Visual Eyes - The Community & Collaboration Podcast

S2 Ep 24 - Peter Leighton on Altruism, Mental Health, and Building a Legacy of Service

• Visuals by Momo • Season 2 • Episode 24

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What happens when a seasoned business development strategist blends corporate expertise with an unwavering passion for community service? You get Peter Leighton—a visionary professional who has spent over two decades turning altruism into action, and business into a vehicle for deep social impact.

In this episode of the Visual Eyes Podcast, host Chris Baker welcomes Peter Leighton, Client Relationships Specialist at Palermo, Landsman & Ross (PLR), for a truly transformative conversation. Peter's path has taken him from the halls of higher education and senior care centers to nonprofit boards and strategic CPA leadership. But behind his professional titles lies a deeply personal story of resilience, gratitude, and service.

Listeners will hear how Peter:

  • Mobilized thousands of college students to engage in hands-on service across the country.
  • Built a multi-generational knitting project to provide comfort to hospitalized children.
  • Differentiates between philanthropy and altruism—and why the latter is the future of community engagement.
  • Turned personal adversity and mental health challenges into fuel for transformation and deeper leadership.
  • Is helping PLR integrate service into its brand DNA, driving real change across South Florida’s nonprofit ecosystem.

This episode is a must-listen for nonprofit leaders, community advocates, business owners, and anyone who believes in leading with empathy and leaving a legacy that goes beyond metrics.

🔊 Whether you’re leading an organization or seeking inspiration to give back in your own way, Peter’s story is a powerful reminder that showing up—with heart and intention—matters more than ever.

Guest Bio:
Peter C. Leighton is the Client Relationships Specialist at Palermo, Landsman & Ross and a 26-year veteran in the fields of business development, adult education, nonprofit leadership, and client advocacy. He has served on boards for Alzheimer’s Association, Impact Broward, and the Broward County Guardianship Association. He is also a mental health advocate and public speaker.

📌 Learn more about PLR: www.plrcpas.com
📞 Contact Peter: (954) 290-3488
🔗 Connect with him on LinkedIn: Peter C. Leighton


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Special Thanks to Stacy Daugherty for the beautiful wall artwork in the background. Socials: @artographybystacy

Chris Baker:

Chris Baker, and each week we'll explore incredible connections between nonprofits, businesses and the community. This is a space where we highlight inspiring partnerships, uncover strategies for creating meaningful impact and share stories that show how working together can make all the difference. Whether you're a nonprofit leader, a business owner or someone just passionate about building connections, this podcast is for you. Welcome back to Visual Eyes. Today. I have Peter Leighton. Hi there, Chris, welcome. Welcome to the show, so Very excited to be here. He is from Palermo, Landsman and Ross. Did I get that right?

Peter Leighton:

Yes, a CPA firm full service. Corporate tax, individual tax.

Chris Baker:

Absolutely yeah. One of the things that I've noticed right off the bat is what you guys have done for the nonprofits, specifically Children's Harbor. It's part of our values as a firm Big one, yes, so part of this podcast is really to talk about that.

Peter Leighton:

I would love to hear your specific journey in helping non-profits, either through this or this business or through other ones in the past, even like what brought you to love yeah, you know, obviously part of my dna, if you will, over my last 55 years has been the ability to give and the ability to share and the ability to have optimism every day that I can make a difference. You know, some people go back to what's called like the starfish story, of making a difference for one person or one individual, and so I've always looked at it as altruism. I think there's two things that you can have aspect on. There's philanthropy, where you know you kind of go, you show up, you strike a check and that's okay. But then there's altruism which is really true community service, where we get in there and we work with people who maybe are a little less fortunate than us or have some challenges in life.

Peter Leighton:

Some of the areas that I've worked with over my career, having started my career in higher education, administration and faculty work was working with fraternities and sororities and clubs, on institutions, both public and private, on the idea of encouraging those young people to do altruism. So I remember one example when I was at Arizona State, which was the beginning of my career, we used to do what was called Christmas in April, where we partnered up with Home Depot and Lowe's and we brought all of the fraternity and sorority members about 3,000 of them on a random weekend in April and we went in with Habitat for Humanity and we built homes. How many? 3,000? Fraternity weekend in April and we went in with Habitat for Humanity and we built homes. How many 3,000 fraternity sorority members? Wow, yeah, it was incredible. And they're a big campus I mean they're almost doing 80,000 people at their campus.

