My passion in life is finding a way to combine three things that I love — entrepreneurship, travel, and philanthropy — whenever and wherever I can.
After university, I started off with web development and tech consulting for the first years of my professional journey, then expanded into other fields as my interests grew. Nowadays I spend much of my time traveling — exploring new countries and cultures, and creating entrepreneurial ventures around the world.
My current focus is travel and tourism — mainly through my safari company in Tanzania. I also run a culinary travel experience called Eat Japan, where I take small groups through the country on a multi-day feast to experience Japan via its food and drink scene.
I enjoy giving back by assisting in various charitable causes, mainly those having to do with education, or clean water and sanitation for developing countries (e.g. through my work with the non-profit A Vision For Clean Water).
I also love participating in ludicrous charity-minded adventures, such as driving an old car from London to Mongolia to raise money to build a kindergarten there, or spending months driving from the UK to South Africa in cars dressed up like a pair of sneakers to raise money for schools along the way, or spending weeks at a time piloting an auto-rickshaw a total of 11,000 miles through India while raising money to support a variety of causes throughout the country.
How I Got Started
I was born and raised in Metro Detroit, along with my younger brother and sister, and lived a comfortable life throughout my first eighteen years. I didn’t enjoy school all that much and spent a lot of time just reading books, drawing, and playing video games at home.
Things changed when I was accepted into a year-long work/study program in Japan right out of high school. I proceeded to spend my first year of university overseas — living for the first time on my own and learning all about Japan, thousands of miles away from home.
I loved every minute of it.
When I returned back to the States everything seemed so dull. I wanted nothing more than to go back to Japan and spent much of every day daydreaming and scheming how I could make that happen. One of the main barriers was a lack of funds, so I returned to my old job of selling electronics at one of the big-box retail stores. I soon realized that things weren’t the same as they had been a year earlier. The environment hadn’t changed much, but I definitely had.
I quit after just a few months and started a web development company as a sort of temporary measure until I could find a “real job.” I knew how to develop websites, having taught myself in middle school, and enjoyed the work as it combined my interests in technology and design. After a few years, I was making enough to support myself and quit looking for the “9-to-5” employment that I thought was the only logical path ahead for me.
I spent the next few years racing through my university degree as quickly as possible so that I could go back to Japan, rejoin my friends, and continue my life there. However, by the time I graduated, I was already regularly spending two to three months every year overseas, and the business outlook was promising, so I wasn’t about to give everything up for a corporate job — in Japan, or anywhere else. The money coming in paid the bills, and more importantly, allowed me the freedom to travel whenever and wherever I wanted as long as I had my laptop and an internet connection.
By 2009 I was spending upwards of half the year overseas, and my travels only increased from there.
So, Now What?
Nowadays it’s more than travel for travel’s sake — I’m spending more time on my businesses, and charitable projects, both in Detroit and abroad. My primary focus now is growing my companies, as well as assisting others to achieve success through their endeavors.
The goal? To create successful businesses; to have a meaningful, happy life; and to create lasting, positive change in the world through whatever opportunities and resources I’m presented with.