The Story Behind The Inertium

After a decade in engineering, I realized the hardest problems leaders face were never the technical ones

After 10 years designing and delivering commercial jet engines at Boeing, I began to recognize something important.

The most sophisticated engineering challenges were nothing compared to the human ones.

Technical problems can find clear solutions. The persistent problems that capable leaders struggle with were always about people and patterns.

Take an engineering director I worked for early in my career: he was a brilliant guy. He could see where our technical team needed to go, he could provide clear technical guidance and he understood the engine work package. And yet he would get inordinately frustrated with his team when problems arose - he wasn’t optimizing the team’s performance; he was trying to force it.

At the time, I was a lead engineer, and for years I saw adult professionals confronted with volatility that seemed to have no place in an office.

While this type of approach is becoming less and less common, we all know what it’s like to work for leaders who aren’t showing up at their best. We see the impact on their teams and in the spaces they create around them.

I became aware that things didn’t have to be like this.

The Shift

This realization ultimately led me to explore executive coaching. First, I worked with a coach to improve my own leadership capability. Then, I explored coaching as a way to help others.

5Fiveyears ago, I trained and certified with the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) and have since earned my Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential through the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

These are a whole lot of letters to say that I received some of the best available training for executive coaching (through iPEC), and I operate within a very clear, highly effective set of frameworks and ethics (ICF).

Since then, I’ve worked with founders, executives and leadership teams navigating the same challenge: how to lead with clarity and intention instead of letting their momentum, their default behavior, run the show.

Introducing The Inertium

In 2025, I founded The Inertium, named for the inertia we all have - our own internal resistance to change that must be understood and addressed if we want to move forward in new, different, and improved ways.

Most leaders are understandably focused on moving fast, pushing harder, and trying to grin and bear it when things are tough. The Inertium helps leaders and organizations more intentionally choose where they want to direct their effort, and where they want to end up.

What I Keep Seeing

Why do capable leaders feel stuck? They’re running on momentum they didn’t build consciously. They ended up in the role they’re in because they made a series of great decisions - and now, they’re in a new environment that calls for new approaches.

Approaches and patterns that worked in the past now create friction. For the fast-moving, quick-to-pivot founder who now has a team of 15 (or 50), that same behavior that secured funding now looks chaotic and is driving misalignment.

For the head of business development who came up through sales, the cutthroat, win-at-all-costs mentality that secured 10 years of President’s Club invites now alienates the teammates who need to pull together.

These leaders end up wasting time and burning energy by trying to force an approach that no longer fits.

How The Inertium Helps

At The Inertium, I help executives, founders, and teams step back and recognize where their approach is serving their objectives, and where it is not.

When leaders are struggling to gain traction, a team isn’t gelling through change, or there’s a sense of unutilized potential, there’s always a more aligned, more effective approach that’s right for that specific moment.

The solutions right for any individual or organization are different, and The Inertium’s approach is flexible to meet people where they’re at.

When leaders begin to move more intentionally, with less fear, they build momentum in ways that are sustainable and aligned with where their team needs to go.

Why This Work Matters

When leaders aren’t operating from confidence driven by curiosity, transparency, and authentic enthusiasm, every decision becomes harder. Teams feel this friction, even if they aren’t talking about it.

That engineering director created conditions where people had to perform in spite of him. When leaders operate suboptimally, people disengage, avoid conflict, or begin to check out, and their results reflect it.

The Inertium is in service of the people in our world - the leaders, their teams, and the ripple effect that emanates out from our human-to-human interactions.

Your World Needs the Best Version of You

This might start with a simple moment to reflect. Consider these questions:

What’s one thing that you hear your team needs? Clarity? Direction? More time?

And what is one thing that’s holding you back from addressing this with confidence? Low bandwidth? Uncertainty? Disagreement?

I invite you to start with acknowledging this fact, without judgment. Simply acknowledging this is a challenging environment, and anybody would find this difficult.

If you can accept what exists today, you can begin to choose what comes next.

You’re not alone in this work. Our communities, our organizations and our world will be better for the effort you apply, and the evolved approach you take to bring about the change we deserve.