I commissioned as a U.S. Marine Officer and spent years learning the hardest lessons leadership has to offer in high-stakes environments where the cost of poor decisions wasn't a bad quarterly report. It was lives and missions.
What I took from uniform into business wasn't procedure it was a philosophy. Lead from the front. Set the standard. Develop your replacement. Repeat.
The Operator Years
After leaving active duty, I became a Chick-fil-A Owner/Operator in the Oklahoma City metro, where I currently operate two locations under Red Okie LLC. The title changed. The mission didn't.
I chose Chick-fil-A because it's a brand that takes culture seriously. The Critical Success Factors, the talent pipeline, the emphasis on character over convenience it mirrors the way I was trained to lead. Most operators run restaurants. I run a leadership development program that happens to serve chicken sandwiches.
My two locations 29th & Town Center and 15th & Sooner are laboratories for everything I believe about building high-performance teams. Every system, every scorecard, every accountability conversation I run has been refined over 18 years of real-world execution.
The Builder
Beyond Chick-fil-A, I invest in real estate and emerging asset classes. I don't chase trends. I build systems. I look for the same things in every investment I make that I look for in every leader I develop: strong fundamentals, long-term durability, and compounding returns over time.
The Builder's Code is the book I'm writing for the person I was at 30 the hard-working, gritty entrepreneur who doesn't need another theory. They need a framework they can actually use.