Founder Bios

Co-Founder & President Ren Moulton, answers the whys & hows of:

How I am qualified to create a money sharing & payment system that’s neither bank nor neobank/fintech but consumer tech/ecommerce and thus private and borderless? What and how I know about working class communities and their potential economic power. Why I believe Mexican and Canadian people are great Americans. Why start by focusing on Mexican-born U.S. workers & their working-class families & communities in Mexico?


My “Pan-America” view partly comes from growing up between two different non-anglo American immigrant families, an Irish Catholic working-class family, a French military family starting with a revolutionary war general who came to America through Canada and the U.S., respectively. While I didn’t know my great grandmother “Joan” Moulton was born “Juana Ramirez”1, until recently, I did grow up in a Mexamerican community, have traveled to and periodically lived in Mexico since I was 15, studied Mexican history in college, and I know from firsthand experience that real Mexicans are both great people and great Americans; many Original Americans. While I am understanding the growing pains and problems of America, I’ve still seen it as one people separated by two borders created by old political/government power-land grabs and conflicts, and not by the general will of its People.

While I talk about family background, I don’t believe in “race”. I do believe in the power of Culture and in one united American people.

I don’t believe in “race”, either scientifically2 or socially, I do believe in the importance and power of Culture as a primary environmental factor in an individual’s development– beliefs, ways, values, behaviors, even specialized knowledge and that Mexican culture is a rich source and core part of American culture. Individual families and communities can also have their own rich sub-Cultures.

My Family Backgrounds and Influence

The Traceys, Smiths, Rileys, Irish Working Class Catholics; local artisans, makers, farmers, and entrepreneurs. They came to America from Ireland through Canada to escape British serfdom, patriotic in being free to develop their own local community prosperity from their own labors without the fear of it being taken from them from a foreign government.

My grandfather Basil had a “seafood distribution company” (1 truck, him & vendors) for most of his life, until he, along with the same cousins that helped build each other’s houses, built and sold the town’s first hotel, the Margaretta Inn. Proceeds from that allowed him to “retire” as a church deacon and to pay for my mom’s college/graduate school tuitions. Laborious work from his hands provided her with social mobility, since she went from designer to art director to agency founder. My grandfather was my other “Dad”. He taught me how to hunt and fish, carpentry and mechanics…He was also a tinkerer and spent any spare time in his workshop fixing (for friends) and building devices; I spent much of our time together trying to learn to do the same.

My grandparents were simply fully Good people. Grandmother Francis (Tracey/Riley) was a professional baker and a bit of a “Bible lady”, cooking pies and attending church daily. Grandpa was a storyteller and fun guy but not irreligious, working as a church deacon and sheriff protecting the community.

From this family, I gained the values of taking care of and making for one’s family & community.

The Moultons & Timberlakes were originally freedom fighters in the revolutionary war (e.g. General J. Moulton), pioneers (Elijah Moulton, Moulton, TX & Los Angeles), and eventually banking and financial services business owners. They came to America (U.S.) from France.

Leonard Timberlake, Founder & President of Casco Northern Bank set the family ideal, known as “the People’s Banker”, he focused on helping local families & small businesses first, but a humble man, he saw himself as a “regular guy who just worked harder” and an outdoorsman with a lust for fun. My dad, Rey, a financial services founder/CEO, taught me about business management (as a jock, naturally based on team sports) & the basics of finance, e.g. how to read a balance sheet and budget. But also, baseball, soccer and cards. As I got more into building things as a teen and vocally less in working for him & taking over his company one day, we were often combative. But in my 20’s as he saw me progress on my own path, we had a lot of fun, even when he was Chairman of my first company. I miss him. From this family, I gained the values of discipline, honor, and hard work (then hard play).

Being raised by these two different types of families has given me a broad but balanced view, while forcing me to define myself as an individual. I knew by high school, while I loved sports I was really more of a Geek (mathlete/biosciences) and a Freak (artist into designer and maker), that loved people. I identified and hung out with a range of groups. But having both design and engineering perspectives, a “stereoscopic view” has helped me in both creating products and running businesses and making alliances, but I knew from a young age I wanted to make things to help other people, not be a banker or corporate stuffed shirt. Basil and my Mom, Bessie, a commercial artist inspired me to be a lifelong entrepreneurial Maker. I believe making products to help others is the most virtuous form of “business”.

