About Me

I’ve spent most of my career, making meaning out of things. That’s what it means to be a marketer: take a product, a brand, an experience — and give it a story, an identity, an emotional life. It's a particular kind of skill, learning to create genuine connection to something that has no inherent soul. I was good at it. And for a long time, that was enough.

Then I left in search of greater purpose. Work that would animate and inspire me with the possibility of being a part of something much larger than myself. I spent some time working with a small social enterprise but left when it was clear that there was a mismatch between the kind of growth I was trying to architect and the beating heart of that operation, which was its social mission.

A small series of fortuitous events led me to teaching at Western Michigan University — first marketing and now sustainable business too. What I found in the classroom wasn’t just meaning and purpose. The pivot from practitioner to professor has been incredibly fulfilling and created a platform for me to share my 20+ years of professional experience with those just starting in their careers.

But academia also gave me something unexpected: a laboratory. In my courses on Business Ethics and Sustainability, I get to hear firsthand how this rising generation of business leaders relate to the stories we tell about sustainability. They say that the very idea of sustainability feels abstract, overwhelming, impossible to act on — a distant consideration that feels beyond their control despite being the primary source of their existential anxiety. I also get to see what happens when we stop adding to the information overload and start asking different questions. When we start telling stories that make potential solutions both personal and practical. And I get to see how that shifts the conversation and changes the stakes for everyone.

That shift is what this project is about. Sustainability doesn't fail for lack of data or policy or business cases. It fails for the same reason any system fails when you strip away its soul: the work becomes compliance instead of commitment. Obligation instead of devotion. A thing people do because they must, not because it matters to them in some felt, identity-level way.

I've spent my career learning how to create the animating force in things that were missing it. To imbue brands with a sense of purpose that created an invitation for people to participate in the worlds they had created. This is my attempt to apply those same principles to the practice of sustainability. Because it matters now more than ever.