How did your upbringing influence your diverse interests and career path?
“I wanted to try everything at least once, not to be great at it, but just to appreciate the learning of it. As a child, I was a voracious reader and an avid learner. So I wanted to dance, I took piano lessons, I played the clarinet, and I was in every sport.
I just remember a lot of support, a lot of encouragement. I remember lots of laughter too in my childhood and my upbringing that my parents instilled in me, find something that you love to do. Find your passion and it’s not going to feel like work.
We have a tight nuclear family. My parents were also small business owners within the community. They owned an automotive repair shop right in West Chester, PA. They modeled the aspect of how to juggle a young family with a business. So the values of hard work, faith, family, discipline of course, and work ethic.”
“I thought – oh well I loved physics and I loved helping people so I thought maybe I’d be a physics teacher or an engineer. I went to Penn State and I didn’t declare a major. So I was in their division of undergraduate studies because I thought I’d take some engineering courses. I also took some other core requirements so that I don’t lose any time in case I go down a path and I feel that it’s not for me. So what resonated with me the most was an Intro to Kinesiology course and that is the science of sports movement.”
“I think the best way to understand life is to look backward. Sometimes it’s what got you there. My first job out of getting my master’s program was for a small outfit in Wilmington, Delaware area, Newark, Delaware area, where we would fitness test the state police and do some cardiac rehab centers. So that really wasn’t challenging enough for me. It was a small family-owned business. There was no place to really climb or learn more. So I left that and worked for cardiology consultants in Philadelphia. They’re the largest cardiology practice on the East Coast. And I ran their nuclear stress test lab doing diagnostic stress tests.”
“So I went down to one of the physicians because I love to read and interpret EKGs, it’s just a puzzle, and they said, we’re not sure that you’re gonna be happy here in the long term like you should really consider medical school, and I said, great, like is there a payment plan, are you gonna help me with that? And they said no. So again, I was outpacing my career, it wasn’t as satisfying. So I took that Masters of Cardiac Rehab, into an industry and I landed at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington. I was a sales trainer. So I was able to teach sales reps the mechanisms of action, how the drugs work, and side effects so that they could be better sales reps because I had been on the clinician side for so long.
It was at that point when I worked in their training and development department that I brought in my mentor, Dr. Paul Elliott.
“Do you wanna acquire this business?” right before the pandemic – Paul asked as he decided to retire. Knowing what you don’t know and knowing what you know, there’s a learning gap as an entrepreneur. I use the term entrepreneur loosely because sometimes that term bothers me, I’ll be honest because I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are seeking the next thing. And I’m not looking for the next thing. Entrepreneur is owning my business, yes – but I’m doubling down on this. This is the culmination of all of my talents and experiences. And this is it.”
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“It’s lonely work when you’re first getting started and sometimes I’m in my office working on things and it’s just me. So I did tell myself on a Friday, I quit. This is just too much. It’s too much pressure. I quit – To which myself said, okay, see you Monday. Like there is no quitting. We don’t quit, we just learn.”
“I had to create an LLC because I was acquiring his entity and he was in Maryland and I needed to be a licensed kind of corporation here in Pennsylvania. So I had to understand the difference too of tax implications and what the tax structure is. Is it an LLC, is it an S-corp? So I had to get an accountant early in the process. I needed a business bank account. We had a client coming to us with a big check and you have to keep the business and personal finances separate.”
“I put my Wonder Woman underoos on and did the big girl thing and just went through all of that aspect and had a separate credit card. I rebranded the website. I had a contest to have a logo because we needed a high performance logo to match what we offer our clients. I had to get my own laptop. I had forever been supplied a company laptop, let alone company benefits and health insurance. And now I’m paying that myself. So right now I wear the marketing hat, the accounting hat, I’m learning QuickBooks.
It’s a lot of those processes that if you would have given me that checklist day one, I probably would have stayed maybe working for someone else. I mean it seems daunting. But part of my insatiable quest, I guess, for learning and growing was satisfying because it was a challenge that I would overcome.”
“I do receive that a lot like how do you do this? It can be deceiving and it is because I’m very focused. So if it isn’t family, serving at my church, faith, the board at the YMCA, or my hobby, I’m very selective at what I choose to filter in. So you’re not going to see a lot of me on social media, I’m not in a lot of clubs, I do protect the time to make sure that it’s stuff that fills my cup.”
“I think everyone, every entrepreneur can benefit from a network that is supportive. You need someone in your corner because the days are long and there’s sometimes no gratification that you might want to give up, but you might be giving up just before you get your next big break.”
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“I’m pleased to say we got our Women-Owned Small Business Certificate in 2023, both by WBENC as well as the SBA, the Small Business Administration. My long-term business plan is to make this a small business. Right now I’m supplemented by contractors, people that I’ve trusted, that I’ve worked with in the past because that has to ebb and flow with our contracts.”
“Coast Guard has been using our approach exclusively for years and it is the basis for all of their standard operating procedures. So I mention that because there is a skill bridge program that when folks are trying to make their transition to civilian life – that could be more or less an internship for them. There’s no guarantee of employment. It’s to help them learn and just get involved with a corporation to kind of bridge that gap. So we have an opportunity through them to help our veterans, which I just respect.”
“One of our clients had 20 folks in their organization, their commercial learning organization, and there were 11 job titles across those 20 people. Crazy. So morale was low, and we had redundant job activities. People were promoted for various reasons, either because another function thought they did a good job or it was based on tenure. So you had all of this angst in a startup company. It’s Fortune 100’s fastest-growing companies. And they needed to keep pace with the business, but they were internally very dysfunctional. The work that we were able to do with them helped them on their growth trajectory. It was just the best feeling that we could have.”
“Training is only one of the six levers that we can pull for Exemplary Performance. It’s always so humbling when our clients say – this is the best project I have ever been a part of. Now that I’ve seen this, I can’t unsee it. Performance thinking permeates now everything. We never repackage or sell the same solution. We can’t because it’s germane to the organization and what the best in that organization does. We’re not selling standard material that we would package for everything. So when people feel that personal is the way we conduct our business, the care that we put in terms of our clients, they feel that support. That’s what makes us even friends outside of work. After our engagements are gone, I’ve stayed friends with many of the folks whom we’ve served.”
