not his most important success.

Gardner told attendees of CUNA’s America’s Credit Union Conference & Expo today that his primary goal was to be able to say he was always there for his son after he had grown up without a father. When his wife left after he became unemployed and went to jail for $1,200 in unpaid parking tickets that he got because of his scientific sales job, she also took their son.

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