Category: Our People

Where did you grow up?

Western Indiana, just north of Indianapolis. It was rural, country, and beautiful.

What did you study/what were you interested in?

In college I studied Hospitality and Tourism. I knew that I loved people and travel. Later I spent three months backpacking in southeastern Asia by myself, and that’s when I fell in love with the connection that can happen around the table.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

I worked at Charlie Trotters in Chicago for a chef who pioneered the farm to table movement in fine dining. I deviated from that path and did international development work and that actually took Dean and I to India and Italy. Then we moved to New York City and I continued development work. But I missed food and hospitality, everything I was interested in came back to that. In New York I worked for the restaurant Per Se. I started as a food runner, server, expeditor, and then I was the culinary liaison, which is a position that works hand-in-hand with the chef every day.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

At Cardinal I wear many hats. I oversee a diverse team and help run day-to-day operations. My goal is to make people feel proud, happy, and fulfilled while they’re here.

I’m a new mom to Jack, which is amazing. I enjoy being outside, trying our hand at the garden. We care a lot about how food grows. I think I am happiest when I can sit in a south-facing window, drink a cappuccino, and read a leisurely magazine.

Where did you grow up?

Downtown Austin, Texas. It was in the nineties, so it was very creative, safe, and well-off. Austin back then was not as populated as it is now. I would describe it as Bloomington is today. Small, little cottage-type homes, tight lots, lots of hills and valleys to explore in. Lots of woods.

What did you study/what were you interested in?

I went to culinary school but I was always interested in pastry and bread, but I never had the money to go back for a second degree. So I went to Per Se in New York and learned directly from hands-on experience.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

Flying under the radar, hanging out at home. I did some part-time stuff; I was a woodworker and studied cabinetry. I ran a small business doing Japanese yakitori and then I taught a bread class at Ivy Tech. Before Bloomington I was in France and Japan for six months trying to live among the people. I’m fascinated by different cultures. Then I was at Per Se for three years in the Columbus Circle area of New York. That was my life, I had no time or energy for anything other than that. I was fully committed.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

At Cardinal I develop people’s careers and help them become stronger professionals. I give direction to the team to execute. The whole kitchen–it’s all them. I just set boundaries and push them as hard as I can without breaking them.

I develop my son, I guard him. I take care of chickens. I explore Bloomington on foot, I’ve always liked walking around.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

Be beautiful.

Where did you grow up?

Carmel, IN

What did you study/what are you interested in?

I have a degree in Business Marketing and Operations Management.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

I played banjo in a touring bluegrass band. I was also a carpenter.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

I am the head distiller here at Cardinal.

Where did you grow up?

My dad was in the army since before I was born until just before in got into high school. I’ve lived in Texas, Maryland, Indiana, California, Massachusetts, and Germany. I went to high school in a suburb of Indianapolis starting in 1993 so I’m basically from Indiana now.

What did you study/what are you interested in?

My degrees are in Audio Engineering and Music. I’ve spent a lot of time studying languages – mostly Italian and Latin. I play a lot of board games and I’m sometimes into photography when I have extra time.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

I was working as a bartender and I also managed a warehouse at one time for a few years.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

I’m the Production & Compliance manager at Cardinal Spirits. That entails a lot of everything that goes on here. I make sure we have the raw materials to make our products from start to finish as well as coordinate scheduling and staffing with our Head Distiller, Justin Hughey. For the Compliance portion of my job, I make certain that everything is recorded correctly so that we pay our taxes on time and in the correct amount. In addition to that, I am working on opening a business of my own this year.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

I really love candy.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Rockford Illinois, but I only lived there until I was five, and then I moved to South Bend, Indiana–Granger, specifically. That’s where I lived until I went to college. I had a lot of good friends that I made within the first handful of years of moving there and then kept all through high school. I’m still friends with a lot of those people today. I think something that goes along with marrying someone that you went to middle school and high school with, as I did with Jeff, is it feels very familiar. It’s a great shared history we have. Maybe I look back on it even a little more fondly because I know that it’s something that Jeff and I had together. South Bend is a great place to grow up and it’s a great place to raise a family. I would not move back there much to my parents’ chagrin.

