The Early Years: Curiosity & Work Ethic

Born & raised in the Toledo, OH area, predominately in the east Toledo's neighboring suburb of Oregon, OH, the oldest of three. My parents & siblings still reside in the greater Toledo area. I loved puzzles, trivia, and the like growing up. My mother still talks about how I would take things apart and "fix them" as a child. I attended Clay Senior High School on the standard college-prep track, graduating in 1985. I was a husky and nerdy kid that got along with pretty much everyone.

At 14, I started my first job at Video Computer World, an Atari home computer store. I would help out a couple evenings a week and open on Saturdays. The owner tapped me to teach BASIC programming classes in the evening. A couple of summers later, we became seasonal campers at Yogi Bears Jellystone Park in Fremont, IN, where I would begin working the summer before my senior year and continue for two summers after.

The College Years - Aug 1985 to Dec 1988: Communication & Service

I entered Bowling Green State University as a Management Information Systems major. A lover of math and an early adopter of PCs, it seemed like the fit. First semester, I had the standard Speech 101 class. Even though I had plenty of public-facing jobs by this point, I was an overweight kid that still felt somewhat shy, introverted, and socially inept. I fell in love learning about communication and knew that's where my education had to be focused. I switched my major to Interpersonal & Public Communication and my minor to Industrial/Organizational Psychology.

To further break out of my shell, I joined the Spotlight Entertainment committee of the University Activity Organization, where I learned how to secure, plan, and support events featuring local musicians, as well as DJ and run a sound board. I would go on to become the Director of that committee and our representative to the Undergraduate Student Government.

To have beer money, I took a job in the dining halls. By sophomore year, I would become a student supervisor and scheduler. That summer, I managed a pop-up ice cream parlor for groups visiting campus. Junior year, I would become the 2nd in a pilot program to allow Student Managers to run the dining halls when FT manager gaps arose. My major required a specialization. Though drawn to PR and Marketing, my experiences at Jellystone & in the dining halls made Hospitality Management a more streamlined selection in line with my independent student status and need to get through school as quickly as possible.

1989 – 1992: From the dining halls to running a business

Capitalizing on my food & beverage experience, I spent about 6 months in Lexington, KY with O'Charley's. It wasn't the right fit, so I returned to Toledo and managed a bar in BG for about 6 months as a stop gap until I took a job at Tee Jaye's Country Place Restaurants. I trained with the founder's daughter (& current CEO) at the original location, staffed with a number of employees that had been there 20 years or more. A great gig. A great chain. Great management, people, food, and customers.

But I still had a passion & interest somewhere in marketing or PR. Through a friend of a friend of my mother, I found out Raceway Park in Toledo was looking for a concessions manager and an office intern to help with PR & marketing. I was hired and they liked my voice and that I had DJ experience, so they added "back-up" announcer training to the job description. But first, I'd have to help the TX staff get their track open. After two years with Tee Jaye's, I left for Toledo. So I thought.

No sooner did I get my feet in Toledo when I was sent to TX to help with the grand opening. With two weeks to go, we still had no equipment, menu, product, staff, the list goes on and on. My boss asked what I thought, I told him, the other guy quit, and I became the interim, then permanent, food & beverage manager. Instead of managing a restaurant, I was now managing an entire business with $3 million sales per year operating at a 45% net profit, a handful of supervisors a seasonal staff of 250 to accommodate a minimum of 10 food & bar locations on race days (5x/week), a jockey snack bar, a kitchen for the horsemen, and my own commissary. Add special events, catering, promos, etc. I was suddenly responsible not just for ordering, but menu planning, pricing & costing, food & alcohol vendor selection & relationship management, and equipment purchases. Add to that: P&L, accounting & reporting requirements (oversight by a controller), and all the other things that go into being the remote owner’s representative. While a separate company, I was also a department, and reported as a department head to our fractional operations manager - a consultant that was part of Lee Iacocca's team to bring Japanese manufacturing processes to the US. Steve Bera. One of the nicest and smartest men I've ever meant. How this man could drill down and see through the noise. You learned just by watching him.

I was part of opening up the hottest new venue in the DFW metroplex. I was running a business. My next step would need to be another track, amusement park, or similar entertainment venue, and my vendors were always telling me of openings. But that wasn't the reason I took the job. I was looking to get out of Food & Beverage, not solidify my career-path. And two years of working 6 1/2 days per week takes a toll. While single, I saw the toll those hours took on family life from those I worked with in the industry. That's not the life I wanted.

