Small Business & Startups
Operations setup, workflow design, and right-hand support for founders who are good at their craft but stretched thin on everything else. This is the largest share of my work.
Experience & Focus
Interdisciplinary by design. Adaptive by practice.
Most of my clients are very small teams that need help organizing systems, implementing communication, and turning ideas into actionable plans. I tend to get brought in when people are overwhelmed, stuck, scaling, or building something new — across small business, food systems, schools, nonprofits, and community-led initiatives.
Industries
Where I operate.
Different rooms, same kind of problem: turn the great idea into something the team can run, ship, and grow.
Food Systems
Farm-to-institution distribution, food hub development, and regional food system coordination. I've connected producers to buyers and helped food businesses navigate the unglamorous middle.
CEA & Agriculture Innovation
Working knowledge of controlled environment agriculture, hydroponics, propagation cycles, and harvest economics. I've supported indoor growing operations from concept through SOPs and partnership pipelines. See CEA detail →
Schools & Education
Program coordination, curriculum project management, and institutional partnership support. I've worked with school-based agriculture programs and workforce development initiatives.
Nonprofits & Mission-Driven Orgs
Program management, reporting compliance, and operational capacity building. I understand the constraints that come with public money and the cadence of working with funders.
Community Initiatives
Coalition building, community program coordination, and stakeholder facilitation. Complex multi-stakeholder processes are where I'm most useful.
CEA Detail
Working in Controlled Environment Agriculture.
I've worked alongside CEA operators on the unsexy infrastructure of growing food indoors — propagation cycles, partnership pipelines, ecosystem outreach. Comfortable in a clean room and a regulatory document.
What I've done
- Grant management and coordination support
- Partnership pipeline for farm-to-school and institutional buyers
- Propagation SOP development
- Ecosystem stakeholder mapping and outreach
- Operating manual development for young farms
- Harvest cycle and production scheduling support
Who I've worked with
- Commercial vertical farms
- Hydroponic operations
- Food-hub-adjacent CEA producers
- Urban agriculture initiatives
- School and community indoor growing programs
Where I add the most value
- When an operation has the science but not the systems
- When the founder is technical and the org is administratively undersized
- When a farm needs to tell its story to funders or buyers
- When the team is growing faster than the operations can support
Areas of Practice
The work in three groups.
Operations & Project Management
- Cross-functional milestone tracking
- Process documentation and SOPs
- Vendor and contract oversight
- Budget management and financial tracking
- Workflow and systems design
- Risk identification and mitigation
Strategic & Growth Work
- Business development and pipeline building
- Market mapping and competitive landscape
- Proposal and pitch support
- Partner identification and outreach
- Founder-direct operational organization
Stakeholder & Ecosystem Work
- Stakeholder mapping and outreach
- Partnership negotiation support
- Coalition building and facilitation
- Industry network activation
- Event and program management
- Community engagement
Background
Education & Training
How I Work
- Discovery before deliverables I start by listening — to the founder, the team, and what the work actually looks like day to day.
- Systems mapped to humans I build processes around how the team already operates, not around how a textbook says it should.
- Documentation is the deliverable If it lives only in my head, it failed. SOPs, briefs, and trackers stay with you when the engagement ends.
- Async-first, founder-direct You always work with me, not an account manager. We default to writing things down so meetings stay short.
- Ship something usable in week one Strategy decks are easy. The first useful artifact — a tracker, a calendar, a vendor list — lands fast.
Tools
Canva Meta Business Suite CapCut Google Workspace Buffer Instagram Facebook AI content tools
Education
M.A., Conflict Analysis & Dispute Resolution — Salisbury University
B.A. Dual Degree, Conflict Analysis & Dispute Resolution and Communication Arts — Salisbury University
B.A. Dual Degree, Conflict Analysis & Dispute Resolution and Communication Arts — Salisbury University
Sector experience Controlled environment agriculture, food systems, public education partnerships, hospitality operations, publishing, and regulated financial services (KYC, BSA, AML, OFAC) — across public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
Contracts & compliance Master Service Agreements, vendor contracts, insurance and licensing, Enhanced Due Diligence reviews, and post-event analysis. Built from the ground up at WSFS Bank / Cash Connect and inside a multi-event hospitality portfolio at Casa Carmen.
Let's find out