Digital Worlds & Analog Ones

Two Kinds of Building

I have never found a clean line between the two halves of my work. Ask what I do, and the honest answer is that I build things, sometimes with a strategy deck and a spreadsheet, sometimes with a brush and a canvas, and the two have always shaped each other more than they have competed. I build digital worlds. I paint analog ones. Most days, I do a bit of both before lunch.

What I Build

For more than a decade, I have worked across digital publishing, SEO, content strategy, email marketing, and e-commerce, first as a way to help small businesses find their footing online, and eventually as the foundation for helping grow and operate our family-run ventures. At Hawaii Guide, I serve as publisher and growth strategist: I lead marketing, content, SEO, email, and partnerships, and I currently run our physical product line. That work builds on the publication John originally created in 2002; he remains its CEO, founder, and technical lead.

John and I co-founded Soil Wrangler, GroveTop Studio, and CritterCute. At Soil Wrangler, my work spans branding, product marketing, e-commerce, customer communication, and hands-on operations; John built the original site and developed the initial products. At GroveTop Studio and CritterCute, I contribute branding, marketing, e-commerce, design, and operational work alongside him.

I do not think of myself as a specialist in any one of those disciplines. I think of myself as someone who grows and leads digital businesses, and who has picked up the skills each one required along the way.

More recently, I have been designing human-led, AI-assisted workflows for my part of those businesses. I use AI selectively to organize research, improve repeatable processes, and reduce time spent on repetitive production tasks, while keeping source verification, strategy, brand voice, editorial judgment, and final approval in human hands.

What I Create

When the laptops close, the work does not stop, it just changes shape. I trained my eye in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign long before I understood why design mattered to a business, and I still use all three, for client work and for myself. Painting is where I go when a project needs more patience than a screen allows. I do not see it as a hobby that competes with the businesses. I see it as the discipline that makes the businesses worth building.

Where I Do It From

I live in Lexington, South Carolina, with my husband John and a genuinely chaotic flock of cockatoos, parrots, chickens, dogs, and one cat who supervises all of it. I grew up moving around the southeast as a military kid, which is probably why I still feel restless without a trip on the calendar, and why Hawaii found its way into my work as much as my life. Most weekends, you will find me in the garden or halfway up a ladder on a project I did not fully plan out, and I would not have it any other way.

Let's Build Something

If you want to see the strategy side of things, start with the Hawaii Guide case study, the Soil Wrangler case study, or the full list of ventures I have helped grow. If you would rather just say hello, send me an email.