1993 – 2002: my start in B2B market research & consulting

I returned to Toledo at the start of the year with no idea what to do next. I heard about a job as a part-time telephone interviewer for a B2B market research project titled, The US Service Station Equipment Market Demand Forecast 1993-1998. I would be calling gas station owners and asking them about their purchasing decisions the next 5+ years. Exciting. Not. It turned out to be the start of everything to come.

I was involved in every single aspect of the project, from ordering our sample lists to presenting the results to our clients, over a dozen of the who's who of the petroleum equipment industry. The study was groundbreaking, the first to document the UST population and the number of tanks in non-compliance with approaching deadlines resulting from the Clean Water Act. When the project manager had to relocate for family reasons at the conclusion of the project, Nick asked a counterpart and I to stay on and co-manage any follow-up work.

In 1995, we would publish another groundbreaking syndicated study, the US Regulated Commercial Fleet Market Forecast. Nearly all the major oil and fleet card processors, well-known regional players, and a smattering of other suppliers subscribed – 30 in all. It was the first study to benchmark the US fleet population and the commercial fleet fueling market in gallons for the up-and-coming fleet card market. The follow-up work rolled in. My colleague & I were now senior consultants managing multiple projects & project managers, growing to a staff of about 25 prior to 9/11.

From the consulting perspective, I would manage proprietary & syndicated demand forecasts, data analysis for the purpose of mergers & acquisitions, strategic planning, market selection, site selection, competitor research, competitor cost studies, emerging market studies in Canada and Mexico (as a result of NAFTA), as well as Europe.

We would cull, procure, build, and/or manage several national marketing databases, provide best customer modeling or provide decision sciences support through 1st level analysis for national marketing campaigns, including pre-approved mail offers, and provide on-demand marketing program fulfillment services. We would deliver marketing databases equipped with demographics in fully customized GoldMine CRM systems built around customer-specific sales processesdelivered to the field sales representatives. We provided custom training material, training, and train-the-trainer support services complete with trainer’s guides.

But the interwebs was becoming a thing. We developed an online lead delivery systemand a multi-tenant CRM system called FleetLeads. This CRM is still in operation today, over 20 years later, but is only used internally within Havill. These are the types of solutions I architect, people.

By 2002, CRM was becoming its own discipline, and we had a product specific to our vertical and parted ways with GoldMine.

2003 – 2018: From agency to independent marketing management consultant

In the post 9/11 economy, I felt compelled to take control of my future and saw an opportunity with the GoldMine product. The father of a newborn, I wanted to be done hoping in planes for a while. The GoldMine partner channel was formalizing, and they wanted partners that were either well versed in supporting and related IT, sales process experts, or CRM/product experts.

As the latter, I started plateau marketing. There were a lot of untrained resellers at the time that had a tendency to nickel-and-dime and not completely fix the problem, especially when it came to synchronization or some of the fancier features. The goal was to provide better support than what I saw, better service at a fair price without nickel-and-diming for "just being there" for a quick question. My expectation is that I would service customers of up to 25 or so users and that, hopefully, some of those companies could take advantage of some of the consulting expertise I brought. They did. Just not in the way I expected.

By the end of 2003, I closed my first big deal. While taking care of a support issue for a client, he said: "I'd really like my CRM (GoldMine) to be the center of everything. About half their information is in a proprietary access database which I need to manually collect, reconcile, and distribute back out to the 3 regional offices." "Why not just move the back-end data to a home-office SQL database, connect the remote offices by VPN, leave Access as the front end for data entry, etc., and we'll build the integration dashboards in HTML using some commercial controls and present the contact specific information in the GM+View - a browser window within the product, and automate the monthly reports via SSRS."

Let's meet in Columbus, he said. I want you to meet my IT vendor and programmer.

The client would eventually grow to 125 employees across 5 offices. I would standardize and migrate data from CRMs acquired through acquisitions. I would build an RFP as it started to outgrow my solution and was considered competitor products versus GoldMine Enterprise Edition. When he selected GMEE, the product was implemented under the direction of our PSO, with me learning how to build out an enterprise solution. Now in need of an in-house administrator, I would go on to assist him with hiring and training of that resource. Talus Brokerage Services would be sold to Medical Mutual of Ohio in 2015. But the professional and personal relationships would continue. In need of a new partner, I began to service MMO. They, too, implemented similar customizations, with me serving as a weekly resource to guide their in-house development. Personally, I stayed in touch with Roy, eventually reconnecting with him on July 8, 2019, for a business lunch that would change my life. He now serves as my mentor. That IT partner and I have had countless clients together now. I build and value relationships and maintain a network of competent vendors in other disciplines.

