Meet the founder

It all began when I sat down in a room waiting for a job interview at the age of 17. Like most kids, I didn’t have any experience and just wanted a little spending money. When they asked, “Who here has kitchen experience?” I raised my hand. Working as a dishwasher for a summer counted right? Next thing you know I arrive for my first day and much to my surprise I was given the job of Line Cook instead of Dishwasher. It became apparent to my coworkers that I had zero experience cooking.

This experience taught me two things:

1) Never be afraid to learn something new

2) Food brings people of all ages and backgrounds together

This experience would come to shape my career. Though I came to love cooking, my father told me, “You can be a cook with a math degree, finish school”. In the end, I changed my major from education to straight mathematics. I wanted to solve world problems and make a difference in people’s lives. Pretty lofty goals for a college student!

I ended up getting a master’s degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering, a field that the average person knows nothing about and many just assume I design buildings (hint that is not what I do). I took a typical path of starting in manufacturing. I really enjoyed the day to day workings with engineers and floor operators. I spent more time watching people work instead of sitting at a desk. Talking to the workers helps alleviate tension and brings new thoughts and ideas.

From there I decided to get closer to the consumer and join a retail company. I would say retail is far behind manufacturing when it comes to operations research. It was exciting to bring in new analytics and capabilities to the company. Again, I walked around stores just as much as sitting at a desk. You will likely never see me in heels, just a good pair of walking shoes! Unfortunately, the honeymoon phase of that job ended quickly. Culture can quickly kill a company and push out good talent. In this company, the adage “we have always done it this way” was prevalent. There was also an “us verses them” mentality of store operations and corporate.

I reflected that I wanted to be a part of something that brought people together. After some time I joined an agricultural company to study their operations. Again, I found that when you work around food, you have greater purpose. Food is essential for the community and it is an honor to be a part of that system. I worked to make it more efficient and resilient to change.

During this time, on a personal level, I got married, renovated a house, sold a house, bought a farm, renovated a farm, and had 2 kids all in 5 years. If that wasn’t enough, my husband urged me to bring my skills to the small farmer. He said many of our farm friends struggle with being profitable but you could help them! Unfortunately, as a consultant, most small businesses couldn’t afford to hire an operations engineer. However, I do believe that the skills of an industrial engineer can be learned by anyone willing to put in the time.

So, I set out to do that. Teach the small farm business to analyze and improve their operations to be more profitable.