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Our next guest has spent more than two decades guiding families through one of the hardest passages any of us will face. Jennifer Torpey Szakaly (pronounced “sockeye”) is the founder and CEO of Caregiving Corner, the Charlotte-based firm she launched in 2005 to help families navigate aging, caregiving and long-term care. What started as a solo vision has grown into a team serving more than three hundred clients a year across Charlotte Metro.  Her leadership reaches well beyond her own company. She sits on the national board of the Aging Life Care Association, is a Fellow of its Leadership Academy, and in 2025 joined the Board of Trustees for the Center for Guardianship Certification. She’s also a speaker, a trainer, a frequent media source, and the host of the Caregiving Corner Podcast.

Our next guest is proof that you don’t have to wait for permission — or a diploma — to start building something that matters. Justin Kornblum is a student at Tulane University and a co-founder of The Second Half Network, a career development platform built exclusively for collegiate student-athletes.  The idea behind Second Half is simple and, frankly, overdue. Ninety-nine percent of college athletes will not play their sport professionally, yet the transition out of competition is largely unmeasured and unsupported. Second Half exists to close that gap, connecting athletes with vetted mentors who are either former college athletes or professionals with at least six years in their field. Justin, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast!

Terri L. White is President and CEO of the Charlotte Museum of History, home to the Rock House, the oldest surviving structure in Mecklenburg County, built in 1774. She’s the first African-American to lead the museum in its history. Terri came to Charlotte in 2019 after an operations role at Lowe’s, following years of development and operations work at the Heinz History Center, the Carnegie Science Center, and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. She stepped into the CEO role in July 2022 and has spent every year since transforming what was, by her own account, an overlooked institution. Under her leadership, the museum has nearly doubled in operational size, with rising attendance, membership, and grant revenue. She was named a 2024 Charlottean of the Year for her work.

Thomas Girdwood is Senior Estimator and Project Manager at Kingdom Demolition, a Charlotte-based demolition company founded in 2016 that specializes in commercial and residential demolition, selective and total demolition, and concrete cutting services across the Carolinas. Thomas has been with the company since 2017, starting as Director of Operations before moving into estimating and project management. Kingdom Demolition operates on a philosophy grounded in the company’s biblical namesake: clearing the path forward faithfully, honestly, and responsibly.

Brent Schepel is co-founder of Replay Sports Cards, a full-service sports card retailer offering buying, selling, trading, and grading. Brent’s expertise in card grading is what launched the whole venture — he and his partner opened their first shop in Charlotte in 2021 under the name One Stop Sports. In 2024, the brand rebranded to Replay Sports Cards and shortly after opened the franchise playbook, becoming the first national franchise concept built exclusively around the sports card hobby. Since then, Replay has expanded to five shops across the country and built giving back into the brand through Replay Gives Back, which has donated over a million cards to kids nationwide.

Lynsea is a Charlotte-based singer, songwriter, and performer whose music blends acoustic folk, indie pop, and alternative rock. Raised in Texas, she began writing songs as a kid, studied at Berklee College of Music, and later worked as Record Label Manager for Elevation Worship Records before committing full-time to her own music.  In 2024, QC Nerve named her Charlotte’s Best Pop Artist. Later, she earned a residency at the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte, and grants to release her music in multiple languages. Then, on September 20, 2025, everything changed. Lynsea was riding to the airport with her sister when an impaired driver ran a red light and hit their car. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, endured two brain surgeries, and spent a month in the hospital. Six months later, she walked back on stage. This is a conversation about art, identity, and what it means to rebuild a career — and a life — from the ground up. Lynsea, welcome to the BrandBuilders Podcast!

Jason Watson is a for-real serial entrepreneur. His career reads like a highlight reel of reinvention: He started in business development at American Woodmark and Bridgeway Media before founding Dublin Dog in 2006. He eventually sold that to Remington Outdoor Company in 2012. There, he launched RK9, a division building specialized canine products for law enforcement and defense.  In 2018, he founded Recon K9, developing K9 products for military and federal agencies, while simultaneously becoming SVP of Sales and Business Development and a Partner at The Dog Wizard. Jason has built brands, sold them, rebuilt them, and given back — all while staying remarkably consistent about the one thing he clearly loves most: dogs. Jason, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast!

Trent Bailey is the co-founder of ParWalker, a Charlotte-based startup that makes premium accessories designed specifically for walking golfers. Trent spent years in the marketing world — at NASCAR, at Ingersoll Rand, at Club Car, and most recently as Digital Marketing Director at Training The Street. He knows brands. He knows products. And apparently, he also knows what it’s like to be out on the course with a cold drink that won’t stay cold and a golf bag that wasn’t built for someone on foot. ParWalker launched in May 2026, and Trent is right in the thick of building a brand from the ground up, in a category that’s having a real moment, as more and more golfers rediscover the joy of walking the course. Trent Bailey, welcome to the BrandBuilders Podcast!

