It Started With a Starting Line.
My whole career is one job, done in different places: getting people to show up. To starting lines. To pipelines. To rooms. This is how that happened.
The Starting Line
On Mother's Day 2010, I stood in a Tampa park watching 180 people line up for a 5K I built from nothing. No agency behind it. No playbook. No budget worth mentioning. Just an idea — families celebrating mom by actually doing something together — and months of figuring out how to make total strangers care.
Nobody "impressions" their way to a crowded corral. It's the most honest feedback loop in marketing. I lived inside it for ten years.
The Build
That one race became The Great Mother's Day Race. Then it became a company. Over the next decade we grew it into three event brands, 40+ races, and thousands of participants — and partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tampa Bay, donating to their mission year after year.
Nobody handed us an audience. Every single runner was earned: online ads, email, PR, partnerships, and a brand people genuinely wanted to be part of. Moms came back year after year. Families planned their weekends around us. Sponsors called us.
That's where I learned the lesson that drives everything I do now: marketing isn't about getting attention. It's about building something people want to show up for.
The Finish Line
We hit our ten-year anniversary right as COVID hit. Races everywhere went dark. And instead of limping along, we ended it the way you should end things — on purpose, and proud. Ten years. Three brands. 40+ starting lines. Chapter closed.
What I carried out of it: I know how to build a brand from zero. I know how to build community. And I know how to get people to show up — which, it turns out, is the entire job of lead generation.
The Roots
The work ethic came first, and it came from Erie, PA. I grew up there in the '80s and '90s — a rust belt town losing its manufacturing base. My dad was blue collar through and through: police officer, SWAT team, Air Force. My mom was a nurse who juggled three or four jobs at a time and still put home-cooked meals on the table. No shortcuts. Figure it out. Nobody's coming to save you.
Pittsburgh was the second home — dad's family was from the city — and eventually it became home for real. A city that took its hits and kept swinging. That's the DNA in everything I build: no excuses, see it through, take care of your people.
Different Starting Lines. Same Job.
Today I run HBT Digital — and businesses hire me directly as a fractional CMO, for AI in Marketing, and to speak. The job hasn't changed since 2010: get the right people to show up.
What Drives the Work
I'm not the guy who sells you a package and disappears. That's not how I was raised, and it's not how I run my business.
Empathy First
I've been the owner watching the budget with no guarantee anyone shows up. When someone tells me they're spending money and not seeing results, I don't hear a sales opportunity — I hear a problem I know how to solve.
Partnerships Over Transactions
I'm not looking for clients. I'm looking for partners. Shared success is the goal — not delivering a service and moving on.
Community Matters
Ten years of race weekends and a Big Brothers Big Sisters partnership taught me this for good: you take care of your people, and they take care of you.
See It Through
I don't start things I won't finish. When I sign on, I'm in it. That's not a pitch — that's the record.
Three Lanes. One Direction.
HBT Digital — The Agency
Full-funnel lead generation as a service. When a business says "I need leads and a system to convert them," that's HBT.
Work With RJ — Direct
Fractional CMO retainers, AI in Marketing, and speaking. When a company needs a senior marketing brain at the table — that's me personally.
Content — The Engine
Everything I create — videos, posts, breakdowns — fuels both. Real work, real results, shared in real time.
Let's Have a Real Conversation
No form fills. No pitch decks. Just a real conversation about where you're at and where you want to go.
Get in Touch →