Still learning. Still building. Still can’t sit still.
I’ve sold two businesses, scaled university programs by 75%, and now lead a multi-service operation with hundreds of moving parts. I’ve also hired the wrong people, launched ideas that flopped, and learned that chaos isn’t the enemy — it’s the curriculum. Here’s what I kept.
I grew up on a beef cattle farm in the Appalachian hills of West Virginia — the kind of place where things break constantly and you fix them yourself because the nearest repair shop is an hour away and probably closed anyway.
Mud. Sweat. Stubbornness. And enough dark humor to survive it all.
That mix became my operating system.
After graduating from Purdue’s veterinary school in 2001, I took a job as an associate veterinarian at a small animal clinic in Huntington, West Virginia. Good gig. Steady paycheck. But I couldn’t help myself — I wanted to build something of my own. So I started Veterinary Livestock Services, a mobile large animal practice, working evenings and weekends. It was scrappy, unpolished, and exhausting. It also taught me more about cash flow, time management, and working under pressure than any MBA ever could.
Turns out, the farm kid was terrible at staying in one lane.
In 2007, I left the associate position and opened Brown Veterinary Services — a full-service mixed-animal practice in Wayne, West Virginia. We grew it to a seven-figure operation with a team of 16, including three veterinarians. Then I sold it in 2015 to two ambitious veterinary technicians who I knew would keep building what we’d started.
The sale felt like handing off something I’d poured everything into — and watching it continue to thrive in capable hands. But it also taught me something uncomfortable: building something successful isn’t the same as building something meaningful. I needed to figure out what came next.
So I kept building.
Around the same time, I’d already launched MT Global Ecommerce — selling clothing, shoes, and collectibles on Amazon, eBay, and Poshmark. It had nothing to do with veterinary medicine, and that was exactly the point. I wanted to prove I could build something from scratch in a completely different arena. Turns out, marketing, logistics, and customer service work the same everywhere. By the time I closed it in 2022, I’d learned more about systems, scalability, and staying sane under pressure than I ever expected.
Not every idea worked. But each one left me better at making decisions, taking calculated risks, and keeping momentum when things got messy.
Which, spoiler alert: they always do.
After selling my practice, I shifted into education — first at Mountwest Community & Technical College in West Virginia (2015-2020), then at Purdue University (2020-2024).
At Mountwest, I helped build an AVMA-accredited veterinary technology program from the ground up, serving as Associate Professor and Medical Director. At Purdue, I directed both the on-campus Veterinary Nursing Residential program and the Distance Learning program — two distinct programs with a combined enrollment that grew 75% under my leadership to 941 students.
Teaching forced me to translate everything I’d learned in the trenches into frameworks other people could actually use. That’s when I realized: the messy, nonlinear path I’d taken wasn’t a weakness — it was my edge. I could teach students how to think like operators, not just technicians.
I built curricula. Grew enrollment. Secured over $155,000 in instructional grants. Mentored students who were just as ambitious — and just as unsure — as I’d once been. But more than anything, I learned this: the best lessons don’t come from the textbook. They come from the stumbles, pivots, and late-night moments when you figure out what actually works.
In November 2024, I moved to Iowa State University as Executive Director of Hospital Operations and Clinical Associate Professor at the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center.
I oversee clinical operations across a multi-specialty academic teaching hospital serving companion, equine, and production animals. It’s a complex operation with 25+ clinical service lines, hundreds of staff and students, and constant chaos.
On any given day, I’m managing budgets, egos, emergencies, and expectations. I’ve launched the hospital’s first Advisory Board, led biosecurity modernization efforts, redesigned financial policies, and institutionalized service-level leadership accountability across the organization.
In other words: it’s the perfect laboratory for testing everything I write about.
Leadership without authority. Decision-making with incomplete information. Keeping teams aligned when the default setting is disorder. Building systems that scale. Managing money in ways that create freedom, not just income.
This role is equal parts strategy and firefighting — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Here’s the truth: nothing in my career has been linear.
Farm kid → vet school → associate veterinarian → mobile practice owner → clinic owner → e-commerce entrepreneur → educator → executive. Add in three states, multiple pivots, and more mistakes than I’d care to count.
Every zig-zag left me with lessons worth sharing — about managing money wisely, staying productive under pressure, growing into roles you’re not “ready” for, leading teams through complexity, and building things on the side when the day job isn’t enough.
This site is where I share those lessons. Not because I have it all figured out (I don’t), but because I’ve done the work. I’ve been the practitioner, the owner, the teacher, the executive. I’ve built from scratch, sold what I built, and started over. I’ve led small teams and large ones. I’ve managed tight budgets and grown programs by millions.
And I’ve learned this: the scenic route isn’t a detour. It’s the road that teaches you how to think.
If you’re chasing financial freedom, trying to lead better, navigating a career pivot, or building something on the side — I want to give you tools that actually work. And maybe a laugh or two along the way.
Because if we can’t find the humor in the mess, what’s the point?
Five things every Sunday, straight to subscribers: a leadership move that landed, a money principle that matters, a career angle worth stealing, a read that delivers, and one idea for Monday morning. Not on the blog. Not for everyone. Maybe for you.
A free, subscribers-only newsletter on leadership, money, and building a career that fits your life.
A free, subscribers-only newsletter on leadership, money, and building a career that fits your life.