What did you study/what are you interested in?

I went to Purdue and I started out in their journalism program. Purdue isn’t really known for journalism, and after my first semester of freshman year I knew I wanted to change my major. I wanted to learn graphic design, but I wanted to know more about the technical part of it, so I went into the school of technology and majored in computer graphics technology. It was a little bit of design, but mostly it was coding and designing websites in HTML and other early languages that I don’t remember at all anymore. It was also learning 3D modeling and video work.

Meanwhile, I started working at the student newspaper, The Exponent. I really just threw myself into that and I worked there all four years of college. I started out as a reporter, then I was the city editor, then the managing editor, and I also worked as the graphics editor. By the time I left Purdue, I had a couple internships in journalism under my belt, and it was really just easier to go that route. So I followed journalism, which is really my main love over coding and 3D rendering things.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

The years before Cardinal I was freelancing. I helped Edible Indy, a magazine about the food culture in Indianapolis and beyond, launch, and Piccoli Dolci, an Italian bakery business here in Bloomington get their start. I wrote a little for Bloom and a women’s lifestyle blog, but mostly I trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I suspected that I might eventually have a role in Cardinal, but there really wasn’t a solid place for me at the beginning and I just planned on continuing to freelance for as long as possible. Then we had our son Ben in November of 2014, Cardinal opened in February of 2015, and I started doing work for Cardinal in May of 2015. I feel very lucky that I was able to just kind of dabble and be a mom at the same time.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

I’m on the marketing team at Cardinal. I run our social media channels, I’m in charge of our media outreach, I update our blog, I might work with some events like launches in new states, and I help with whatever random marketing projects are thrown my way. As an example, in 2016 Adam and I wrote, photographed, and designed a cocktail recipe book. In general, I also try to make sure that almost anything, from bottle labels to dinner menus, passes before my eyes for proofreading and copy-editing before it gets printed or goes into the world.

We have a baby and a toddler, so I feel like we’re in the thick of it right now. Outside of Cardinal, I’m usually spending time with my family. We take walks, go to the park, and visit the farmers’ market. I’m a big consumer of journalism. If you set almost magazine or newspaper in front of me I will for sure read it. It helps me keep a lot of my interests, like food or fashion travel, even if I’m not able to do those things with my time physically. Jeff and I do like to travel. At this point in our lives we’re not going to a lot of exciting places, but even if we’re going to Louisville or Chicago or Phoenix, we like to explore cities through food and drink. We’re always going to places with great cocktails and seeing what everyone else is up to. Part of it is research, but then part of it is just what we like to do.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up on a small farm west of Indianapolis in Hendricks County, about an hour away from Bloomington.

What did you study/what were you interested in?

I studied biology, chemistry & computer science. I’m interested in creative childrearing, politics, sustainable agriculture, food & drink, public administration, astrobiology and miscellanea.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

Before Cardinal, I was IT Director at City of Bloomington, partner at Stranger’s Hill Organics farm, Monroe County Democratic Party Chairperson and a Monroe County Council Member. I was also a home brewer, mead maker & beekeeper contemplating starting up a small distillery.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

At Cardinal, I am a founder and partner. I continue to work at the City of Bloomington as IT Director/CIO and as a partner at Stranger’s Hill Organics farm too. Home and family life with my wife Debby and our young daughters, Juniper & Genevieve, is my main focus these days, and I am a happily retired politician.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

Cardinal has become a wonderful part of the fabric of life in Bloomington and that’s a credit to everyone on staff.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Munster, Indiana. After college I went back to work for a couple of months and then I moved out to Baltimore. It was a great little town to grow up in. My dad was the chief of police there, so, [laughs] that had an interesting dynamic associated with it, both good and challenging. But I loved growing up there, I love Indiana. I’m definitely a midwestern boy.

