I'm a salesperson who never stopped thinking like an owner.

I started selling as a teenager, canvassing neighborhoods, estimating jobs and handling clients for my dad's company, SK Roofing. At Cutco I finished first in sales out of about fifteen new reps in my training class, and learned that the best sales happen when someone sits across the table from you and actually trusts you. Then I spent more than twenty years with the accounting, tax and payroll firm my wife and I ran. I wrote every ad and every direct-mail piece, ran the sales consultations, and personally looked after the relationships that kept roughly 500 clients coming back, many for more than ten years. I was active in the Citrus Heights, Sacramento and Roseville chambers and several leads groups, and built referral partnerships with Paychex, ADP and local insurance, legal and HR firms. One year of direct mail alone brought in nearly $100,000 in new business.

When we sold the practice, I ran both sales myself: our payroll clients to Paychex and our tax clients to another Enrolled Agent. I handled every handover personally so no relationship broke in transit. Paychex kept about 90% of the payroll customers, and the new tax firm kept more than 80% of a largely individual client book.

Along the way I became the person everyone called about technology. I've been taking computers apart since I was a kid on an Atari ST, and for twenty years I've supported small businesses through email migrations, networks, phone systems and backups. That combination is the whole point: I can sit down with an owner, understand what's really going on, and then talk to the engineers in their own language.

Today, as President of the Oregon Coast Youth Project, I designed and built a grant and corporate partner program that has secured five figures in contributions, and I led the $250K buildout of the Sea Spray Center, the organization's performing-arts and event venue.

What all of it has taught me is simple. Most business problems that look technical are really about people, process and communication. The technology is usually the easy part. Getting it right for the business, and staying on it afterwards, is where I earn my keep.