But I knew from a young age I wanted to make things to help other people, not be a banker or corporate stuffed shirt. Basil and my Mom, Bessie, a commercial artist inspired me to be a lifelong entrepreneurial Maker. My Dad in organizing great teams to take products mainstream. I believe making products to help others is the most virtuous form of “business”.

My Intro to Mexamerican and Mexican Families and Culture & Love of real Mexicans and their Mexico

When my parents split up, my mom and I moved into a 2-apartment house in Arlington, Boston’s “Hispanic” neighborhood. My best friend, Manny lived in the other apartment, where I’d hang out after school and often spend dinners with his family since my mom was starting a career from scratch, worked 2 jobs, commuted 4 hours & sometimes got home late. As (Mexamerican) Catholics, I felt at home with the Floreses the same way I did with my grandparents: a safe, warm, fun & loving place. Manny’s family became my family and sparked a lifelong passion for Mexican culture.

At 15, I flew to Mexico with a friend to visit family in Merida for 3 weeks, but never made it out of Cancun after (we) spent my savings in the first 3 days. Luckily, we’d befriended two older teen brothers and their family took us in and kept us fed and bedded for the next 2 weeks until we could return home. I never forgot that generosity, kindness, and warmth; it solidified how I viewed and view real Mexicans.

I went back to live in Mexico few more times in my teens, with a farming family in Oaxaca, a worker family in Chihuahua city and then with San Diego-born Doctor Gonzales who moved his family to Juarez to open a free clinic. Dr. G made a huge impact on me, when discussing coming back his challenge to me: “…if you care about Mexico, we don’t need more U.S. social workers, we need opportunities for our communities to become economically independent, think about that”. At 18, I couldn’t fathom how I could do that, but in college majored in international studies, formally studying Mexican and Aztec and other foundational cultures (Greek, Celtic, Japanese).

After college, I worked for large tech brands in San Francisco, but it was the time of “Web” and not hardware which felt slight as far as solving real human problems, so I went back to graduate school for an MBA and Masters in Product Design & Engineering. For the 20 years since, I’ve designed & developed consumer tech products for my own and other companies. As CEO (Frolick, Omnia) for other companies from Hasbro to McKesson, from prosumer medical devices to interreactive & educational etoys (hardware) to SaaS platforms.

Hopefully this explains both my background and experience, the “how”, and my values and motivations behind Familismo, Inc., the “why”. In the long term, Familismo, Inc. is about building real wealth through worker communities across America. Having family whose patriotism came from simply being free to create a prosperous, productive and peaceful community, without government interference (or help), I’ve seen community-based organization for economic growth up close; I know how it works. I’ve also read all the books by consultants who’ve guided the most successful community wealth building programs in the world. But consultants with backgrounds in political science not economics or business (part of my background) claim the process is unique to each community. Not true. I’ve isolated the 8 practices in the proper sequence that can be used by any community to build wealth, regardless of how much outside funds they have or haven’t access to. Fondosis (esp. in Mexico) serves a community “self-funding” role e.g., a neighborhood with 2,000 working families using Fondosis, retaining an additional $2K in the process equals $4 million more to be spent every year in their local community. While I’ve no desired to follow in the Moulton way of banking/finserve as a vocation, my understanding of it combined with a technical background has helped me quickly understand DeFi and Fintech, neobanking, crypto and the blockchain worlds. Studying both Mexican and U.S. fintech laws and banking/AML regs and their differences, I understood the need and how to design a “3rd way” that was neither bank nor fintech, still within legal guidelines, but outside regulatory “oversight” that would limit privacy for our customers.

As it is, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada trade $1.78 trillion amongst our people- food, clothing, machines, everything- we are already economically interdependent. As a collective place of all the worlds cultures, as one people, we need to evolve spiritually together and know that our common enemy is the ignorant, the racist, the overly greedy. Because we need social interdependence without borders to make -let alone maintain- a prosperous and peaceful America for all American families, not just the few.