What did you study/what were you interested in?

In college I studied biology and chemistry. After that I went to graduate school and studied engineering, a program called machatronics. It’s a combination of mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering.

When I grew up, I loved two things: I loved science and I loved math and engineering. I started off in science and worked in pharmaceuticals for twenty years. Then, when I was working in Maryland, I back to graduate school to take on the engineering side. This is why I like to spend a lot of time talking with Jeff about things like operations and production.

What do you do for Cardinal?

I advise on both the business side and the technical side. I focus a lot on supply-chain, how to deliver their products better, how to get more flow out of the production and improve their productivity, and how to grow the business. So, I would say it’s been in an advisory role, but being part of the company is more than just that. I’m a bit of a jack of a lot trades, so I can help in a lot of different areas.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

I’ve been doing consulting work for Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, Boeing, and many, many different companies, using Theory of Constraints. Jeff had an interest in utilizing Theory of Constraints, so he reached out to me and we started just chatting. He would call and ask questions about once a month or once every two months. As time went on, they asked me to become an advisor for them. I did and then I moved on to becoming an owner.

What do you do outside of Cardinal?

I have my own business and I’m still doing consulting work. Using Theory of Constraints is a main theme of the work that I do. I help in engineering, IT, sales, product-supply and supply-chain, and I leverage ToC in all of those different areas.

With this kind of job, I travel a ton. I’m probably gone forty weeks out of the year for travel. I love the different cultures. I love working with the different regions and learning how they think differently, how they live, and what their challenges and benefits are. It helps me think through issues people have in a different way, so I really appreciate it. I’ve had the chance to go to China, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland, Sweden… a lot of different places, which is a lot of fun.

I like to play golf and I like to fish. In the summer I like to play softball, go for walks with my wife, and spend time with my kids, who are all older now. The last one just graduated from college. Most of what I do is work. I really enjoy what I do, so as much as it’s work, it’s also pleasure to me.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

I love Cardinal. It’s a passion, it’s a hobby, it’s a lot of things that I really enjoy. Adam and the people who work there are trying to do the right thing. I’m very excited to work with them.

One of my key mantras is: No matter where we are, we can always improve.

Where did you grow up?

Naperville, IL (suburb of Chicago)

What did you study/what were you interested in?

I majored in Accounting and Finance at IU Kelley School of Business. I am a wealth advisor by day and spend the rest of my time with my wife and 2 kids and helping Cardinal Spirits grow into the business it is today.

What were you up to before Cardinal?

My wife, Julie, and I have 2 kids: age 12 and 10. So, they keep us busy with school, church, basketball and other activities.

What do you do at Cardinal/elsewhere?

I am a wealth advisor with Bartlett Wealth Management in Cincinnati, OH.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

I was so honored when Jeff asked me to be a part of this great company. I think the future is very bright for Cardinal and I will continue to work hard to help it grow for years to come!

Where did you grow up?

I’m a midwest brat. I was born in Youngstown, Ohio. I lived in Pennsylvania, then back in Ohio, and then into Indiana where I spent most of my childhood. Then I came down to school in Bloomington in 1999 to go to IU.

What did you study/what were you interested in?

I started off with aspirations to do business and maybe political science. Then I took a really great sociology class and I realized that that is what I wanted to do. And so I majored in sociology.

As long as I was in school, I was always doing student government and I really liked that. I said that my major in college was sociology and that’s true, but I feel like extra-curricular activities were where my passion was. That really helped me lead to some really great jobs and certainly some great friends. I did student government and some other organizations which led me to working at IU. That was a great experience and it kept me in Bloomington.

What else do I like? I love to read and I love to watch movies and I’m super happily married and I have two great kids. So all those things plus this business keep me pretty busy.

What were you up to prior to Cardinal Spirits?

