Founder @ Loyal9 · Full-stack developer shipping apps that actually get used
19 years of retail logistics taught me two things: how to manage high-volume chaos and how to be fair, honest, and funny under pressure. I don’t fit the “code-on-demand” mold. I’m an introvert who learned to speak the language of leadership to protect my team and my data. I don’t smoke the product; I architect the truth behind it.
Shipped products on App Store & Google Play
Cannabis intelligence infrastructure
R&D and upcoming launches
The Pivot
Fatigue & Delay: A workers’ compensation nightmare
The workers’ compensation system is broken and in need of reform. Convicted felons and terrorist are treated more humanly in provided medical care than that of an injured worker. Workers’ compensation case studies have just started a couple of years ago. The data reveals a strong correlation to opioid addiction, overdose, and suicide of an injured employee going through the workers’ compensation process. Unfortunately, this is still not in the forefront of the average person to contribute outrage for change. This is just one story to show the denial of appropriate medical treatment to an injured employee and the needless pain and suffering that comes with it.
August 27, 2021 4.5
The Start
May 2000, I walked into Food 4 Less as a Utility Clerk. Nineteen years later I walked out for the last time as Produce Manager — but not before the job nearly paralyzed me.
The Climb
I climbed every rung: Service Deli Clerk, Cashier, Warehouse Clerk, Night Crew Lead. In 2004 a refrigeration copper pipe dropped from a scissor lift and smashed my lower back. The company doctor called it a bruise. I kept pushing.
By 2007 my L4-L5 disc had herniated 7mm, thanks to one leg being two inches longer and years of bending, pushing, and pulling heavy loads. They popped it back in and hit me with nine epidural shots over two years. During that stretch I leaned hard on alcohol and pain meds just to get through the day.
The Grind
I still kept climbing: Assistant Customer 1st Manager, then full Customer 1st Manager, acting Co-Manager, District Trainer for 4th and 3rd managers, even Assistant Company Trainer building schedules and forecasts. I was good with numbers — top 89th percentile in math back in ’98 — and I loved turning chaos into clean labor plans.
The Loss
Then in 2012 my best friend of 20 years, Jeremy, died of a heroin overdose. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. He wasn’t some street kid — he was one of the good ones. I started googling and learned heroin had become a “soccer mom drug” in Southern California because prescription opioids got locked down. That search led me to studies on cannabis as an opioid alternative… then to an article titled “The Science of Growing Cannabis.” I laughed out loud — plant a seed and water it, right? — and bookmarked it anyway. That bookmark sat in my brain until 2020.
The Break
Fast-forward to 2019. Corporate realignment dropped my store into a new district. The new DM was pissed I’d turned down a promotion years earlier because it came with a $10k pay cut under the old contract. Suddenly there was no room for a Co-Manager or even a 3rd Manager. I had to choose between cashier (standing in one spot for hours — hell on my back) or Produce Manager. I took Produce, figuring I could write the schedule to protect myself. I was wrong.
They transferred me back to Ontario under a manager who hated how well I knew labor and forecasting. He routinely stole hours from my department to pad night crew. I was running record sales while 80+ hours short every week. On June 8, 2019 — my little sister’s 21st birthday — I caught a 1,300+ piece load by myself. Cases from 5 to 80 pounds. I asked for help and got told no. I worked from midnight until my closer showed at 2pm. Around 4am my left hand stopped working right and I started dropping cases. That same night the night crew handled a 1,000-piece load (much lighter boxes) with five people.
I missed my sister’s birthday dinner, put in my two weeks the next day, and walked. The broken workers’ comp system plus COVID lockdown meant I wouldn’t get real answers until 2022: L4-L5 now protruding 9mm, multiple discs in my neck (C6-7 at 7mm with herniation), the damage crawling up my spine from the original injury. I had a hemilaminectomy in January 2023 and still do weekly physical therapy and chiro to avoid fusing my neck. I’m not skateboarding like I used to, but I’m off pain meds and stacking way more good days than bad.
The Pivot
After walking out of Food 4 Less I knew one thing for sure: I needed a desk job. I love numbers, so I searched analytics classes and landed in the pilot cohort of UC Berkeley’s Data Analytics Bootcamp — one of about 20 people worldwide. They called me an “out-of-the-box” candidate because I had zero computer background, but my test scores got me in. I earned an A. The program was mostly analytics, but those two weeks of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — plus a lot of Stack Overflow — planted the seed.
The Seed
Around that same time I was growing my own cannabis, even though I don’t smoke. I built a simple Excel file on my phone to track daily tasks, but quickly realized the info out there was a mess — mixed, bad, flat-out contradicting. Then I found a Stanford professor’s paper with a PhD in Horticulture laying out the actual science of each growth stage and what the plant really needs. I used that as my backbone and turned it into a daily guide.
I showed the spreadsheet to my best friend of 30+ years, Phil. He looked at it and said, “You need to make this an app.” I told him it sounded brutal — every strain has different flowering times, nutrient needs, everything. He just grinned and said, “You’re smart… figure it out.”
So I did. Lol.
The Origin
That’s how GrowApp was born — turning pain, loss, and a mountain of bad information into something growers can actually trust.