I was born in Colorado, lived in Germany for a few years as a kid, and then we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. I graduated from high school in Northern Kentucky.

Moving around a lot as a kid, I constantly had to make new friends. Some years I was the "cool" new kid, while other years I was the "weird" new kid. It was this constant change that made me feel comfortable with the uncertainty of being an entrepreneur and shaped my people-focused personality.

I moved to Louisville in 2003 for college at the University of Louisville and have been here ever since. Between undergrad and grad school, I was in a band full-time, roaming around the US with a group of other sweaty guys and creating something I loved. I learned that if you pursue something you believe in, you will feel fulfilled and satisfied, even when it's hard to do.

I’m a creative and an entrepreneur and my core competency is relationship building. I hope to one day enable other entrepreneurs to take the risk of doing their own thing, without having to worry about how it will affect their family financially. This is why I love the Kiva platform.

US Chia produces and sells American grown chia seeds for human and animal nutrition. It is for people who care about what they eat themselves, what they feed their pets, and where their food comes from.

Our story began in a classroom: four strangers wanting to learn more, to do more, and hoping that one day they might change the world.

Scott Serdoz was a plant scientist by day and business student by night. He teamed up with classmates Jacy Cruz, Keith Starling, and me to move the research he helped with into the marketplace. In 2011, Kentucky Chia was formed.

In 2013, Kentucky Chia began producing its own chia seeds. We knew that the real world would be unpredictable (especially in the agriculture business) and that every mistake would be more costly producing on a large scale. This became even riskier when we found out that we would only have 100 lb. of starter seeds (compared to the 5,000 lb. we expected). Luckily, we partnered with top-notch producers who shared our vision and were equally excited about the opportunity to bring a new crop to the United States. After successful production runs in both Kentucky and Arizona, we officially changed our name to US Chia to reflect the scope of our operations and to emphasize the value and pride we take in producing our products in the United States.

In the next three years, we want to be America’s favorite chia company. The best place to get chia seeds and chia based products. We're on track to hit revenues of $100k in our first year and expect that number to grow exponentially as we increase our production capacity.

US Chia is proud to play a part in the positive reshaping of our food system in the United States.

I'm using this loan to cover the costs of procuring chia seed specific cleaning screens for our summer harvest. We're currently producing 100 acres and a loan from the Kiva community will help clean that crop faster and to a higher quality.

The entire project will cost $5,000. By procuring these specialized screens, we can cut down cleaning time by at least 30% and significantly decrease the amount of foreign materials (other weed seeds, etc) in our end product. This will enable us to promote superior purity and quality levels of our American-grown chia against the competition, which will help us stand out in our sales and marketing efforts.