You already have the skill. The system is what is missing.

I started at U.S. Steel Gary Works in 1996 as a hot metal test sampler.

Over the years, I worked a lot of positions: ladle utilityman, casthouse helper, gas washer, skimmer operator, QBOP furnace operator, and then Melter Supervisor. I moved around a lot, not because I was aimless, but because I was quickly picking up everything the plant was teaching me. And I've always been open to learning. Still am.

By the time I left in 2023, I was a Senior Shift Manager running two shifts in the QBOP, leading a 72-person crew converting iron into 13,500 tons of liquid steel a day. Over 100 grades. Customer specs down to the molecule. EPA compliance, ISO 9001, 14001, and 45001. But my most proud accomplishment was the year my team achieved a .048 recordable injury rate against a 1.13 goal.

I didn't learn business from a textbook. I learned it from a charge floor where a mistake costs millions of dollars and can kill someone.

I learned root cause analysis by investigating furnace failures, not in a conference room. I learned quality gates by watching defects compound downstream when somebody tried to "save time" upstream. I learned workforce planning by scheduling union crews across rotating shifts for 17 years and still getting production out the door. Every system FORDEV uses was built on that foundation.

In 2023, I made a decision that scared me. After 27 years of swing shifts in Northwest Indiana, I retired from U.S. Steel, married my wife Jessica, and moved to Minnesota. I'd spent my whole career building systems for someone else's operation. It was time to build one for myself. And for people like me.

Now I need to tell you about my son.

Devyn was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2020 and received a heart transplant in 2022. He passed away in January 2025 from complications of sudden heart failure. He was the kind of person who would give you what he had, even when he didn't have much. His spirit is the reason FORDEV exists. The "DEV" in FORDEV is for him.

And I'm not saying the next part for sympathy. Let me be clear about that.

I have the same genetic heart condition that Devyn had. I've had two heart attacks. The first was a widowmaker in October 2023. My left anterior descending artery was 99% blocked. The survival rate outside a hospital is 10%. I should not have survived either one. But I'm still here, and both of them gave me something I didn't have before: clarity. I don't take a single day for granted. And I won't waste your time. Every system we create, every framework, every assignment in the 90-Day Sprint exists because I refuse to fill your time with bs when neither of us have time to be wasting time.

Here's what I believe.

You're already the expert. You've always been the expert. Whether you're the nurse who's running a 12-patient ward, the mechanic diagnosing a transmission, or the cleaner who's kept six clients for three years. You don't need someone to teach you how to work. You need someone who speaks your language, who's stood on the same kind of floor you stand on, and who can hand you the system that makes your expertise visible.

I'm not going to stand here and pretend I have it all figured out. I face the same self-doubt you do. The difference is I decided to build anyway, and now we're building this together.

That's what I built. That's what FORDEV is.