About
The long version
Dirt is the work. Stars are the part you can’t measure but steer by anyway.
I grew up between Waco and our family ranch in Valley Mills, Texas, which is where I learned to what it meant to work. At fifteen I was sent to a boarding school in the Arizona desert. I spent a lot of that time volunteering at a birds of prey rehabilitation center, wandering the in the Superstition Mountains, hanging out on the Hopi mesas and the desert got into me and never left.
I studied anthropology at Baylor, then fine art at Pacific University in Oregon. After that the map gets less tidy. I spent time living on a sailboat in the Sea of Cortez Mexico. I spent about five years in India, most of it on the Ghats of Varanasi, studying Sanskrit and philosophy. The road took me through the highlands of Peru, the Himalayas, the savannahs of Africa and the jungles of Central America.
Eventually I came back to building things. I worked on consumer brands from the inside, building 2 natural supplement brands from Oahu, Hawaii and then in 2016 I led a turn around of a leading consumer brand accelerator, where I met Dan Graham. In 2019 Dan and I co-founded Springdale Ventures to back early-stage consumer brands. We’re a small team on purpose.
Now I live on a ranch outside Santa Fe at about 7,400 feet with my son, two horses Freya and Teddy, a BLM burro named Bo, goats, dogs and cats. Most days start in the hay barn and end with a founder on the phone. I’ve stopped keeping those two lives in separate boxes. Every one of them made me a better investor.
What I believe
Six things I keep coming back to
Reading the herd
I train horses at liberty: no rope, no halter. You ask, you wait, and you release the pressure the moment they give you something. It’s taught me more about reading founders, boards and partners than any pitch meeting has. People show you who they are when you stop pushing.
Operator hands
Before I invested in brands, I built them. I still fix my own fence and keep a 1995 diesel truck running (with help!). I like knowing where the parts are, in a barn or in a company. It makes me a better partner to founders, because I’ve done the work I’m judging.
The land teaches patience
At 7,400 feet, nothing grows on a deadline. You buy hay before winter and learn what dry soil will and won’t do. Venture loves speed. I’ve come to trust the brands that grow slowly and are still standing after a hard season.
Animals are family
Horses, a burro, dogs, cats and goats. I am the extreme version of the premium pet customer. People don’t spend on their animals like a line item. They spend like it’s a relationship, and the best brands in the category understand that.
Women who build
The help that mattered most in my career was rarely flashy. A good question from a mentor. A reference call on a Sunday. A term sheet with no surprises. That’s the kind of backing I try to give: competence, kindness, and someone who picks up the phone.
Lineage and the wider life
I was raised fixing things on a ranch in Valley Mills, Texas. I’ve lived on the ghats in India, on a sailboat and in Mexico, and now I’m raising a son in New Mexico. Every one of those lives shapes how I invest. Mostly they taught me to think in generations, not quarters.