During this time, I would service countless others with similar requests. Integration with a Navision/MS Dynamics system to support real-time precious metal trading for Ohio Precious Metals. Detailed customizations, sales training material development, and sales training for a Briggs & Straton master distributor. Overhaul a network for a staffing client. Integration with a large animal vet to provide automated updates on animal shipments all over the world. Customizing our blackberry app client for a niche auto paint and paint systems manufacturer and learning BES server management and implementing complex record security and reporting solutions for that customer. I've automated lead imports from sources with unfriendly outputs by automating through tools available. I've integrated with multiple AS/400 systems through middleware and/or similar approaches. I implemented lead and customer issue alert and notification systems when you had to piece them together from different components. I've supported the boardroom differently than in my market research days: due diligence and merger & acquisition support through data analysis. I've audited countless IT and network systems, referring or finding the appropriate parties for the client’s needs. I've managed IT department overhauls and lockouts. I've been part of disaster recovery efforts for all the usual reasons, and the heady causes - ransomware attacks and physical damage on a data center because of a lightning strike. I've established ETL processes for data exchanges between my clients and their partners for EDI, PHI, and all other types of data exchanges. I've written SOPs and served as a technical HIPAA compliance officer.

As social media became more of a necessity of SMBs, I was suddenly building databases for the purpose of e-mail marketing, composing HTML email templates for clients and teaching them how to A/B test & execute marketing campaigns, integrating with Constant Contact, MailChimp, Amazon SES, and several others; setting up social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, then the platforms that followed. Next thing you know, I'm designing posts, managing pages, and helping clients build engagement strategies. Competent in IT, I'm suddenly managing domains and infrastructure support for smaller clients, not to mention Rackspace and AWS Servers, and teaching clients how to implement Microsoft Office 365.

In my first season as a consultant, I worked for behemoths. Now my place was among customers of 25 to 250 PC users and a habit of working with leading niche manufacturers & suppliers and within insurance and related disciplines.

In 2013, my former counterpart at Havill moved on and I was asked to return on an adjunct 1099 basis to manage national marketing database builds for WEX and the Shell Fleet Card program stakeholders. Havill was now a client.

By 2015, the CRM market was evolving to cloud-based solutions that supported separate account & contact objects and provided easier-to-use (on the surface) and options to integrate with anything (at a cost). Other GoldMine partners were picking up the usual suspects. Salesforce, SugarCRM, Zoho, HubSpot, or Microsoft CRM. Though I did and continue to provide GoldMine specific services, I decided to begin moving towards a service-focused model.

By 2017, at Havill, we had wrapped up our support for the Shell Fleet Card program after 20 years, and I was now responsible for one annual database build per year - a database that Havill used internally - and a subset selected, modeled for, and customized to WEX for personal selling, direct mail, and email initiatives. But as one door closes, another opened, and I would help manage a nozzle inventory study we conducted every 10 years for one of the Big 3 auto companies.

At Plateau, I engaged with a tea company to provide support as they started their own logistics operation, a boutique 3PL to serve niche suppliers or suppliers with niche needs. Brought in to assist with a CRM and WMS selection, implement the SOPs to support our operation, and assist with integrations to Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, and other order, vendor, and customer systems. While I did all that, I also informally morphed into the fractional Operations Manager, engaging in everything from unloading trucks to picking orders to billing our clients. I’m a hands-on guy, after all. In need of that type of FT resource now, we parted ways in the fall 2018. This gig, like so many others, had me involved in many side projects. I learned a lot about the import/export business and the whole process from raw material acquisition to shipping it out of a warehouse. From a technical experience, I got a big dose of a whole new lotta data. I still can't get over how many WMS systems at that time could not handle multiple units of measure effectively for the same. Example: 1 pallet holds 50 masters under SKU A, each holding 10 boxes of SKU B, each with selling units of SKU C. Oh, and sold individually under SKU D. It's just math people.

By the end of 2018, I had authored a project management tool for a client and wrote a CRM for my church.