I worked at IU for about seven years. Even when I was working at IU I was researching and trying to get the distillery going. There was a little bit of a down-time there where I started a company that had did fundraising for some nonprofits and political candidates. Then I met Adam in 2010, who we both wanted to start distilleries independently and then we came together, we joined forces, much like Voltron or Captain Planet, and started our distillery.

What do you do at Cardinal?

I’m the president of Cardinal and one of the co-founders. I love working at Cardinal because every day there’s fun new challenges. What I enjoy most about working at Cardinal is working with all the employees. It’s amazing how smart and creative everyone is here and how hard-working they are and passionate about building Cardinal. It’s amazing to me. I think that on paper, the Birdhouse reports to me and production reports to me, but since Adam and I are co-founders, we are involved with everything from financial operations and decisions to marketing decisions and branding and opening new markets and distribution. Adam and I are split off a lot of those tasks so that we can focus on particular areas. So I get to mostly focus on production and the Birdhouse as well as the financial operations and the “business” of our business.

What do you do elsewhere?

I love to read and watch movies. I’m super happily married and I have two great kids. So all those things plus this business keep me pretty busy. It’s funny, I don’t know if I really have any hobbies. I like cooking, I like playing with my kids and hanging out with friends, but all those things sound like what a teenager would do, other than the caring for your kids part. I would say that the business has been pretty consuming, so extracurricular activities haven’t been too present in my life as of lately.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, right now.” — Teddy Roosevelt.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Evansville, Indiana right on the Ohio River, my home river. It was the quintessential midwestern American-kid childhood–lots of time spent outdoors and then, once Nintendo came, a lot of time spent indoors.

What did you study/what were you interested in?

In college, I “took” Sociology as a major, but I didn’t really study anything. I’m more of a self-learner. I was interested in music and literature. I read a lot of twentieth century American novelists, that was what I was really into at that time in my life. Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Anthony Burgess—those were sort of my big three. But I guess in relation to this, all along, before I was really even legal I was making alcohol. I made bootleg wine in my attic and my friends’ attics. Then when I did turn twenty-one and I started getting into spirits, I really got more into spirits because of the stuff I was reading. So for a long time I was just drinking Wild Turkey because Hunter S. Thompson was drinking Wild Turkey. And then I got into Hemingway so I started drinking gin and Campari. I didn’t have any money—I was a “sandwich artist” at Subway–so I would just buy really cheap vodka and infuse it at home to try to make my own creations. So I’ve been making alcohol and home infusions for almost twenty years now.

What were you up to prior to Cardinal Spirits?

Since high school I was making websites, back when they didn’t look very good and it was all still pretty new. I ended up moving to New York City and got a job doing web design in Hoboken, New Jersey. I got into web video for quite a while and then I got more into the business side of it. I had a little company in Brooklyn that I created with two friends. At the time I was thinking I could either continue doing what I was doing, which was a lot of video work and social media stuff, which was fine, I wasn’t super passionate about it, but I loved the idea of doing a distillery. Then I met the guys who run Sproutbox in Bloomington and they offered me a job, which I took. Then I met Jeff. He had been thinking about opening a distillery here and I had been thinking about it in Brooklyn, so we just started putting our ideas together. It took a while to figure out exactly what we wanted to do, but I think the idea we came up with together is better than each of our individual ideas.

What do you do at Cardinal?

I am the CEO and one of the cofounders. I spend most of my time thinking about next month and then six months from then, and then sometimes I get to think about a year from then. But most of my time is spent just a little bit into the future, planning. I feel very fortunate to have the ability to plan, being able to rely on Jeff to handle the present day operations and the management of all the moving pieces here. I also focus on marketing and branding.

What do you do elsewhere?

I like to dig in the dirt and grow things. That’s probably my favorite thing to do, other than this. I occasionally get to do woodworking too, but that’s not as often.

Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?

Have fun, do your best, colonize Mars.