Peter Leighton:

So I had the opportunity to role model that from a very young age. I was only 23 years old when I got my first job with my master's degree and so that floored me forward, pushed me forward, if you will inspired me to always look at Chris opportunities to provide altruism wherever I worked. Now am I a business owner? No, it's just not in my DNA, but I'm a builder. I'm a compound builder, I like to build things right. So what happened was is no matter where I worked, I looked towards finding what we could do to give back. So when I went to Rochester Institute of Technology, part of my job was working with 3,000 deaf students. Okay, had to learn sign language very quickly, had to understand deaf culture, which is a fascinating culture, but it's very different than the majority of us in the hearing world.

Chris Baker:

Yeah, I know it is.

Peter Leighton:

So some of my opportunities there were very different and very humbling. When I would go out with my deaf clubs and organizations or my leadership teams from the residence halls and we would do things like highway cleanups. Okay, now you can communicate when you're verbally doing that, but you're doing it through sign language. You have to look out for safety, you have to make sure the teams are doing things right. So it was a very humbling experience that led me on to FIU where I finished up my higher ed career and then went into private practice with assisted living and our seniors. So what we used to do, there was a program called the knitwits and I used to have about 16 or 17 of my 70 to 90 year olds and we would bring them in and we would do knitting three days a week and I would kind of you know, coordinate it, provide the and I would kind of you know, coordinate it, provide the yarn and we would create small warm blankets, small warm handy warmers and small warm knitted hats, and every quarter we would then take our production over to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital on the peds very serious, you know, icu, those types of situations and scenarios for them and the families and we would donate those and that was some really cool stuff, right, because it wasn't striking a check, it was really giving a humanistic touch to those children.

Peter Leighton:

Since then I've worked with all the Alzheimer's Association of both Dade and Broward. I served on their boards early on and now I have a tradition, my wife and I we go to their walk, the memory walk, every year, and whether I'm doing it by myself, out of the goodness of my heart and giving back, or I'm going on behalf of my company, that's been very important. Currently at Palermo, lansman and Ross, we really do a lot with Children's Harbor, which is an excellent local Broward County, you know organization, nonprofit, and I myself, for the last seven years, I sit proudly and serve on the board of the Broward County Guardianship Association, which is a nonprofit. So that's pretty much. Yeah, you know, I mean I think it's always been critically important. Every now and then my wife and I still go over to Feeding America in Hallandale, near our home, and we will do a day over there with usually about 100 people of you know packing up the food packages that are so needed in our community.

Chris Baker:

Let's talk a little bit more about current collaborations, specifically maybe with Children's Harbor, with Landsman and Ross Right, and how is that collaboration set up? How do you guys make it unique or different so that other people can kind of like see it and understand it to the point where they maybe can go and find some of those types of options, you know.

Peter Leighton:

Look, when I came on board with PLRCPAs two years ago, I had known Mr Palermo for 22 years, so I already knew his reach. I knew Karen Ross's reach, I knew Brett Lansman's reach and, of course, dean Palermo, artie's brother, who's also a partner, and I knew that they always were engaged in these. So it was going to be a natural fit for me to come on board with the team and then bring my organizations to the approach. So we have a process going on as we speak where we've renewed our website. We've renewed what is called the community development section on the website. We're going to evolve that. What's exciting to me is I had worked on a similar project of that at my former law firm, chep Nutrition in North Miami, where we worked on a media section, we worked on professional presentation section, we worked on a community service section. So I was really in the flow there of being able to actualize what we were doing. And that's the key thing. Right, you strike a check, it's okay, your name gets up on the board, but when you show the community, the local community, that you are engaging it and that you are doing things in the heart and the core of Broward County to better Broward County, where a majority of our clients lie. You become much more represented, much more visible, credible. Credible is huge in that. So I came on board and obviously the Alzheimer's Association and the BCGA, the Broward County Guardians Association, were a given. And right away Mr Palermo said I will give you money towards BCGA, your time, your effort, your labor. And he said you know I will support you fully in the Alzheimer's Walk in Broward and I said thank you so much. As I've been there.

