Hello there!
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I'm a husband, a dad, a pencil artist, and a Japanese speaker who somehow ended up running a digital marketing agency in Tennessee.
Those things might not seem connected.
They are.
I live in Johnson City with my wife Lindsay and our four kids: Collins, Evelyn, John Beckham (JB), and Abigail. Life in our house is loud, joyful, and rarely predictable, which suits me fine.
During the day I help small businesses get found online. Websites, search rankings, the systems that turn visitors into actual customers. That's the work.
But there's a longer story behind how I got here, and it starts about 7,000 miles away.
1997 — 2011
Japan first got its hooks in me in 1997, when I went as an exchange student for a year.
It didn't let go.
I went back in 2001 on the JET Program, this time as a Coordinator for International Relations at Nagano City Hall, a role that put me at the intersection of language, culture, and local government for three years. After that I moved to Tokyo, took a job in the language department of a digital marketing company, and eventually launched a freelance translation career that carried me the rest of my time there.
I stayed because I wanted to. The culture, the people, the language, there was always more to understand, and I kept finding reasons to go deeper.
It was only in 2011, when my mom got sick, that I came home.
Eleven years taught me something you can only learn by actually living somewhere foreign for a long time: that understanding people, the way they think and communicate, matters more than almost any technical skill you can develop. I still carry that with me.
I still do Japanese-to-English translation for corporate clients too. It exercises a completely different part of the brain than marketing does, and I've never stopped enjoying it.
I met Lindsay on eHarmony in 2015. It was her last day on the platform, which feels like the kind of detail that belongs in a movie. It didn't take long to figure out she was the one.
She's a former kindergarten teacher, and those instincts didn't go anywhere when she left the classroom. She homeschools all four of our kids, and she's genuinely great at it, patient and creative in ways that still impress me.
Collins, Evelyn, John Beckham (JB), and Abigail are each two years apart, which means our house runs on a kind of organized chaos that never really lets up. Loud, busy, wonderful. We wouldn't trade it.
For a long time we also had Ellie, a Jack Russell terrier I brought back from Japan. She lived fourteen years and was, without question, the best dog I've ever known. The house felt different after she was gone.
The kids, the noise, the life we've built together, they keep everything in perspective.
My faith isn't a background detail. It's the foundation.
I believe the Bible is true and that God created everything. That belief shapes how I try to live, how I run my business, and what we try to pass on to our kids. As a family we go to church together on Sundays and Wednesdays and participate in weekly Bible studies.
It's not just something I believe. It's something I try to actually live.
These days I run a digital marketing company based in Johnson City, Tennessee. We help local businesses build strong websites, get found in search, and set up systems that capture and follow up with leads, so the work they're already doing actually turns into customers.
Most of the small businesses I work with are excellent at what they do. Getting found online is just a different skill set, and that's where I come in.
"I like solving problems — whether it's helping a business get found online or finding the right English word for a tricky Japanese phrase."
Looking back, the threads aren't hard to spot.
Japan taught me precision and patience. Art taught me to slow down and look carefully. Faith and family remind me what's actually worth building toward.
Those things show up in the work. I don't think you can separate them.
If you run a business and you're trying to figure out how to get found online, there's a good chance we'd have a lot to talk about.