CEOs often spin complicated stories about starting and running businesses, but my tale is very simple. To me, having a business has always been about creating community—providing a tightknit group of people with jobs, security, fair wages, friendship and an environment where they can practice being human.
So, while I’ve been depicted as a business innovator, picture me instead as a hard-working guy with a passion for people and authentic leadership. In pursuit of this passion, I happen to have started and run successful businesses, most of them involved with bringing products, people and concepts to market.
Most recently is Trueline, a marketing, branding and publishing company which I started in 2007. With an international footprint and 40 dedicated employees, Trueline helps people and businesses control their online presence with social media and custom content, websites, newsletters, speeches, custom hiring campaigns, and business strategy.
Trueline is based in Portland, Maine, but I grew up in Pearl City, Hawai’i. I made my way to Maine to study physics at Bowdoin College and then took a hard pivot into the humanities in my second year and found my intellectual sweet spot studying sociology and religion.
These days, after work hours, you can hunt me down either hanging with my kids (I find myself doing more learning from them than teaching at this point), or dancing into the wee hours of the night with all my salseros in the fantastic Boston salsa scene. If I’m not on daddy duty or dancing, you will probably find me “tasting” some of Portland newest beers with some of my greatest friends, many of them co-workers.
