Operator. Veteran. Speaker. Husband. Father.

I grew up believing that work was supposed to be hard, but it was supposed to mean something.

I started at West Point, where I learned that systems are how people do things they did not think they could do. I commissioned into the Army, deployed to Afghanistan, and later supported elite military teams including SOCOM warfighters in a project management capacity. I was not one of those warfighters, but the experience shaped how I think about preparation, execution, and accountability. Then the Army sent me back to West Point, where I served as a course director and instructor in systems engineering from January 2018 to December 2018.

I will always be a West Point graduate. I am also a former West Point instructor. Those are different parts of the story, and both matter to me.

While I was teaching there, still on active duty, I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. The Army medically retired me earlier than I planned to go. I did not walk away from that career; it was taken.

I moved my family to South Florida on March 5, 2020, essentially the same week COVID shut the country down.

To stay competitive for a Chick-fil-A operator selection, I went to work in a local Chick-fil-A restaurant. West Point instructor one year, working a shift the next. Then it became clear that COVID meant no new restaurants were being built, so I started applying for jobs.

I got 383 straight rejections. That was the lowest point of my life and I am not going to dress it up. Then one yes: a remote project management job with a telecommunications company, worked from my kitchen table. It was stable, it was comfortable, and I could have stayed in it.

I left it to operate a Chick-fil-A, because I wanted to build something where people, food, and service intersected with real numbers, and because a diagnosis has a way of making you honest about what you actually want your years to be for. Operating a high-volume restaurant teaches you what no leadership book can: the difference between what works in theory and what survives a Friday night dinner rush with three callouts.

Along the way I picked up an MBA and a PMP certification. I am currently finishing my DBA in business and leadership.

About three years ago I started experimenting with AI in my business. Not as a hobby, as an operator. I needed to know if the tools were real or if they were just the next technology hype cycle. I began applying AI to repeatable work inside my Chick-fil-A: catering reactivation, online reputation management, guest recovery, hiring and onboarding support, document creation and analysis, training content, advertising, and operations dashboards. The more administrative work AI handled, the more important one question became: what should the human do with the capacity AI creates?

That question became Frontline AI Leadership and the framework I now teach: Machines do. Managers decide. Leaders develop.

Machines can increasingly handle repeatable work. Managers still own judgment, context, boundaries, and consequences. Leaders have an opportunity to reinvest the capacity AI creates into coaching, trust, customer experience, capability building, and developing the next generation of leaders.

That is the flagship idea I bring to people-intensive businesses, franchise systems, restaurants, hospitality, retail, distribution, field services, and leadership teams trying to use AI without losing the humans who make the organization matter.

Faith, family, and significance are what I actually care about. AI is the tool I happen to use to serve them. My mission is simple: glorify God with my life and have a positive impact on as many people as possible.

I live in South Florida with my wife Kari and our son. I limit my speaking calendar so every audience gets a custom talk and a real partner, not a recycled deck.

If your team or conference is wrestling with how AI changes management, leadership, and frontline work, I would love to hear from you.