I grew up in the Alleghany Mountains surrounding The Homestead, where tourism and hospitality have shaped the local economy for generations. Some of my earliest jobs were in that five-star resort community, but my most formative experience was working for my father's small carpentry business.

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My dad is a pastor and a master craftsman—the kind of person who can tell a meaningful story and makes things that are built to last. I spent four years as my dad's office manager doing just about everything that had to happen behind the scenes—bookkeeping, payroll, contracts, marketing, taxes and working with customers. Watching him turn a skilled trade into a small business—the tough decisions he had to make and the integrity he practiced along the way—is really what shaped my sense of what makes a truly great business: one that designs something of real value for the people and community it serves.

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I've always been an artist myself and studied fine and graphic art at George Mason University. Over the years, different job experiences gave me opportunities to branch into web design, marketing publications and whiteboard videography. I didn't realize it at the time, but learning how to communicate what makes a person, product or business special would eventually become a useful skill for building a social enterprise that, in part, tells the stories of other great businesses.

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My introduction to local agriculture came when I went to work for Polyface Farm. I spent more than three years there working in sales, order fulfillment and regional delivery, and learned quite a bit about different approaches to agriculture. I helped prepare orders for Buying Club customers, restaurants and retailers and then climbed into a box truck and delivered them throughout Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland.​ This experience certainly changed the way I looked at our local economy. I got to see the whole chain—from the people producing the food, to the businesses buying it, to the conscientious consumers voting with their Benjamin Franklins for farms and businesses that give us more safe, natural and healthy options.

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After Polyface, driving gradually became my full-time work. I started by delivering Uber Eats—an innovative delivery model that provided a great way to get to know the Charlottesville area. I also worked in security on UVA's campus and drove for two black car companies on the weekends, where I tried out different transportation business models firsthand. My passengers ranged from graduate students and professors to business travelers, honeymooning couples and visitors spending the day exploring Virginia's wine country.

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It was during those years—and particularly behind the wheel of a black car—that Farm Belle really began to take shape. I enjoyed the conversations with guests and driving through Virginia's beautiful countryside, but after my years at Polyface, I knew there were a lot more than just grape farms in Virginia. There were regenerative farms, growers, makers and small businesses doing fascinating work that most visitors would never realize was there. By then, my own experience had crossed agriculture, small business, transportation and tourism, and I began imagining a way to bring those worlds together. Farm Belle Transportation grew out of that idea: a whole different kind of wine tour, where guests could experience the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley in a more meaningful way.

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Once I had worked out the services and drawn up a Farm Treasure Trail Map, there was still the practical matter of finding startup money. Since I'd already been driving professionally for years, I decided to get my Class A CDL and try to make some over the road.

 

I spent the next fourteen months driving an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer, primarily hauling refrigerated freight throughout the eastern United States. It was a completely different scale of transportation and quite an adventure—from outrunning tornadoes and getting jumped at truck stops to sweating bullets in the mountaintops of West Virginia on roads marked “not recommended for semi-tractor-trailers.” It gave me plenty of commercial driving experience and more than a few interesting stories to tell.

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Now, finally, I'm in a position to launch Farm Belle Transportation. And coming full circle, what once might have looked like a series of disconnected jobs makes a lot more sense to me. I actually started GreenRight years ago with a mission to make healthier, more sustainable products and services accessible to more people. What I didn't have yet was a business model. I had to go on a journey of my own to find it.

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Along the way, I was exposed to very different people, places, industries and ways of thinking. I learned from farmers and craftsmen, small-business owners and customers, graduate students and professors, and travelers and truck drivers. I saw businesses I admired, ideas I wanted to carry forward, and needs in our community that social enterprise could help address. Farm Belle grew organically out of those experiences.

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Today, it brings together transportation, tourism and agriculture in a way that serves a lot of different people. It gives travelers a comfortable way to get where they're going. It gives guests an opportunity to get out into the countryside and learn from the people doing interesting and important work here. It brings new customers and free marketing to participating farms and businesses. And through the larger social-enterprise model, those same premium experiences help make educational and restorative experiences available to people who otherwise couldn't afford them.

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Maybe that's what I like most about Farm Belle. It isn't only about where we're going. It's about creating opportunities for people to encounter something they might not have encountered otherwise—a place, a person, an idea, a healthier way of living, or a different possibility for their own life.

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Come experience the beauty of purpose-driven business—and a little more of what makes the Shenandoah Valley extraordinary. In black car style, of course.