Peter Leighton:

Ms Ross is the chair of the board of Children's Harbor and I've been more engaged with them on the backside, which has been a lot of fun and a lot of motivation, taking care of children and mothers who have gone through some horrific adult scenarios and are getting the shelter and the kids are getting the you know, collaborations and the teachings. So that has been a lot of fun, but it's also been a lot of, I think, a little more serious in the, in the altruistic loin, if you will. You know I also have learned more about Brett Lansman. Right, brett Lansman and I go back about 18 years. What I didn't realize is he was so engaged with the Crockett Foundation and so he is involved with Henry Crockett. Henry Crockett and his brother, who played in the NFL, played at Florida State go Noles because I'm an alum myself with my master's very proud. But the Crockett Foundation is in Pompano and the Crockett Foundation is getting larger and what they're doing now, chris, is that they are going into the communities of Pompano in some of the tougher areas and helping kids with after-school programs, helping kids to stay away from the streets. They're helping kids get extra learning in math and science. They've even started a new collaboration in the area of robotics. They're doing some really cool stuff in that STEM arena science, technology, those types of things.

Peter Leighton:

And then the other thing that recently we've learned more about is called Ideal, and that is another nonprofit that Mr Palermo just decided to join the board.

Peter Leighton:

I don't know where the man finds the time sometimes, but he gives back a lot. But that is an organization helping cognitively and or mentally challenged human beings, a lot of children. So that's kind of hit home for me too, because I had a cousin, krista, who also had some of those challenges and watching that growing up as a child and as a teen, and so it's really cool to see us giving back in that space as well, and then finally, I'll bring up that. You know I'm part of my job. It's very important. It's related to all this is that I am now seeking to meet the board members of all of those organizations because of awareness building, credibility building for the PLR brand right. So part of my goals this year, literally as a business developer, is to get in front of more of those board members and make business relationships form so that we may or may not pick up new clients, but we know strategically we're in the right place.

Chris Baker:

Okay, yep, so do you have any collaboration stories that you can kind of like anything that you've worked on recently that really made a huge impact?

Peter Leighton:

Yeah, you know, I think one of the things about me, chris, is that my entire career for whatever reason, how it panned out has been about adult development. Okay, so you know, I started out with a dream of being a dean of students on a college campus. I made it all the way up to associate dean at FIU for a couple of years and then I went into the private sector. But my whole ability as a professional and a leader and a community give back leader has been working with adults. You know, let's talk about it I had the 17 or 18 year olds up to 22, college age, traditional, helping them to kind of get ready for life, if you will. You know what we used to call the learning out of the classroom. You know I then went into senior care, on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I was working with anywhere from 65 year olds who had some kind of challenges that needed to be in assisted living or in skilled living. Skilled care living All the way up to my oldest was 109.

Peter Leighton:

And now at Palermo, lansman and Ross, I'm on the accounting side, the corporate side, which is something that was a learning curve for me, but now I've grasped it and now, what I'm doing is helping business owners to understand. You got to have business corporate documents to keep your business straight. You got to know what your CPA is doing for you or not doing for you. You need to understand financial planning, financial advising, and you also need to have estate planning done, because what happens in that collaboration effort is they're building all this wealth. They're amazing at what they do. I love meeting these business owners. It's fascinating to me how people make money in this country, but at the same note, chris, in that collaborative effort, we're guiding them and saying you got to protect what you're earning oh, yeah, right absolutely yeah and I mean even on the non side.

Chris Baker:

Sure, same thing Nonprofits are a business, absolutely, and if they don't have the documents in place, there's going to be hiccups. Sure, there's going to be challenges, right? So that actually brings us up to our next topic. A little bit about challenges. What are some of the challenges that you've noticed of through working with and helping nonprofits that you had to overcome? What those, some of those lessons?

Peter Leighton:

well, I go back to an interesting, an interesting experience when I was working in law and I served on a board that was called impact broward. Okay, okay, and a gentleman by the name of mike wild, who's an attorney at Kelly Cronenberg and is very well known in the Broward County community service space, does a lot with 211, does a lot with United Way Broward, etc. He brought me on to the board of Impact Broward and what Impact Broward did was we were out there working with seniors who couldn't have transportation to the doctor. We were working with veterans who probably just needed a little bit of help and guidance in their life. We were working with what was called Veterans Court, which was part of the Broward County Court System, where if a veteran got in trouble, we would then assign a trained veteran from our organization as part of their rehab, as part of their probate except probation would be Now one of the challenges we hit on.

Peter Leighton:

That was we had an eight-year run on that board and we watched the organization unfortunately dwindle down to having to close. Okay, oh wow. Dwindled down to having to close, oh, wow. And I will tell you that it was extremely challenging and frustrating as a board member going out and doing things like golf tournaments, fundraisers and I was one of the major fundraisers and ultimately watching some of the issues on the backside that we administratively really couldn't fix right. That had to come from the CEO, the COO. You know that was their role, that was their job, and so it was very challenging as we watched it dwindle down over time.

