Ohio kid. Buckeyes for life, Browns because someone has to suffer. Played every sport that would have him — football, wrestling, soccer, basketball, even hockey — and went semi-pro after college because quitting sports wasn’t in the vocabulary yet.

He hit hard. He wanted receivers coming across the middle to remember his name for a week. But he also helped them up afterward — because there’s a difference between competitive and an asshole, and nobody taught him that in a classroom.

Speaking of classrooms — he’s got a business management degree, but the real education came from his parents: his dad’s quiet, don’t-need-to-brag business sense, his mom’s farmgirl grit, and an ungodly work ethic from both.

He’s sold supplements, phones, aluminum, and steel. Managed stores before he was old enough to rent a car. Then he fell in love with the ocean, quit everything, and moved to Mexico to dive for a living — which somehow turned into building a marketing agency, because that’s what happens when you’re the kind of person who can’t watch a broken system without fixing it.

He founded ZappIT in 2016 out of a favor for a dive shop buddy. Nine years, one pandemic, and a whole career pivot into AI later, he still runs it the same way: fix your own problems first, then sell the fix to everyone else stuck with the same one.

He’s not chasing the competition into the ground. He’s trying to make them better — because winning against someone who isn’t trying is just bullying with extra steps.

Weakness: a 2-year-old Boston terrier who has never once respected a business call.

On why he does this: “If not now? When?”