Work Experience

Briefly before moving to Mississippi I worked as an order filler for a large DFW based international ministry in their distribution center. It was about the same as working in a fulfillment center for Fed Ex or Amazon except with much better working conditions. My favorite part of the job was putting together salvation packages and shipping Bibles to prisoners who had made a decision to follow Christ. Sometimes my Dad and I would stay late past normal hours just to package all of the Bibles so they would go out on time the next day. It’s one of my favorite memories from that job.

Upon moving to MS, I briefly worked as a virtual sales rep for Vector Marketing (selling Cutco knives) then later the same year took a full time position at a local Chick Fil A. I took my job very seriously, especially the company motto “It’s our pleasure to serve you”. Within the first 2 months of working there I was already moving up. I began training new hires, and coaching under performing team members.

I was one of the few leaders that was cross trained, knowing how to work both front of house and back of house. Some of the new hires I trained are still managers there to this day. I enjoyed challenges to be better and more efficient. One weekend our owner challenged us to hit an hourly sales goal for the drive thru. I was convinced that our drive thru could be more efficient, but they had the wrong team members in the wrong places. I spoke to our Director and told him my thoughts, and said that if he let me take his place running drive thru, we would hit the goals. He laughed but said “Go For It”. I picked new positions for the team members, and got to work. We not only hit the sales goal that night, but the next night as well. This experience taught me that sometimes who’s on your team isn’t the problem, you just have them in the wrong position. Placing the right people in the right place to utilize their strengths was a lesson in leadership I learned while on this job.

I was consistently outperforming my fellow team members. Rather than use this to gloat, I took it as an opportunity to lead. I asked for permission to spend time coaching our cashiers on how to be more efficient and work quickly with accuracy. This put me on the path to training many of our future managers, and of course we saw significant improvements from those team members after I worked with them. I took this same approach when working in the kitchen. The first night I ran the kitchen (which was a Thursday), we actually met customers at the register with their food BEFORE they had finished paying for the order. We had no waits on food, and perfect order accuracy the entire night. The biggest key to my success was introducing better communication between the front and back of house teams, which led to better chemistry and less confusion. This is what can happen when you have strong, effective leadership as well as excellent communication.

Towards the end of my time there, I took another full time position as the training director at a local restaurant in Flowood. I also carried an additional role as a front of house manager. These roles included managing staff, scheduling staff, training new hires, developing training programs, policies, and procedures, enforcing store and staff policies, serving customers, resolving customer complaints, balancing and reporting the finances for the day, and various other management related tasks. While in this role, I continually developed new ways to be more efficient, and serve the customers better while also increasing the morale and support of our staff members. I advocated for pay increases, longer breaks, and more flexibility.

When I decided to step away from this position, I wrote a letter of resignation and offered a 4 week notice to the owner. He told me that I was the first person to ever give that large of a notice, and that if I ever needed a job I would be welcome back there. He tried to hire me down the road as a general manager when looking to expand, but I politely declined as I did not want to work in the food business any longer.

During my journey to leave the food industry I was hired by U-Haul to work as a sales agent, working from home for their contact center. They were aware of my resume and my training experience, and within 3 months I was asked to become a trainer. Shortly after I became certified as a trainer, my manager moved to a different department and I was assigned to a new team. I expected to be forgotten about at this point, as I previously had bad experiences with management transitions in the workplace. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Wendy, the coolest manager I’ve ever had entered the scene. She was a cat loving, Call of Duty playing, meme sending monster of a manager. She reached out within the first week me joining her team and asked me if I was interested in moving up the chain. By my 6 month mark, I had received two more promotions moving me from being a trainer to a coach; and from a coach to an assistant manager. I continued perfecting my craft, becoming more proficient in Microsoft Office and Excel; and learning from Wendy how to be an Excel formula master. For the record, I still hate doing spreadsheets to this day but the skills I learned were vital.

Within another 4 months, I received another promotion and became a team manager. I began building relationships with my team members, discovering their strengths and weaknesses, and developing plans to coach them forward. During my time as a team manager I was still looking for ways to improve myself and company, and frequently had productive discussions with Wendy to grow our department in a positive direction.

