Did you always see yourself becoming a scientist – and was leadership and entrepreneurship something you were drawn to from the start?
I was always inquisitive. For example, I’d study encyclopedias when I visited my grandparents in the summers. I was naturally drawn to science because I wanted to understand how the world worked. By about age 12 or 13, I remember thinking, “I think I want to be a scientist – if I even know what that is.” So that was always something I wanted to pursue.
As for leadership and entrepreneurship – they’re not exactly the same – but in every job I’ve had, I’ve been asked to step into a leadership role. My dad is a natural leader, and I think I picked up some of that from him. Whether I was working as a janitor, in a restaurant, or on a farm, I was often asked to become a manager. People just tended to look to me to lead.
On the entrepreneurial side, I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but my grandfather was a big influence. He worked in construction – trucks, rock crushers, building roads – and talked a lot about building businesses, buying equipment, and hiring people. It wasn’t until several years ago that I recognized how important that influence was.
Even early on, I knew I wanted to do something on my own – I wanted to leave a legacy for my family.
How many businesses have you founded? And looking across those experiences, what ultimately determines whether a venture succeeds or fails?
I have founded 11 businesses – I’m still involved in eight of them.
If you look at what outlets like Forbes typically highlight, there are three fundamental factors: having sufficient capital, having a real market for your product or service, and being able to sell and market it effectively. You have to get those right. But if all three are in place, then the founding team becomes the most important factor. What really differentiates Veloxity is the integrity of the founding team and every team member since – that is something that I haven’t always experienced in my companies.
As a company grows beyond its founding team, how do you maintain the right culture?
It’s important to hire a diverse group of people who bring different perspectives – you don’t want everyone thinking the same way. But at Veloxity, we have a simple motto: hire for attitude, train for skill.
A candidate’s CV will tell you their background – they may have a chemistry or biology degree – but what really matters is whether they’re coachable. Are they willing to learn? Do they have grit? Do they have a genuine passion for science? And are they prepared to persevere when challenges inevitably arise? You want people who have overcome challenges in their own lives, because they’re the ones who will stay resilient when things get tough.
When I look at our team at Veloxity, every single person has faced some kind of challenge – whether it’s a family situation or a personal health issue. The same is true of the founding team. All of us are first-generation college graduates. We’ve had to overcome a lot. Our parents were truck drivers, nurses, construction workers, laborers – those are our roots.
To reach positions in science from those beginnings takes resilience, and those are exactly the kinds of people we want on our team. That’s what we’ve built, and it’s been a huge part of our success. I’m incredibly grateful – we’ve grown much faster than I imagined.
You’ve competed in bodybuilding and powerlifting, and have a background in wrestling – what lessons from those experiences have carried over into your professional life?
Across all of those experiences, my personal motto has been “never be outworked.”
Whether it was bodybuilding – where I became a national champion – or powerlifting or wrestling, those pursuits taught me the value of dedication and relentless work ethic. That mindset has carried directly into my business ventures. That said, “never be outworked” doesn’t mean working 23 hours a day, seven days a week, as some people assume. What it really means is never being out-disciplined.
What did you learn from pushing yourself to extremes in bodybuilding?
Preparing for a bodybuilding competition requires complete focus. During that period, I had to strip everything back. I told my wife there were things I simply wouldn’t have the energy or time for – no vacations, very few distractions – and she was incredibly supportive in helping me prioritize.
At the same time, I was launching Veloxity, so my focus narrowed to just two things: the business and the bodybuilding competition. Everything else was put on hold.
Physically, it was extremely demanding. For people who haven’t seen what a bodybuilding show entails, it’s about “cutting” your body fat down to extremely low levels so that every muscle is visible on stage. Because I was so depleted, my resting heart rate dropped from around 60–65 beats per minute into the 40s. And I remember being in an airport in Arizona with two of my kids during the national championship – we had to run to a gate, and I couldn’t do it. I handed them my bags and said, “I’ll meet you there – just tell them to wait for me.”
But after going through that extreme experience and winning, I realized that I could do anything I truly committed to. It reinforced the idea that where your mind goes, your body will follow.
How do you manage to balance so many commitments – multiple businesses, fitness, and family life?
My calendar is very full, but everything is scheduled. I even schedule what and when I eat, when I exercise – everything goes on the calendar.
My day follows a consistent – and, frankly, boring – routine. I wake up, get ready, read the Bible, then The Wall Street Journal, followed by a self-help or business book. Then I start my workday at Veloxity, carving out time for other projects and a workout. But boring is consistent, and consistency leads to success. If you do the same things day after day with discipline, the results will come.
I also make a point of scheduling family time. Being a disciple of Jesus is the most important thing to me, followed by being a husband and a father of six children. So I block out time for my family just as deliberately as anything else.
That’s something I haven’t always done as well as I should have, but I’ve learned how important it is. Ultimately, that’s where the legacy is – within my family – and it deserves to be treated as a priority.
Does your faith influence how you approach business and decision-making?
It does. I have a personal vision statement: to glorify God and leave a legacy for my children’s children. Every business I start has to align with that.
I’m open about my faith and I don’t feel any need to hide it. At the same time, it doesn’t mean I don’t respect or accept people who believe differently. But for me, the closer I grow in my faith, the more clarity, peace, and success I find in life.
How does that sense of purpose translate into the impact you want your work to have?
It absolutely shapes how I think about impact. At Veloxity, our vision is “treating disease one sample at a time.” I have a picture on my desk of a young girl named Mila, who was battling a rare condition called Batten disease. I shared that with the team as a reminder of why we do what we do.
We’re not just analytical chemists developing methods – though I enjoy that side of it. At a deeper level, we’re helping to treat disease, one sample at a time. That’s a powerful sense of purpose, and it’s what drives us every day.
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