Chief Coffee Officer

“El que nace bajo un cafeto, muere bajo un cafeto.” In the highlands of Central America, that old adage carries the weight of generations: He who is born under a coffee tree, dies under a coffee tree.

Over the years, I’ve found myself increasingly aligned with that saying. Coffee has a way of resurfacing, always finding its place at the forefront of my world. I got my start in the business back in 1992, at the age of twenty. Since then, I’ve walked nearly every step of the coffee value chain, from seed to cup. And somewhere along the way, you stop just working in coffee. You start living in it.

Before meeting Jason, my focus had shifted almost exclusively toward a regenerative project: developing cannabinoid hemp as both a cash crop and a soil remediator, with coffee farms in mind. After securing El Salvador’s first cannabinoid hemp farm license, on a coffee farm, fittingly, I began breeding genetics and conducting test grows. The goal was clear: to create a viable program that could help African coffee farmers generate sustainable income and restore soil health through cannabinoid hemp cultivation.

Jason had watched Chasing Coffee, the travel series I produced, and reached out to propose a partnership. His vision for Truista resonated immediately. I saw in it a rare alignment of values, of timing, and of possibility. I quickly became a believer, and even more than that, I was ready to pour my life’s work in coffee into Truista.

CEO & Founder

It all started when my son-in-law bluntly told me my homemade latte “sucked,” prompting a humbling visit to a café with a La Marzocco and a revelatory sip of microlot espresso. That moment launched me into the world of coffee craft, from sweating over a vintage La Pavoni to becoming a certified barista, only to uncover a deeper concern: roasting beans above 248°F produces acrylamide, a potential carcinogen, along with mold and mycotoxins. As a bio-hacker (Founder of Da Vinci Medical & creator of the Superhuman Protocol), I couldn’t ignore the science, and my obsession to fix it led me to Joey Chase, when I discovered his Travel series on Amazon, Chasing Coffee. Joey’s knowledge and deep ties to coffee growers brought the missing piece.

Together, we built Truista: a coffee born from direct farm sourcing and a proprietary process at origin & roasting that reduces toxins while preserving antioxidants. Every batch is lab-verified and every bag carries a QR code linking to results. Inspired by my father’s mantra: “Whatever you do, do it better than anyone else,” Truista became more than coffee; it’s a mission to deliver purity, precision and purpose in every cup.