When Sam Holloway was pursuing a doctorate in business strategy at the University of Oregon, he joined an indoor soccer league. He spent much of his time on the bench and sidelines, where he met the other worst soccer player on the team, Jeff Althouse, a math teacher with a passion for craft beer and a vision for the community. An intellectual relationship developed, and Jeff invited Sam to join the Board of Directors of his new business. As an intellectual and professional exercise, Sam applied every advanced business strategy and theory he learned in his grad school to the Craft Beer Industry and helped Jeff apply it to his young craft brewery business. The business quickly became one of Oregon’s most acclaimed craft breweries: Oakshire Brewing.

Sam’s job as a business strategy professor led to speaking engagements across the globe. Sam began touring breweries and teaching strategy in Ireland, Finland, Denmark, & New Orleans. European Professors, Guinness’ Global Brand Team and countless brewery owners wanted to talk. The problem? Sam could only be in one place at a time.

Sam asked his friend, Mark Meckler, for help. In addition to supporting Sam’s commitment to help craft businesses anywhere in the world, Mark began to advise on issues related to restaurant operations. Mark has decades of experience as a professionally trained chef and as a food and beverage manager. With Mark’s wisdom, two things became clear:

The last piece of the puzzle was designing a business model and online channel structure to allow Crafting A Strategy to reach its global potential. With years of e-commerce and marketing experience developing brands for corporations, small business, and startups, Joe Belcher joined the team to develop a brand and a digital solution. Crafting A Strategy was ready to go out and improve the world, one community at a time, one craft beer business at a time.