Peter Leighton:

And yet we were still putting efforts in to do the right thing because we knew we were taking care of seniors and we were taking care of people who had just made a mistake and they were trying to get back into the community.

Peter Leighton:

And we knew we were taking care of seniors and we were taking care of people who had just made a mistake and they were trying to get back into the community.

Peter Leighton:

And we knew we were taking care of people for the idea, chris, of helping someone who needed a little extra, you know, in life, and that was very challenging to watch. And then the other thing that I'll share is that some know that at the end of 2022, I myself found myself in a very tough mental health challenge and you know, I found myself watching everything I had built, everything that I was trying to go into the future in my fifties, had just lost my job at no fault of mine. And you know I am watching my own self, my mind, my body, physically dominated by anxiety and fear, and that really changed me from the standpoint of thank god to my counselors, thank god to my wife, my mom, my friends, that in an eighth month period I battled through it. And I share that because I think what, what my perspective is now going through that and kind of turning the leaf to a higher power, whatever it may be is, I say, especially the men, get help.

Chris Baker:

Oh, one every time.

Peter Leighton:

Get help. And so that came later in my life. And if I would have looked at this from an outside in through a glass and said, peter C Layton, I'll have this happen to him in his 50s, I would have laughed at you. I would have laughed at you. Okay, and then what has come out of that? Well, you and I are involved in a business network and just recently I got a 20-year award for a Lifetime Achievement Award to South Florida both Dade and Broward for my production and my giving. That was a proud moment.

Peter Leighton:

Now I look back on what happened to me and I'm still learning about me and I'm still learning about my wife and our relationship and about my business presence. So I think that these are some things that when you talk about challenges, you can have them yes, as I described with Impact Broward. But you talk about challenges, you can have them yes, as I described it in Pac Broward. But you got to keep an eye on yourself and you got to know when things are telling you you need to get help and don't be afraid to ask for help.

Chris Baker:

I was not expecting it to go that route, but you're completely right. Mental health is so important and it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. Right, get the help that you need. Right, because you cannot take care of anyone else. Right, until you take care of yourself first. Right, and it's the statement that I always recommend. It's like you fill your cup first and you put your cup on top of other cups and then whatever spills over can go to other people.

Peter Leighton:

And Chris, I'll make another point. What I learned from my counselors is I was an expert at masking. I was an expert, oh yeah, and I was really good at it and I wasn't picking up on things like that. My wife, my mom, my dad, when he was still alive, would say to me I wasn't picking up on things like that. My wife, my mom, my dad, when he was still alive, would say to me I wasn't picking up on him because everything else around me was just close to perfect. I mean, I had good jobs. Thank god, I got paid well, thank god, you know, um, and I was living a great life.

Peter Leighton:

All my friends music is a big thing in my life and all my music family. You know, we were just on jam cruise last week which, yes, I highly promote if you like live music. It was epic. But you know, coming back around to the series as part of it, you're absolutely correct, chris, in that you've got to seek help and find it. The one thing that for men, I'll say this it's embarrassing and it's hard on your psyche. So get out there and get the help you need.

Chris Baker:

Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's very, it's very important. Um, what is the future involvement? I mean you did say, uh, Palermo was actually joining a board, a new board and a new board. So I mean, new boards are a whole nother level because you know you're starting from scratch, right, especially if the organization is brand new, right? So talk about that and a little bit more about where pler malanthan ross is going to help yeah, I mean, look, you know, we're very proud of what we've done.

Peter Leighton:

We're very proud of what we've done, we're very proud of where we're going. I think what is exciting with the involvement of the website it's kind of sparked Ms Ross and Mr Palermo and myself having being in the front, business development, wise, out in the community and whatnot, to really take a look at brand awareness and to take a look at mission vision, to look at values.

Chris Baker:

So important.

Peter Leighton:

Yeah, and you know I've learned along my journey as a non-business owner to observe some firms and organizational cultures that I think both workplace culture wise they're absolutely living it right. So I look at law firms like Bast Amron down in Miami, very much aligned to their values and how they do it, and I think what's happening at Palermo, Lanesville and Ross is the actualization of serving right. So we're trying to look at how do we set expectations from day one when we onboard a new bookkeeper, we onboard a new tax preparer, a new CPA, to saying, you know, we're not forcing anybody to do something they're uncomfortable with. But what we're saying is there's a high expectation here. That part of this experience, this job, this workplace culture, is for you to tell us what you're supporting and that might be a great endeavor. We will help you to support that. Or tell us what you'd like to engage. Okay, Right, you'd like to engage, Okay.

