The first half of my childhood was spent in Hamtramck and Detroit, Michigan, visiting Belle Isle, enjoying world-famous coney dogs with my grandpa at Genie’s Wienies and helping at my parents’ novelty store. When our family moved to a working farm in Michigan’s Thumb, life was all about goats and pigs.

By age 20, I’d gained hands-on experience in multiple family businesses, including wholesaling, farming, and machinery sales. Shaped by my Midwest roots, I learned early that good business runs on grit, systems, and relationships.

After attending seven different colleges and universities in Michigan and North Carolina—while working full-time—I graduated summa cum laude from Western Carolina University with a degree in Business Administration & Entrepreneurship. I later completed a concentration in accounting. By that point, I’d already built, lost, and rebuilt more than once, and those experiences shaped how I think about risk, resilience, and decision-making.

I managed an Asheville, North Carolina, architecture firm specializing in commercial and church design until the housing bubble went bust. After being laid-off, I launched a boutique B2B consulting firm that helped Western North Carolina businesses adapt to changing economies and technologies. I launched what became Bellis in 2009 — initially focused on compliance work with S corporations, built on a network of architects, engineers, and consultants who needed someone who understood both the business and the numbers.

The firm has been remote-first since before that was a common choice. That decision forced early rigor around systems, controls, and accountability that still defines how we operate. Today Bellis is rooted in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, working primarily with founders across the Southeast — with particular depth in multi-state nexus and the full S corp lifecycle.

The throughline has never changed: practical systems, informed judgment, and work that holds up under pressure. A lot of the most consequential work in this industry is invisible when it’s done right. I stay in it because I’ve lived both sides — building someone else’s vision and carrying the risk of building my own. That perspective is not incidental to how I work. It’s the whole point.