From growing other companies to building his own.

I grew up in New Jersey. Everyone in my family had a traditional job, and none of those jobs sounded like something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

At the University of Utah I went to a conference on entrepreneurship, and something clicked. I didn't want to play one instrument. I wanted to bring the whole thing together and build something. After the keynote I walked up to the speaker and asked for an internship. He said yes, then sold his company five days before I started.

That taught me two things. Companies get built and sold by people who decide to do it. And if I wanted to build one, I needed to learn every part of the job, starting with marketing.

While I was still in school I co-founded Wasatch Mountain Arts and launched the Wasatch Mountain Film Festival. It still runs today, showing work from the world's top outdoor adventure filmmakers from more than 50 countries. I've since moved from executive director to chairman of the board.

After school I joined a digital marketing agency and worked on search for some large clients. I learned a lot, and I got restless. I wanted to shape the whole story. So I became director of marketing at a small tech company called The Blogger Network and led the rebrand that turned it into Monumetric, an ad tech company.

Then I went to solar. I helped lead marketing at Blue Raven Solar and helped the company grow until SunPower acquired it.

Solar companies started calling me for help. The side work got too big to do alone, and I had a choice. I could keep it as a profitable side business, or I could hire people and build a real company. I chose the company, even though the side business would probably have paid more for the first few years. That company is RELLO. Today it's a seven-figure demand generation firm with a full-time team, working with solar, home improvement and B2B technology companies.

Now I'm building a portfolio of companies, and telling the story along the way.