About Me

Me and my Rauchbier der Dachstube

For the first time in my professional life, something is providing me the passion and the direction for a more fulfilling career. It's the exciting, dynamic, and innovative nature of the craft beer industry. To me, it can be a model for how to live one's life but more on that later.


I have spent the last 10 years of my life as a pharmaceutical management professional. It's a profession I just fell into and did not know it even existed before responding to that first employment ad. As the years passed, I grew increasingly restless with the path I was on. It payed well but it was in no way fulfilling. During the last 5 of those 10 years I became very interested and passionate about craft beer. It is what sustained me during the years I was barely hanging on to my current career path. It provided me the opportunity to do a lot of traveling and try new beer in great beer destinations. Recently though, that wasn't even enough. I decided it was time to take the leap and devote myself to pursuing a career in the craft beer industry.


Since leaving my pharmaceutical career behind I have completed a 5 month course to become a life skills coach. I am now a certified life skills coach under the standards set by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). In part it was to help myself establish my path forward but it was mostly to help others achieve greater self empowerment and fulfillment. I had met so many colleagues through the years who did not know how they ended up in the job they were in, and they did not know how to change the situation. Sound familiar?


As I began to consider how to cultivate a craft beer career, it quickly became apparent to me what a great muse craft beer is for empowerment and fulfillment for an individual. The industry is full of passion, motivation, innovation, self sacrifice, embracing fear, and limited judgment…many of the most crucial thinking patterns and traits that a life skills coach encourages for a client can be found in the craft beer industry.


At the July 2012 Beer Bloggers Conference Garrett Oliver said, "The purpose of beer is people." Since April 2012 that is what I have set out to capture…the human condition behind craft beer. Most notably, I have started a life-skills based interview series to capture the essence and energy of the people creating the excitement behind the craft beer industry. The interviews read like a mini-biography of the brewer's life skills and traits. Check out current interviews.


I am also working on a program that uses the brewing process as a unique model for coaching others through personal change. The Craft You Process.


Subscribe here or follow me @craftbeercoach on Twitter to stay informed of my unique approach to using craft beer as the muse for self empowerment and fulfillment.


A note about the image: Dachstube is German for attic. My circa 1900's uninsulated attic is where I fermented the Rauchbier during the cold winter of 2011.