Peter Leighton:

So recently I've been doing some mini interior, I guess, beta gathering on our teams and you know what is important to them for giving back, what is important to them for social media, what is important to them of who they're following. You know we may find out that somebody has a passion for something related to the Jewish faith. We may find out that someone has a passion for an organization that is providing assistance to seniors. I mean, the idea, being here, Chris, is that how do we actualize it in our community? And we are steadfast on the credibility of our foundation, of what we say we are and who we are and how we live it, and so that's been a lot of fun in the last couple of months working on that, which is kind of an inside thing versus the fact that I'm outside.

Chris Baker:

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Leighton:

And I think the reason again that I can help with it is because of all my experiences in the nonprofit circles and the giving and the sharing and the community service projects and altruism that I outlined earlier in the interview. And now what I'm able to do is put together even another level of packaging, if you will, for the firm's brand.

Chris Baker:

That's amazing.

Peter Leighton:

Yeah. And it's been fun it's been fun.

Chris Baker:

No, that's going to be very valuable for a lot of people. So I think this is great yeah, this is great, all right. So how do people that are interested in CPA work? How do they contact Palermo, lanzer and Ross?

Peter Leighton:

Yeah, the first thing I'd say about contacting Palermo, lanzar and Ross is to go and check out our website. We went into modernization. I'll just say that, exciting though. Go to wwwplrcpascom One word it's fun, it's frolic-y, it's educational. All the profiles of the core team members are up there. You can learn more about me, which is fun and cool. And then the other thing is that clearly we are accessible to our clients and accessible to folks who want to learn more, who want to get an assessment done of their current financials and taxes, and we know this. Our goal is not numbers. Believe that or not. We're very sophisticated at what we do and we have the experience and season to say that. But what we're in is what we're doing. Is the people, business right? We want business owners to come into us, engage us and and on the backside, the result is helping them to be a better business owner.

Chris Baker:

Right, yeah, awesome. So my final question Sure, to kind of like wrap this up.

Peter Leighton:

Well, I could go all day with you, chris.

Chris Baker:

You probably could. We could definitely so what is the legacy you personally hope to leave for future generations?

Peter Leighton:

Okay, that's a funny question because I just had our estate plan reviewed. Okay, and that's a tough one. Sometimes it's a tough one. This is the second round. We've had it reviewed.

Peter Leighton:

Martha and I don't have any kids, but we have an estate plan and we're proud of that, hence having come from a firm that did a lot of that work in law.

Peter Leighton:

But I teased during it and I said, martha, to my beautiful wife, my rock, I said, when I go, the gravestone is simply going to say he helped a lot of people, he helped a lot of people. So you know, my ideal now is I'm out there, I want to help the business owners to get their stuff right. It may not be PLR they end up going with, but I can tell you this they're going to get opportunities for strategic introductions to grow their business. They're going to get opportunities to learn more from our business advisory. And for me, it's the ideal that I just feel great in life, that it feels great to give, and so that's where my world is, and so that's where my world is. I think turning the leaf after my challenges in 22 have been a great eye opener for me and I'm going to continue to utilize my affirmations every day that I get up and every night that I go to bed, so that the next day is full of optimism.

Chris Baker:

I'm grateful that I get to breathe. That's it Grateful that I have a roof over my head. That's it.

Peter Leighton:

Yeah, it's very important and so, yeah, it's all about giving back one way or another. I'm blessed, we're blessed, yeah, and we are very blessed. Martha and I talk about that a lot as my bestie and you know we want to be able to get out there and make a difference for our community and help other people that's fantastic.

Chris Baker:

Thank you, that's absolutely fantastic thank you, peter. Thank you so much today for being on the show, and this is a wealth of knowledge, so very appreciative and I enjoyed every second of it thank you for joining me on this episode of Visual Eyes.

Chris Baker:

We hope that the inspiration and practical insights can help you foster stronger connections and meaningful change. Don't forget to subscribe, share the episode and leave us a review. To learn more about Visuals by Momo and how we support collaboration and storytelling, visit visualsbymomo. com. A huge thank you to everyone out there listening. Until next time, remember, collaboration fuels change and your connections can inspire the world.