Where it all Began

In 1999 I was tested and diagnosed with mild ADD. I was placed on a low-dose time-released form of Adderall. This drastically changed my outgoing and joyful personality to more introverted, focused, and withdrawn. My mom, who at the time was a social worker in the public schools, began doing some research and found that people with ADD were helped by drinking coffee.
In 2001, she knew I was having a hard time with this medication and that it was affecting me socially at school. I had mentioned a few times that I was considering not taking it as I didn't think the trade-offs were worth it. That's when she told me about some of the things she was finding that may help me in a more natural way. Of course, we talked with our therapist, and He agreed we could give it a try. This is how my journey into the world of coffee began.

On November 1, 2001, I stole Jessica's graphing calculator. For those of you who are old enough will remember these; they are bigger than an iPhone Max and only do math equations. I typed the words. "May I have the honor of going out with you." onto the display and put it back into her bag. There"s nothing more romantic than asking a girl out on her calculator. LOL, She found it, as I knew she would, in homeroom. Thankfully she said yes, and over 20 years later, that is still the best thing I have ever done with a calculator. 

In 2010 Jess and I moved from Indiana to Colorado so that I could pursue a master's degree. About a month after moving out here, we reconnected with some old college friends who invited us to their 4th of July party. It was a great time laughing and deep conversation about our world. A couple of hours into the party, I was asked if I had ever roasted coffee. I told Simeon I had never even thought about roasting my own coffee. So for the next hour or we talked about the process. He showed me some green coffee and some beans he had roasted. I was fascinated! Eventually, he said, let me show you how it's done. He pulled out this old early 90's hot air popcorn popper. Measured out about a 1/4 pound of green coffee and put it in the machine. The air was whipping the beans in a circle around the popper and making quite a racket! Then smoke and popping began to pour from the machine. A few seconds later, Simeon was tipping it over and knocking the beans into a bowl. It was a crazy 5 or so minutes full of smells, sounds, and to my eyes, chaos. The end result was coffee in a bowl steaming and cracking. I was hooked! I went home and began to search for all the ways I could roast coffee. I choose a whirley pop. It was a pot with a gear system so you could stir the popcorn. Of course, I used it for coffee. I could roast a pound at a time, and it took about 8-9 mins. I could have never known that 5 years later, I would be launching a company.

The Launch of an Idea
In 2015 I had been running Redemption Road Ministry for about 3 years. I had been praying and talking to friends and mentors about how to support the ministry. In November, we held a men's weekend in the mountains of Colorado. One of my best friends came out to help me staff. We were making coffee one morning, and he looked at me and said, "This coffee is really good. You should sell it to support Redemption Road." It was like a light came on in my brain, and what I had been trying to figure out was clear, at least in concept. Of course, I told my wife about this, and she was a bit more skeptical. I asked her to think about it for a few weeks, and then we would make a decision. By Thanksgiving, we had decided we would give this idea a try.
I call it an idea because we had no clue what we were doing. I roasted coffee in a pot on my stove. I certainly didn't think I could do that for this business. I bought green coffee 5-10 pounds at a time and had no clue where i would go to buy more. I had never created packaging or done pricing. I didn't even know where or how I would sell the coffee. We were 10 shades greener than the coffee we were roasting when it came to running a business. Nonetheless, by December 25, 2015, the IRS had declared Redemption Road Coffee a company, and this crazy idea was forming into a real thing.

The Journey Begins
From January to April, we designed and created our packaging, going with a custom stamp on a natural kraft pouch bag. These bags required 4 stamps and ended up being quite labor-intensive. We also turned our garage into a state-certified wholesale manufacturing facility. We had been working hard, learning, and creating the vision God had put in us. Two critical decisions had been made. The first was that we would only serve single origin coffee that was specialty grade. This was because, as I had roasted over the last 5 years, I loved how different coffee could be. How unique each coffee was from around the world and even different farms in the same country. I wanted to be able to tell the stories of these farms and these people. They had put so much work into their product I wanted to be able to honor them for that, not blend it into a bunch of other beans. Secondly, I wanted each farm we bought from to also have programs that took care of their workers and communities. I wanted to purposefully spend more on coffee that had the same heart I did. To love people well. So we started talking with green coffee buyers about different farms around the world and what they did. We found amazing people changing lives all over the globe just by selling a little green bean. It made my heart soar.

The Vision Expands
In August of 2016, we attended a leadership conference and heard many great speakers. It was during this time that our vision expanded. The thought occurred to me. What if we didn't use RRC to fund Redemption Road but viewed it as an engine that could fund good all around the world. This took the mindset from having a coffee company that could help my little world and shifted it to what if our little company could actually make a dent in the world as a whole.
Since 2016 we have been pursuing this goal. To create a company that not only provides an exceptional product but also uses it profits to change the world for good. We have supported dozens of different charities. In 2021 we has the great joy of going to Greece and working with NGO's helping them find ways to hire refugees in the coffee space. We also had an opportunity to visit our friends in Honduras and see all the great work they are doing. It has been an incredible journey and a great joy. We look forward to writing many more stories in the years to come.