During my journey to leave the food industry I was hired by U-Haul to work as a sales agent, working from home for their contact center. They were aware of my resume and my training experience, and within 3 months I was asked to become a trainer. Shortly after I became certified as a trainer, my manager moved to a different department and I was assigned to a new team. I expected to be forgotten about at this point, as I previously had bad experiences with management transitions in the workplace. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Wendy, the coolest manager I’ve ever had entered the scene. She was a cat loving, Call of Duty playing, meme sending monster of a manager. She reached out within the first week me joining her team and asked me if I was interested in moving up the chain. By my 6 month mark, I had received two more promotions moving me from being a trainer to a coach; and from a coach to an assistant manager. I continued perfecting my craft, becoming more proficient in Microsoft Office and Excel; and learning from Wendy how to be an Excel formula master. For the record, I still hate doing spreadsheets to this day but the skills I learned were vital.

Within another 4 months, I received another promotion and became a team manager. I began building relationships with my team members, discovering their strengths and weaknesses, and developing plans to coach them forward. During my time as a team manager I was still looking for ways to improve myself and company, and frequently had productive discussions with Wendy to grow our department in a positive direction.

On my two year anniversary of working with U-Haul I woke up that morning ready to work. Oddly, I could not bring myself to walk to my desk and clock in. I had this unexplainable feeling that it was time to move on. I prayed, and decided that it was time to launch out on the journey of being a business owner. My manager understood, and was aware of my goals and aspirations as a music artist and businessman. She told me I could resign that day, and if I ever wanted to return to just reapply.

During the beginning of COVID while most businesses were failing and closing, I was just getting started. It didn’t make sense to launch a business in this season, but I felt that the Lord said the time is now. I began driving for Uber and Lyft to supplement my income while working on a business plan for a recording studio. Previously, I had interned and worked as an assistant at Vizions Unlimited Studios in Jackson on Greenway Drive.

I built my business model off services rather than products. I made myself the product. I worked from my home studio, and any other studio that would allow me to contract. This allowed me to serve my clients no matter where they were located, with zero overhead and no cost up front. I only paid the studios for the time I booked with clients, which I factored into my rates. Using this business model, since I launched I have NEVER had a year in the red. Most businesses plan not to make a profit for the first 1-3 years. I had no such plan, and since I began in 2020 I have made a profit every year.

In 2021 I partnered with a friend who was opening a new studio in downtown Jackson. I began serving my clients exclusively from that space. At the same time I expanded my business to not just include studio recording and engineering, but live events and permanent installations as well.

Entering the live engineering and production industry was a huge boost to my business. I began contracting as an audio engineer with churches across the nation, including some of our largest multi-campus local churches. I also began working as an A/V tech with event production companies both locally and across the nation. This is still my largest source of business to this day.

Working in live event production is much different than studio work. In the studio you often have time to prepare, retake, rerecord, and perfect your final product. However, in live production (especially for churches) you are fortunate to have even one rehearsal, and you often have multiple surprises and unexpected requests and technical difficulties that arise with mere minutes to solve them.

Working in this industry has increased my ability to communicate clearly and effectively, solve problems with limited resources and crazy deadlines, and remain calm and perform under intense pressure. There’s often tens of thousands of dollars on the line with these events, and even one small mistake could mean disaster for your business or the client. The margin for error is incredibly small, and it requires preparation, skill, and resourcefulness to be successful.

My career has been multifaceted. Every piece of it connects to another. In case this was a lot for you to digest, here is an extensive yet not exhaustive list of my job and work experience in a more organized format. I have listed ministry staff positions that either were official volunteer staff positions or paid staff positions. I have not included unofficial staff positions in this page, but they will be included in my ministry page.

  • Order Filler at an International Ministry Headquarters in Texas

  • Sales agent at Vector Marketing

  • Team Member and Trainer at Chick Fil A

  • Training Director & FOH Manager Grant’s Kitchen & Grill

  • Audio engineer at Vizions Unlimited Studios

  • 5 Star Professional Rideshare Driver with Uber & Lyft

  • Sales Agent, Trainer, and at U-Haul Contact Center

  • Assistant Sales Team Manager at U-Haul Contact Center

  • Sales Team Manager at U-Haul Contact Center

  • Audio Transcriber

  • Young Adult Pastor & Worship Pastor at Redirection Church Ministries

  • Online Pastor at Redirection Church Ministries

  • Music & Production Director at Redirection Church Ministries

  • Founder & CEO of Sound by Servis

  • Audio Engineer at Word of Life Church

  • Minister of Music at World Overcomers Church

  • Audio/Visual Technician at Davaine Lighting & Theatrical

  • Audio/Visual Technician at Duling Hall/Ardenland

  • Audio Engineer at L7 Productions

  • Video Director

  • Website & Graphic Designer

  • Vocal Coach

  • Interim Worship Pastor at The Well Church

  • Interim Music & Production Director at The Well Church

  • System Design and Consulting

  • Audio/Visual System Installation