Story
I've lived in Iowa my entire life. Grew up in Des Moines, went to Hoover High School, stayed in town for Drake University, and I've been based here for every chapter of my career since. My parents, brother, sister, and four kids all still live in the state. The professional roots are here too — I ran a two-location franchise in Des Moines for eight years before moving into the agency and operator work.
People ask whether I'd relocate for the right opportunity. The honest answer is that Iowa isn't a limitation I'm working around — it's where I want to be. The work I do has been remote for fifteen years. The life I want requires being here. Those aren't in conflict.
In 2005, I bought a LearningRx franchise. Cognitive training for kids, two locations in Des Moines. I ran it for eight years — P&L, team, marketing, enrollment, operations from the ground up. That's where I learned what it actually feels like to own a business: the cash flow, the staffing, the customer experience, all of it. I sold it in 2013 and started Automate & Convert.
The agency years were a seven-year crash course in what makes founder-led businesses work. I built marketing and sales infrastructure for forty-plus founder-led businesses — end to end, from paid traffic to purchase. I got good at pattern recognition: where growth was actually stalling, where the system was the problem, and where the founder was the bottleneck. By the end of the agency phase I was less interested in building for clients from the outside and more interested in running things from the inside.
That shift happened at Self Publishing School in 2016. First inside-a-company executive role — a bridge from agency operator to full-time executive. Stepped in during a growth phase and took on product, operations, and customer support within ninety days. The agency ran concurrently. What I learned there confirmed I was moving in the right direction; the full commitment came with Perry Marshall.
In 2020, Perry Marshall, who had been referring clients to my agency for years, brought me in as President of his company. Two and a half years running operations and marketing through the post-COVID contraction in digital education. Team of six to seven, twelve to eighteen launches a year.
In 2022, I joined Quantum Human Design — a seven-figure online education and coaching company — as operations and marketing lead. Four years building the executive function for a seven-figure education business. That's also where the AI work got serious. The position was eliminated in May 2026.
The AI work grew out of the QHD engagement. I started experimenting with tools alongside the day-to-day operations work, and the serious building happened over the last year or so — developed inside a live business, not in a sandbox.
What I built had to work. A live team that had to use the tools, a founder whose voice had to be preserved, customers depending on the output. I built and handed off systems that still run without me: a corporate voice guide, individual voice-tuned assistants for each team member, a social media pipeline that turns a 30-minute weekly recording into a full week of published content, and direct API connections to payment processors, email, and analytics that surfaced reports the business had never been able to pull. I trained non-technical people to run all of it.
Most companies that haven't built a dedicated AI function yet face the same choice: off-the-shelf tools that don't quite fit, or waiting for someone to figure it out. I can see what the operation needs, build something that works for it, and hand it to a team with no technical background. That function usually doesn't exist yet — I'm the person who creates it.
I'm open to a senior operating role at a growth-stage or established company where the ops and marketing function needs someone to run it. COO, VP of Operations, President, or the functional equivalent. Company size matters less than whether the executive layer is genuinely open and the work is real.
Remote works well for me. Central Iowa companies where in-person makes sense are a natural fit. I'm not looking to relocate.
I'm actively looking. If the role is real and the fit sounds right, I'd like to talk.
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