2019: Sobriety. Analyzing the past. Surviving in the Moment. Planning for the future.

Newly divorced, my life situation had changed, and it was time to take stock of things.

Personally: In February 2019, I quit drinking, I analyzed the data from my past as I would do for a client. My 16 years of my intertwined life, business, and altruistic activities provided clear indicators of success.

Professionally: In July 2019, I took on a business mentor to plan for the future. GoldMine had not been the focus of my business since 2015, though I was still providing services that extended those systems.

Still providing services to Havill during this time, I was asked at the end of the year to help with development on a web initiative, FleetWiki.net, a subscription-based site for commercial fleet suppliers and their customers.

2020-May 2023: Consulting sabbatical.

A sabbatical is "an extended period of time intentionally spent on something that's not your routine job" when taking a "break" from "work."

Realizing the FleetWiki site needed a top to bottom overhaul, modernization, and some new back-end development, I re-engaged with Havill on a W2 basis and transitioned my remaining GoldMine customers to other GoldMine partners. Over the next two years, I would work on SQL and web development (HTML, HTML5, CSS, bootstrap, jquery, javascript, vbscript, some php and .net), email marketing & testing, social media, IP and domain ramp up. While these were all things I’ve been doing since 2000, I had an opportunity to work on them top-to-bottom in a singular project where I was both a resource and a stakeholder.

In May 2021, I dusted off my rebranding plan, and began writing my own "information management framework," a light-weight CRM to use as a connecting point for migration, integration, and reporting projects for customers with up to 500 users and began drafting long-term business plans. Over the years, I have authored, re-used, and re-tooled dozens of pieces of code, triggers, stored procedures, reports, dashboards, and automated routines for my projects. A series of components I wrote for real-time trading alerts was retooled to notify the maintenance supervisor of commercial properties to a high priority issue. If I have a dashboard written for underlying data source "A" – I’ll just change the source of the view as needed rather than rewrite a complex report. It’s about working smart. Ultimately, I was packaging my "shortcuts" into a platform I wouldn’t sell as a product but implement as part of a solution.

Our FleetWiki development overhaul was completed at the end of 2021. My services were no longer needed but I was asked to stay on to facilitate a 2022 marketing push and pitch to a new potential end user audience. As an employee, I wanted to execute for the owner, also a friend and mentor. But as a free thinker and independent consultant that had come into his own, I no longer agreed with the commercial viability of the value proposition as it stood at that time. Upon ending my employment in May 2022, I was asked to continue on a 1099 contract basis to fulfill our national marketing database initiatives. I would complete that work, but the contract was left unfulfilled and my relationship with Havill formally ended in May 2023. While you may find that politically incorrect, it is factual. It destroyed my financial recovery and forced me to put my side projects on hold for a year.

May 2023 to Dec 2023: When life gives you lemons…

Left unexpectedly severely strapped financially, I had to put my side projects on hold. While GoldMine is now in pre-sunset mode and no longer sold to new customers as of May 2023, it still serves as a hearty premise-based solution for those entrenched in it. As word got out that I was available again, the phone started ringing and I've continued to provide GoldMine, IT audit, and SQL dba services to a handful of past and new clients.

Jan 2024 - June 2024: … make lemon souffle.

I continued to provide GoldMine related services on a "reactive" basis. And, I may have delivered your groceries, forced to Instacart to make ends meet. That’s fine. I’m the guy that will do what it takes.

July 2024 and beyond: one plan.

In April 2003, I found myself a newlywed and a new dad, and I started plateau marketing.

Today, I have a new life partner and a baby on the way, will be moving into a new season of consulting under Twist Marketing Logistics.

As a consultant, I approach engagements with one plan. I have found that in life, and in business, backup plans are often founded in the same fraught thinking that leads you to needing to use them. Instead, your plan should be a playbook, prepared with contingencies for every event you can think of. Nobody throws out a good playbook.

I am available for ad-hoc hourly work and as fractional marketing management resource. I define myself by my work, not my "job," even when it’s "full-time."

As far back as to my food & beverage days, then within and for Havill, then independently, I’ve built a career out of being the right-hand of decision makers, tasked with bringing their visions and projects to fruition, and solving their difficult business challenges. Sometimes it’s one off and I move to the next client & project. Sometimes the relationship goes on for years, one project after another. It’s how I thrive. It’s how I help my clients thrive.