3 Years at Aspire: 14 Companies, One Portfolio, and a Lot of AI

After three amazing years, I’ve moved on from Aspire Software.

I joined as a Technical Product Manager and grew into Head of Product & Development, helping our companies bring AI into their products. Along the way, I worked with 14 companies across the globe, in more industries than I ever expected.

Why my LinkedIn looked like I had four jobs at once

Aspire is part of Valsoft, which owns more than 165 software companies. Each one makes software for a single industry, like marina management or car rental. People call this vertical software. In that model, roles don’t look traditional. On any given day I might have been running technology, running product, or just writing code, depending on what a company needed most at that moment.

I managed several portfolios on the product and technical side alongside my Portfolio Manager, Karen Barnes. Karen started her career at NASA working on several missions (yes, the moon landing was real). She taught me a lot about leadership, managing people, and even parenthood, a new chapter I started while at Aspire.

Not many places let you scale established businesses, act like an owner, and still create something new from scratch, all at the same time.

Building new companies with AI

The pace of AI has been wild, and it let us do things that felt impossible a few years ago. On top of running and transforming existing companies, I created new products and built teams for them:

• Signiphi reimagines digital signatures for developers and AI agents.
• BluSynq is a voice agent that answers calls, texts and emails for marinas and entertainment parks.
• BluMarina is modern, agentic marina management.

Across the portfolio

Starting with the most recent:

• DockMaster Software (marina management): As head of technology, built DockMaster Web, so marinas can run from anywhere and boaters can pay and sign online.
• H&L POS (restaurant and hospitality POS): Built an agent that manages low-stock inventory, updates pricing and handles reporting.
• CORE Cashless (ticketing for entertainment and attraction parks): Led the AI transformation and reshaped the team. They have some really cool stuff cooking.
• RENTALL / Thermeon (car rental): Built a mobile app that checks customers out faster at drop-off.
• Guardian (safety reporting): Rebuilt the product from the ground up for the web.
• S&W Technologies (nuclear safety): Re-architected their most mission-critical app, which takes real-time readings from technicians in radioactive environments and recalls them when levels get too high.
• VisiumKMS (health and safety): Built a help and documentation site, so customers always knew what was new and how to use it. Customers were happier for it.

I also worked across Pimsoft and Fusion Data Hub (process manufacturing) and JBL Solutions (industrial ERP).

The lesson: learn the industry from your customers

Many of these projects meant learning an industry from scratch: how a marina books a slip, how a waterpark reloads a wristband, how a technician logs a radiation reading. Coming in without preconceived notions made me a better product person, because I had to lean on customers to teach me. I’m grateful to every customer who took the time.

The people

None of this happened without a brilliant team. I worked with amazing people in Vancouver, Montreal, Texas, New York, Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Italy, Germany, the UK, Australia, Egypt and Lebanon. Thank you, and thank you to the Aspire Software and Valsoft leadership teams for the trust and the room to build.

What’s next

After years of learning other people’s industries all over the world, I wanted to focus that experience on the place where I live and the communities I’m part of. So I co-founded Solunar, and I’m now fully focused on building software for the organizations communities depend on: OpenStrata for BC strata councils and residents, and OpenCommunity for community centres and nonprofits. You can read why I made the jump.