about robert
I’ve been a founder.
I’ve been a #2 to
founders.
Now I’m a fractional
COO.
Thirty-eight years operating inside
founder-led businesses. Communication is the foundation underneath every move.
How I think about the work.
Most business problems don't start where they show up. The strategy is clear. The numbers look fine. But execution slips. The same problems come back. People work hard and the business still feels stuck. That's almost never a people problem. It's an operating-system problem — and the operating system is built out of communication.
I diagnose by following the chain. Communication shapes leadership, culture, and values. Those shape accountability and execution. Execution is what finally lets a business scale beyond its founder. Break the first link and every link downstream stays jammed.
Inside that work I use a simple diagnostic — the Six P's, where founder-led businesses tend to break: Purpose, People, Process, Performance, Promotion, Profitability. Each one has its own version of "what good looks like." Each one falls apart in its own way. The operator work is naming which link is bent, then bending it back.
The work I’ve done.
I started a company before I really knew what running a business took — Grand Events, in 1991, six months after my wife and I got married. We saw an opportunity to do it better. We did. We closed one competitor, bought another, and became the flagship event rental and production company in California's Central Valley. Four and a half years later we successfully exited. That's the first time I felt the gap between a better idea and the business that has to carry it forward.
Since then I've spent the rest of my career operating inside other founders' companies. Some highlights:
→ Scaled a restoration company from $1M to $10M in four years, leading 90+ people.
→ Served as COO a commercial real estate property management company with 2.6M square feet of property for eighteen years — seventy-two consecutive quarters of profitability across a 2.6M sq ft commercial portfolio.
→ Built and led a sixty-person revenue operation for a PE backed health care subrogation company, growing 23% year over year with 95% retention.
→ Currently fractional COO of an ADA consulting firm, where we've grown into one of the most sought-after ADA consulting firms in the nation.
Alongside the operator work, I've built tools and frameworks — the StandUP, the Direction Reset, the Financial Clarity Framework, the Leadership Trap, and Lead from the LINE — each one built first because something was broken inside a real business, then refined because it had to work again next week.
Why I believe what I believe.
I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. That isn't a marketing position for Communicatewell. It's the foundation underneath everything else.
The way I think about people as worth investing in. The way I think about leadership as service. The way I think about work as something with meaning beyond profit. All of that traces back to my faith.
It shapes how I operate. It doesn't filter who I work with. If we work together, you'll see the values lived out. You don't have to share them.
a note on how engagements work
Most of my coaching and fractional engagements are delivered through LULO Coaching, an Atlanta-based firm focused on organizational health for growth-minded leaders. LULO is co-owned by Andy and Trang Brown. Within LULO's focus on leadership development and organizational health, I serve as one of its fractional COOs and executive coaches — with operational leadership as my specialty.
Where this is going.
Communicatewell is the home for the work I've spent thirty-eight years doing. The fractional COO engagements. The coaching. The tools and frameworks built inside real companies. The writing I do on LinkedIn most weeks. The next free tool I'm building. All of it in one place.
If you're a founder feeling the strain — or seeing it coming — this site is the on-ramp. Start with the StandUP and read me on LinkedIn. When you're ready for a deeper conversation, book a fit call. The path is open whenever you're ready.
Lead well. Build well. Communicate well.