Welcome New 20Fathoms Members! (Winter 2021)

We have a few new faces around 20Fathoms! Say hello to Clare Boals, Patrick Ellis, Abby McKiernan, Brian Stewart, and Nick Aja.

I am passionate about healthcare and have spent my career working for healthcare startups including Oscar Health Insurance, Landmark Health, and Willow Innovations. I’ve built and led inside sales, patient engagement, and customer experience functions at these companies. 

I love working remotely from Northern Michigan but miss being around the energy and collaboration of an office setting. I am looking forward to connecting and building with the awesome 20Fathoms community.

I enjoy almost all outdoor activities, especially hiking (with my dog Ruthie), skiing & horseback riding.

I am a Traverse City-based attorney representing founders, investors, and businesses across diverse industries and varying stages of maturity regarding formation, corporate governance, investment financing and fund formation, commercial transactions and M&A, commercial and residential real estate, and day-to-day operational and legal matters. Before joining Kuhn Rogers PLC, I worked in General Motors’ legal department where I advised teams launching new businesses and product offerings across the US and international markets.

The community and its members’ expertise.

Chasing my toddler son! Staying active and spending time outdoors, golfing (poorly), cooking, and reading.  

I have always been a job gypsy trying out new things and exploring different ways of making money and finding fulfillment. It has led me from being a direct care worker at assisted living facilities, to marketing and public relations at a car dealership, to finance, to program directing in the nonprofit sector. The common theme of my work has always been about connecting, communicating, and helping others – so founding and being the Executive Director of Spark in the Dark, where we have connected almost 50,000 needs to community-oriented solutions since 2017, makes all the sense in the world. 

Our organization is focused on helping our community members in need to succeed and thrive and find support in hard times. 20Fathoms has an aligned mission focused on helping incredible new companies find support and community to lift them up as they grow – we are two peas in a pod! It is great for our organization, who is rethinking the way the nonprofit sector gets help to those in need, to be around other innovative companies making waves in their industry! 

Outside of work, above all else I love spending time with my 2 kids – Scarlett is 7 and Aiden is 14 – and my husband. Whether that is a day at the beach, a walk to the ice cream store, or movie nights – they are my favorite part of every day and my biggest blessing. My husband and I enjoy trying new restaurants, drinks, and experiences and travel every chance we get! 

For the past six years I have worked in the sign-making industry producing things like real estate signs or complex setups for events across the country. But as of recently I am a C# / .NET bootcamp graduate from Grand Circus looking to delve into the network of Traverse City while honing up the skills I learned.

What impressed me most about 20Fathoms was the variety of brilliant minds working in a shared space, it’s a very inspiring environment to be in and I look forward to contributing to that.

Outside of work I enjoy creative stimulation such as animation, graphic design, music, and video games. Since the 2018 World Cup I’ve been a huge international football (soccer) fan and have been closely following intense competitions like the Premier League and Champions League.

I am a software developer and recently started at Hagerty as a front-end software engineer. I specialize in ReactJS and I’ve also worked with C# .NET core, Python, PHP, and SQL. I’ve also worked at Midmark RTLS (formerly Versus Technology), and Munson Healthcare in Information Systems. I graduated from Eastern Michigan University in computer science.

I was tired of working from home every day and Hagerty isn’t ready to open their offices. I went to a tccodes event last year and liked connecting to other professionals in tech in TC. The view here is pretty great too.

I play bass guitar at West Side Community Church, enjoy mountain biking with my golden retriever, Leo, and playing with my two kids, Evy (3) and Henry (almost 1). I’m also a big soccer fan and follow FC Barcelona, Manchester City, and Borussia Dortmund.