The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below. Check out our favorite stories from across the Voyage family.
Christy Fitzpatrick
Because I work in a science field, I’ve not always had the time to consistently produce artwork. There was a time when I had a long break from painting due to travel and work, but on the cusp of 2018 I promised myself to never take a long break again! Ever since, I have been more intentional about how I spend my time, and have been able to consistently create. I think most creators can agree that life happens, which is a natural struggle – but through setting more goals and holding myself accountable, the road to creating has been less rocky. Read more>>
Erica Lowrey
From the very beginning my passion for beauty and wellness has been rooted in one purpose: To help others embrace their individuality and inner beauty! With over 15 years of hands on experience as a Licensed Aesthetician, Esthiology Educator, Master Lash Artist~ along with specialized training in Medical Aesthetics and Holistic Practices, I’ve been blessed to spend my career creating spaces where everyone feels seen, celebrated and empowered to live authentically. Read more>>
Dr. Ashley Walker, DHS, LPC
Through yoga, I was able to reconnect with my body in a more spiritual and embodied way, deepening both my self-awareness and my relationship with God. This integration of mind, body, and spirit continues to inform my therapeutic approach today. Yoga helped me heal in such a transformative way that I now feel called to share this experience with as many women as I can, supporting them through their own challenging times with compassion, empowerment, and holistic care. Read more>>
Annie Fox
While I’m making it sound so fun and easy, building a brand (ESPECIALLY your own) has so many challenges. Like every creative, I struggle all the time with imposter syndrome. I am so thankful for the people I work with, and my friends and family for motivating me and reminding me of my skills and talent when I am struggling to see them myself. Read more>>
Chloe Sanderson
It wasn’t always easy. Especially when I was working for the photography company I mentioned prior. It was long days and lots of driving. I’d wake up at 7am, drive two hours from Nashville to waverly tn, get setup and then shoot from 10am-5:30pm and then drive 6 hours home. I also was bartending towards the end of my time with the company so sometimes if I was only in KY, I’d get home at 10pm and immediately work a bartending shift til 4am after being up since 6am doing photography. Read more>>
Mackensie Archibald
I have always been creative. Whether that’s drawing with pen and ink, charcoal, or painting. However, photography felt different when I started noticing and paying attention to details. I continued using this art form as a way to help me get outside of my head on the darker days, and to continuously enliven the brighter ones. Fast forward to age 31, and it’s a fully established business. Read more>>
Michael Ryan
Our wives are friends and we are from entrepreneurial families, so over the years we often swapped ideas about new ventures. When Norm returned from a year overseas we celebrated at his welcome home party and I shared my composting idea. From that moment on we combined our skills, my knowledge of food service operations and and Norm’s experience in logistics and management to build NewTerra Compost. Read more>>
Kelsey Miller
Today, I offer a mix of organizing and styling services—whether it’s editing a cluttered closet, packing a home for a move, refreshing a wardrobe, or styling someone for a new season of life. I work with women going through big transitions—new babies, new homes, new jobs and I truly believe that when your space and your style feel aligned, everything else just flows a little easier. It’s been such a joy to build something that combines my passion, creativity, and love for community. Read more>>
Joanthan Pogras
We genuinely care about our neighbors and theirs homes! We love having a part in making the community look good a clean! Most importantly, Jade and I both have the control to manage our lives the way we need to. Putting the more important things first in our life. Taking care of our spiritual needs, family and friends first. We highly value our work because our work supports us taking care of our needs. Read more>>
Camila
At the age of 16 I was struggling to run the business while simultaneously play football. Looking back on this, it really taught me to push through, as I would have football workouts from 7-11; then get back at 11 start working until about 6PM that night. Doing that for 4 years was quite the challenge, that said I was able to look back and see what I built. Once I saw that I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I love the startup scene, I love the mess, the problem solving, I knew I would be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life. Read more>>
Kaitlyn Holloway
Fast forward a couple of years, our business had grown tremendously and so had our family! I was expecting my son in 2023 and we had just become vendors in a local shop. It was at this time that we decided to make Christ the center of our business. He was always a part of it, but we wanted to create a sort of ministry. We wanted our products to be a light to those who needed it. We wanted to show the love of Jesus to anyone who may not have seen it before. Read more>>
Nicole Markovich
This is now my 3rd season guiding backpacking trips and I absolutely love it! I plan and guide women’s backpacking trips, where I teach women how to backpack and hike safely and confidently in the backcountry. I teach skills like trail navigation, water filtration, cooking meals, how to set up tents, how to pack their gear, and basic wilderness safety. I guide groups on the Appalachian Trail and also in the Smokies, all within a short drive from Knoxville. Read more>>
Myra Harris
This truly is a relationship business, there are fellow consultants as well as hosts and customers all across the US that have become dear friends and some that are just counted as family now. When you are invited to someone’s home and you make food together, you just connect on a personal level. The people are my favorite perk for sure. The amazing paid for vacations that I’ve earned thru the years cannot go unmentioned either. I never dreamed to need a passport to visit Paris, London, Toronto, & Mexico as a bonus of my business, or to get to go to Disney, Las Vegas, Miami, California, and more thru the years. I’ve had paid time off at jobs before, but never amazing destinations paid for! Read more>>
Marybeth Rood
They let us know if caging is up to par and offer suggestions. The problem with all rehab is money. TWRA does not give any money. Caging, food, vaccines, vet visits and medications are out of our pocket. Read more>>
Elizabeth Gardner
We started our business with classes, farm dinners, movie nights, bluegrass BBQs and did our first wedding in 2022. We now host 40 weddings and elopements a year, as well as baby showers, birthday parties, photo shoots and more. We have added a vintage Airstream for farm stays and a collection of ponies and mini cows for guests to enjoy. Read more>>
Tori Thomas
I graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in journalism and spent nearly a decade working in marketing. Fitness had always been a part of my life. I grew up on a farm in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, playing sports, kneeboarding on the lake in the summer, and snow skiing in the winter. But it wasn’t until I took a part-time job at CycleBar that I realized I could combine that lifelong passion for movement with my desire to help others. Read more>>
Emin Gadzhiyev
I’ve been running by brand as my full time job for its entirety of 4 years. During this time- building the brand recognition and backend while trying to maintain my financial needs through the brand was incredibly difficult. And I still am in that cycle to this day- although to a less stressful degree. Compared to most jewelry brands or stores- many would definitely consider me too poor to participate in this industry. Though I am confident my design and production skills- in tandem with a modern business model- easy compensates for any financial shortcomings I face. Read more>>
Heather Macarthy
I began baking when I was young, learning from my grandmother and mother. Baking became an outlet for me, a way to share my love with others. After my girls were born I started baking their birthday and event cakes. I went to work as a school librarian in 2008 and even received Knox County Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2017, but I kept my love for the science and creativity of baking. My orders became bigger and more frequent. I started an official cottage industry business in 2008, and in 2018 changed the name to Better When Baked. In 2020 I started teaching pastry classes at The Cutting Edge Classroom, and in 2024 I won Knox Stars Best Bakery. I am still a school librarian as well. Books and baking are my passions and I can’t choose. Read more>>
Kate Cornelius
So in 2018 after 213 unanswered applications, and continuing to hold the vision for a life filled with purpose and a sense of accomplishment, my husband and I decided to expand into His personal vision of freedom by opening a retail brick and mortar shop, where I did the accounting and licensing. A year later, I had continued to run with the natural skill I had in accounting and opened my own virtual accounting firm providing monthly services to creative indie entrepreneurs and small retail manufacturers. Read more>>
Roy Callahan
I graduated from my undergraduate program with a degree in chemistry during the height of COVID in 2020. It was hard to find work at that time with the world being shut down, so to pay the bills I started selling my personal collection of anime merchandise on the internet. That did so well I was originally going to just open up an anime shop, but when stimulus money dried up so did those sales. Read more>>
Destynie Ireland
With those four words, I understood that my experience was nothing out of the norm for American mothers. What was unique about my story was how I responded and what was birthed out of this traumatic entry into motherhood. I couldn’t accept that suffering was just part of the job description. So I started asking hard questions; about the system, about my upbringing, about what I had been taught to expect from womanhood and motherhood. That search led me on a deep healing journey; emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I began to unravel the patterns that had brought me to this breaking point: people-pleasing, perfectionism, disconnection from my body, and a total lack of preparation for the identity shift that motherhood brings. Read more>>
Cecilia Guzman
Relocating to a new country came with its own set of difficulties: learning a new language, adapting to a different culture, and building a professional network from scratch. As a young mother, I had to balance raising children while pursuing my passion, often working late nights and early mornings just to keep moving forward. Read more>>
Janell Bass
Mike and I are longtime bartenders with over 40 years of combined experience in the beverage industry. Mike got his start in Winter Park (Orlando), where he was one of the early pioneers of the craft cocktail scene in the early 2000s. He competed in Diageo World Class, opened three successful bars, and consulted for major companies like Darden and Bloomin’ Brands. Read more>>
Krystal Goodman
I started as a personal trainer over 16 years ago because I loved helping people feel strong and confident in their bodies. But early on, I realized that fitness alone wasn’t the full picture and nutrition was the missing piece for so many of my clients. That inspired me to further use my nutrition degree and become a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, and eventually launch Klean Nourish, my online nutrition platform. Read more>>
Ty Roberts
The night I gave birth, I came face to face with what it meant to be a poor black pregnant teen in a place that wasn’t welcoming and you were treated rather disparagingly because of your skin color and socioecomonic status. Also important was the fact that working with the pregnant population was something that I had always dreamed about, but because of life circumstances, I left that dream behind. Partnering those reasons together, having found out late in life what a doula was, I knew that this was something that I was called to do. Read more>>
Tony Saddy
Entrepreneurship is NEVER a flat line or ascending only! There are always mistakes along the way. The key is making SMALL mistakes so you can adjust accordingly. It’s much smoother now because more systems have been put in place! We are a true small concierge type business. Read more>>
John Bandeian
Anyone who has had one skin cancer or has obvious signs of significant sun damage to his skin is at risk for getting skin cancer. Because I believe so strongly that people should not get skin cancer, I offer Efudex treatment to all my patients who are at risk for getting skin cancer. The challenge for me is that I can’t prescribe Efudex to people who are not my patients, even though I don’t want anyone to get skin cancers. That is why I have used television and other advertising media to encourage people at risk for skin cancer to ask their skin care doctor to write them a prescription for Efudex. Read more>>
Willie Robb
After years of that, I was approached with an opportunity to help with a local karaoke outfit. This was 2006 or so. I would no longer have to worry about my income being tied to others less motivated than myself. Say Less!! And so my disc jockey experience began. I continued to run as an assistant for around a year before I got my first solo event. And not long after that, I was asked to do my sister in-laws’ wedding. I was definitely not ready, but I couldn’t say no. And there was no real stress, as I was doing it for free. I was hooked! Read more>>
Rose Gibson
As my schoolwork for architecture picked up, I had to resign as the photo editor at the Beacon and was taking less photos. During my lull, I graduated from architecture school at UT and got a job as an architectural designer with a local design firm. A couple years into that job I was exposed to the world of architectural photography and started taking photos for small projects at the firm. This was a fun growing opportunity for me and I got to learn a lot of new techniques affecting framing, perspective, exposure, and a lot more. Read more>>
