On July 23, 1963, Mike Torres’s parents escaped Cuba on a 20-foot boat in the middle of the night. They had tried twice before. Both times, military police or informants had stopped them. This time, word had gotten out about the boat and 20 strangers showed up on the beach. They all got on.

They took a taxi toward the departure point. At the last moment, the driver saw military vehicles and couldn’t stop. He slowed down. Mike’s parents jumped out of a moving car and scrambled through thorny brush to reach the water. His mother, Margarita, got cut up. They made it to the boat. Someone kicked over the fresh water supply. The engine died. They drifted at sea, watching Soviet tankers pass, terrified the ships would radio the Cuban government. A passing boat saw them, threw down oranges, and called the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard brought them to the Florida Keys, then to the Freedom Tower.

At the Freedom Tower, they were processed and given a blanket. They had one nickel between them. His mother wanted a Coca-Cola. His father, Rolando, came back with a root beer. She took one sip and said: “Rolando, esto sabe a Castro.” A stranger nearby heard her, laughed, and handed her a real Coke. Just like that.

From the Freedom Tower, they went to Chicago, where his father cleaned floors at O’Hare Airport. His mother later worked in accounting at Standard Oil. Eventually the family moved to Miami — a Caribbean couple done with the cold — and Mike was born. At 15 he got his first job bagging groceries at Publix for $3.65 an hour. At one point in high school he held three jobs simultaneously to pay for his car and his graduation ring.

He earned both his Bachelor of Accounting and MBA from Florida International University. On the CPA examination, he placed number seven in the State of Georgia and in the Top 100 in the United States. From Arthur Andersen he moved to VP of Finance at Marex, a NASDAQ-listed company. He then was a founding partner of PAAST, a public accounting firm — where he has spent more than 25 years serving clients across financial services, real estate, sports and entertainment, healthcare, technology, and more. He is a past president of the Cuban American Certified Public Accountants Association and serves on the FIU Foundation Board, Coral Gables Community Foundation Board, and the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Advisory Board. He is married to Ana Torres and they have two children, Tomas and Paola, who are his pride and joy, and he has instilled in them the sacrifices their grandparents made.

He serves on the FACE Board of Directors as Chairman-Elect and Treasurer and describes his involvement as the least he can do. His parents were processed at the Freedom Tower. He calls it the Cuban Ellis Island. It is not history to him. It is a Tuesday in July 1963 — a nickel, a blanket, and a root beer mistaken for a Coke.