Hey,
I'm Ned!
I bought a 34′ sailboat over the phone while riding a chairlift in Snowmass.
That probably tells you everything you need to know about me.
Growing Up
I was born in Germany and raised in the Upper Midwest.
My dad fixed bones. My mom raised horses and kids. I grew up outside in the woods with my siblings, building forts, figuring things out, and looking for the next adventure.
I started snowboarding in 1990 – age 14 — before the ski hill would even let us on the lifts.
The themes were already there: build things, push limits, don’t wait for permission.
the pivot
After Drake University, I didn’t want a cubicle.
So I moved to Aspen, became a ski (snowboard) bum, and one day bought a 34-foot sailboat over the phone from the chairlift.
That decision took me to Bellingham, Washington — where I lived aboard the boat, managed a restaurant, and met the woman who would become my wife.
Then my father invited me to assist in the operating room.
Watching him work changed everything.
I didn’t go into medicine. But I saw what it meant to build a career around skill, service, and ownership. Dentistry offered all of that — plus the entrepreneurial angle I couldn’t ignore.
I enrolled at Columbia University for pre-med coursework. Spent that last free summer waiting tables and pouring every tip into airplane fuel to earn my pilot’s license.
Then dental school at the University of Buffalo — where Molly and I bought a duplex, lived upstairs, rented out the downstairs, and paid the mortgage doing it.
Today they call that house hacking.
We just called it common sense.
Finding My Path
I had no idea I’d become a pediatric dentist.
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I liked kids.
That changed during my first pediatric rotation. The energy, the humor, the challenge of making a scared kid feel safe — it clicked immediately.
I completed my residency at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. The culture there — the mentorship, the service, the standard of care — shaped the kind of clinician and leader I wanted to be.
Building
Something Real
Sixteen years later, First Impressions Group operates a dozen locations across Wisconsin, employs over 150 people, and cares for tens of thousands of children every year.
Along the way I’ve led pediatric dental mission trips internationally and across the U.S.
Mentored the next generation of dentists.
Invested in real estate — starting with a six-unit disaster that taught me more than any success ever could, eventually growing into beach houses, hotels, and short-term rentals across the country.
Every deal taught me something. Every setback sharpened the thinking.
The Realization
About twelve years in, something became clear.
I had built a lot. But I hadn’t built enough freedom.
I watched colleagues living beautiful lives that required them to show up every single day just to keep it together.
I was closer to that than I wanted to admit.
That’s when Life By Design began to take shape.
Life By Design
Success shouldn’t happen by accident.
It should be designed intentionally.
I started mapping the different layers of freedom that actually make a life meaningful — not just financially, but across every dimension that matters.
That became the Freedom Stack: nine layers built to compound on each other.
Agency. Financial. Time. Health. Relationships. Creativity. Impact. Geography. Adventure.
The goal was never just wealth.
The goal was a life where all of it stacks together.
now
Today Molly and I am raising three daughters.
We fly our own airplane to explore new places. We ski, sail, and travel as a family. We build things — and we live intentionally.
I’m now writing and coaching around Life By Design — helping high-income professionals stop drifting and start designing the lives they actually want.
The most meaningful life is rarely the one you fall into.
It’s the one you build on purpose.