my story

When I tell people I own a bar, they most commonly say "Oh that must be so fun."

It can be. But it has also been one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Doors finally opened for my first bar in 2016 after several years of planning and building. I did this with three partners. I had zero bar experience. After a year of being open I was the last one standing. When things started falling apart, there was no one else to fix it — so I did. I bar-backed. I bartended. I took kitchen shifts. I did payroll at midnight and cleaned floors at 2am. I was also raising my daughter alone. She was three.

Sleep was a luxury. Stress was a constant.

But I wasn't going to walk away.

That decade taught me more about building a business than any classroom could. Not because I did everything right — because I made every mistake available and chose to learn from them instead of repeat them. Ten years. Two businesses scaled. Hundreds of people led. And one very clear pattern that kept showing up no matter what:

Most operational problems aren't people problems. They're clarity problems.

When roles are undefined, when expectations live only in the owner's head, when there's no real structure underneath — good people struggle. Owners burn out. The same issues repeat indefinitely. It's not a hiring problem. It's not a culture problem. It's a systems problem.

I went back to school because I wanted to understand the why behind what I was seeing on the floor every day. A certification in Positive Psychology from the University of Utah. A master's in Applied Behavioral Analysis from Purdue. What I learned confirmed what ten years of operating had already shown me — and gave me the framework to do something about it.

That's why I founded ALIGN.

ALIGN works with owner-led small businesses — bars, restaurants, retail — to build the operational clarity that lets owners step back without everything falling apart. Defined roles. Manager systems. Accountability structures that support people instead of exhausting them. The tools I wish I'd had on day one.

I know what it feels like to be the only thing holding your business together. To take every call, make every decision, and wonder why nothing stabilizes no matter how hard you work.

It doesn't have to be that way.

If any of this sounds familiar — let's connect.