Skip Norris is the President of The Building Center, one of the largest privately held lumber and building products companies in the United States. The company was founded in Charlotte in 1977 by his father, Ed Norris. And what started as a single building supply operation has grown into a vertically integrated powerhouse with lumberyards, truss plants, custom millwork operations, and door shops all across the Carolinas. We’re talking over 400 employees, a fleet of trucks that’s the largest in the Carolinas, and more than a dozen locations stretching from Boone all the way down to the South Carolina coast. What makes this story especially interesting is how Skip has grown a business that his father built while keeping the values that made it worth growing in the first place. Skip, welcome to the BrandBuilders Podcast.

Andrea Swope is a founding force behind Blueprint Financial Advisors — a Charlotte-based registered investment advisor that launched in 2021 with a single advisor and a little over $20 million in assets. Fast forward to the end of 2025, and Blueprint is managing $1.4 billion. That’s not a typo. But what makes Andrea’s story compelling isn’t just the growth. It’s the how. Blueprint was built on a philosophy that, frankly, you don’t hear a lot in the financial world: put the advisor first. Handle all the infrastructure, compliance, operations, technology, and asset management behind the scenes, so the advisor can stay front and center with their clients.  In 2024, Blueprint doubled down on that vision in a big way, acquiring a broker-dealer, launching Blueprint Insurance Services, and creating a brand new ETF. It’s a full-service financial platform, built right here in Charlotte.  Andrea, welcome to the BrandBuilders Podcast!

There’s a new generation of wine professionals out there, replacing intimidation with invitation, and gatekeeping with genuine hospitality. Shay Gilchrist is one of those people. She’s the founder of Wine & Vibes, a wine consulting and experiential brand built on four pillars: food, wine, hosting, and vibes. She holds a WSET Level 2 with Merit certification and works as a wine consultant and author and the creator of Vinology, a trademarked interactive word search collection that blends wine literacy with pairing guides, tasting notes, and flavor language. She believes wine is a story, a mood, and a moment worth sharing. She brings food, music, and community to every glass, and believes wine is meant to be experienced. Shay, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

There are two kinds of resilience stories. One is the kind where someone overcomes something hard and comes out the other side stronger, more polished. Like in the movies. The other kind is messier. It’s told from inside; or what our next guest calls “the long middle.” It’s nowhere close to a straight line, and it’s a whole lot more complicated. Like real life. On June 12, 2024, Eleanor Shell was pushing her infant daughter’s stroller out of the path of an oncoming SUV in a SouthPark parking lot. The car hit Eleanor instead. The traumatic brain injury that followed changed her life, her purpose, her family’s finances, and her identity. And she is still in recovery. Out of that experience, she is building a community and a body of work for anyone who has had a day that divided their life into “before and after.” Eleanor, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Next time you’re on your computer, look at the last five brand websites you visited. How many of them looked exactly like each other? Same stock photography, same font, same promise to “transform your business.” Marketing has a sameness problem, and most people in the industry have just accepted it. Laurie “Nez” Donato is not one of those people.  After earning a BFA in Visual Communications from Auburn, she spent two decades in advertising, where she worked on brands from Nucor and KeyBank to Bojangles’ and GE. Then 2020 hit. Instead of riding out the pandemic at her then-current role, she and her creative partner Ruben Lopez co-founded nez&pez, a branding agency specializing in the most un-creative-sounding industry on earth: cybersecurity. Laurie, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Charlotte is practically famous for its trees. They line the parking lots of office parks, anchor the corners of apartment complexes, shade the walking paths of neighborhoods we love. We trim them back when they get inconvenient, and sometimes — only when they fall — do we finally reckon with how much they were holding together. Trees are living infrastructure. Long-term investments that can outlast the buildings beside them.  Today’s guest has spent 20-plus years understanding that at the root level. (get it?) Chris Green is an ISA Certified Arborist with Schneider Tree Care in Charlotte.  He came up through lawn care, spent years in sales, studied business management and information systems, and trained in CAD drafting before finding his calling in the canopy.  Chris, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

There’s a question that lives in the back of the mind of nearly every parent raising a child with special needs. It doesn’t announce itself — it just sits there, quiet and heavy. What happens to my child when I am no longer here? For a long time, that question had no good answer. Families navigated a maze of government benefits, legal documents, and financial systems — often alone, guided by well-meaning professionals who didn’t have the depth of specialization this work demands. In 2005, a financial planner from Charlotte decided that wasn’t good enough. Ryan F. Platt founded A Special Needs Plan with one mission: to serve families living with that fear and replace it with clarity, structure, and a road map forward. Today, the firm is an elite, nationally recognized practice serving families across the country. Ryan holds credentials most financial advisors have never heard of — including the Chartered Special Needs Consultant designation — because he believes this community deserves a true specialist. He’s a former president of The Arc of North Carolina, a speaker at national conferences, a published author, and a champion for families who have spent too long facing the impossible alone. Ryan, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.